He thought of Oresto a lot on the morning of a match. He always did. He wanted to tell Maxie how he thought about his friend each time he played, and how he felt guilty for enjoying the youth and life Oresto had lost. He wanted to tell her all of it before he cantered onto the field, because playing polo at this level was dangerous and he never knew what might happen—horses could suffer serious injury and riders had been killed. Did he want Maxie to find out about Oresto from anyone but him? What sort of a coward would that make him?
He brooded darkly on this as he went to make one last check on the ponies, but when Maxie waved to him on her way to the stands, arm in arm with his sister and Holly, he knew he couldn’t mar her happiness with his memories. It was enough that she was here for him, on this the most important playing day of his life—his first day back after injury—the day when he must prove himself or withdraw from the game completely, for he would never let his brothers down.
He would speak to Maxie after the match, Diego determined. There were a lot of things he needed to straighten out with her. Working out a way for them to be together was top of his list. Maxie could continue her career anywhere in the world, so there was no reason why they couldn’t be together. Smiling, he caught sight of her huddled in a giggling group with his sister and Holly, and it only confirmed his decision to can the last of his doubts and brush aside the black cloud of grief that always lodged over him before fire flashed through his veins when the match began. He couldn’t interrupt the girls when he’d never seen Maxie so happy and relaxed.
Dios! The opposing team was on fire. Diego urged his mount into an even faster gallop. Nero Caracas in particular, along with his wing man, the American number one Luke Forster, were burning up the field. Their horses might as well have wings—they could turn a one-eighty in a heartbeat.
And Nero had his new wife to impress, Diego remembered, checking out Maxie in the stands as he galloped back to change his horse at the end of the second chukka. Just seeing her face reassured him that he had something important to fight for too.
I can’t, Maxie had been about to say. But how could she say that? How could she even think it?
‘Of course I’ll leave immediately,’ she confirmed, remembering the jet was fuelled and ready on the airstrip, waiting to take the exchange ponies to England. Fate could be kind sometimes, and at other times incredibly cruel. It was playing some hideous trick on her today by offering to be both.
‘What’s wrong?’ Lucia demanded, sensing trouble.
‘I have to leave immediately,’ Maxie explained, texting furiously to make sure the flight didn’t leave without her.
‘You can’t leave now!’ Lucia exclaimed, grabbing her arm. ‘Diego needs you here. They’re losing the match, which means his chance to play again at international level is at risk. You can’t walk out on him …’
Maxie saw her new friend’s incredulity slowly turn to anger.
‘I can’t believe you’d do this to Diego,’ Lucia said coldly.
She had to go. Maxie’s father had suddenly taken a turn for the worst. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, a private investigator had been snooping round. Nothing else on earth could make her leave.
‘Lucia, I must.’
‘Must you?’ Lucia said flatly, turning away.
All the warmth Maxie had felt at being welcomed into the heart of such a wonderful family turned to cold that invaded every part of her. So much so that when she stood to leave the stands—to leave Diego and the estancia. Argentina and the Acostas, without so much as a word of explanation to any of them—she was shivering violently beneath the fierce sun.
‘Please tell Diego I love him …’
‘Shouldn’t you tell him that yourself?’ Lucia demanded coldly.
‘Please, Lucia.’
‘Maxie, I’m struggling to understand this.’
‘I wouldn’t go if I didn’t have to.’ Sinking down in her seat again, conscious of precious seconds ticking by, she gripped Lucia’s arm. ‘Please don’t think I’d do this if there was any other way.’
At first Lucia wouldn’t look at her, but finally she relented. ‘Can I do anything to help?’
Closing her eyes, Maxie tried not let emotion get the better of her. Lucia’s big-hearted gesture was so typical of the whole Acosta family. ‘I only wish you could, but this is something I have to do myself.’ Embracing Diego’s sister fiercely, she dashed away her tears and left the stand.
The first half had ended miserably for the Acostas. The team was down ten two. Diego was pacing impatiently, waiting for the grooms to bring up his next pony, when the call came through. It was his PI. For a moment he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t think.
Maxie was Peter Parrish’s daughter?
The PI was at pains to explain that Maxie couldn’t have been involved in the scam as she’d been too young.
His head was still reeling when he grabbed hold of a groom. ‘Tell them to hold the second half.’ The man looked at him as if he’d gone mad. ‘Tell them to wait for me,’ he repeated as he sprinted for the stands.
Why hadn’t she told him?
Fury coiled in his stomach like a venomous snake. He had brought Maxie into his family. He had trusted her. His could see the similarities now in the curve of her mouth and in a certain cadence in her voice. Peter Parrish had been a mesmerising charmer.
‘Diego!’
He almost ran her over as she ran from the stands. He blocked her path so she had nowhere to go. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. She could see everything on his face.
‘Diego, what is it? Did Lucia call you? Did she tell you I was leaving?’
‘Leaving?’ His phone buzzed imperatively. He ignored it. ‘No one told me you were leaving. I had no idea.’ He said this in the same chilling tone as his world disintegrated in front of his eyes. ‘I came to see you—to speak to you—but now I find you’re leaving in the middle of the match. Where are you going, Maxie?’
‘To England. I have to—’
She was agitated and glanced at her watch, reminding him there was a flight to the UK waiting on the airstrip.
‘I didn’t want it to be like this, Diego.’
‘How should it be?’ he asked her in the same quiet voice. ‘Were you just going to sneak away?’
‘I need time to explain, Diego, and there is no time.’ She glanced round, as if seeking the freedom he was denying her.
‘This is one last chance for you to be honest with me.’ His voice had hardened
.
‘What do you mean?’ she said defensively. Her normally steady grey gaze was restless and distracted.
‘Why are you leaving?’ he demanded. ‘What is so important it can’t even wait until the end of the match? Who are you going to see, Maxie?’
Each second she remained silent marked a year since he had introduced his friend Oresto Fernandez to an unscrupulous crook named Peter Parrish. They had been young bloods in London, trying to prove themselves independently of their families. Diego’s stake in what had turned out to be a scam had been small, just a trial to see how things worked out. He hadn’t realised Oresto was gambling with family money. They had lost everything, and the friend he had grown up with and loved like a brother had hung himself in despair.
‘Why are you looking at me like that, Diego?’ she asked him fearfully.
As if he hated her? As if he hated everything surrounding Peter Parrish and anyone connected to him?
When tears of panic and bewilderment clouded Maxie’s eyes he felt nothing. The crowd was already seated, waiting for the second half. A posse of grooms had just rounded the corner, searching for him.
‘You have a decision to make,’ he told Maxie coldly, turning away.
Diego’s face was dark with fury. Maxie had chosen her father. The pilot of the jet had just called to confirm that she was safely on board. His brothers, seeing his expression, had begged him not to play.
‘The match is going badly and the Acostas don’t lose,’ he told them. ‘We do not play our greatest rivals at a charity match and canter off in front of our home crowd defeated and disgraced. That doesn’t happen. It has never happened. And it won’t happen today.’
‘There are substitutes who can take your place,’ his brother Nacho pointed out, pulling him away to clap a reassuring hand on Diego’s shoulder.
‘And risk my place in the national team?’ Diego shook his head. ‘You can rely on me, Nacho.’ And for once even his formidable brother didn’t argue with him.
He played like a man possessed. He took on the great Nero Caracas and nearly unseated him. It was said that when Diego Acosta played at his fiercest and most intimidating best the devil rode on his shoulder. Today he was the devil.