She was scarcely back in her bedroom when her father called her on her mobile. ‘What a great surprise,’ she said, her face wreathed in smiles.
‘Don’t ring me now,’ he howled. ‘It isn’t convenient!’
‘But you called me,’ Maxie pointed out, all her elation evaporating.
‘Can’t you remember the simplest thing, Maxine?’ her father bellowed, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘I have a board meeting at nine. I’ve got no time for your jabbering now!’
‘Dad, I’m sorry—’ But the line had already been disconnected. He was as confused as ever, she realised. Her father hadn’t attended a board meeting in his life, as far as Maxie knew, and he wasn’t about to start now.
She took a moment to compose herself, and then sniffed and straightened up. Checking her reflection in the mirror before she left the room, she remembered her father’s nursing staff telling her to get on with her life. They were probably right, but it had been so long since she had pleased herself, without making her responsibilities top of the list, she had almost forgotten how.
Or maybe not, Maxie thought. A faint smile touched her lips when she spotted something interesting in the courtyard. It wouldn’t hurt to take a closer look.
* * *
Diego had checked the horse and was satisfied the wound was superficial. Having returned to his room to take a shower, he was rubbing his hair dry when the messaging service on his phone trilled. It was a text from an anxious Holly, wanting to know what he thought of Maxie. Were his feelings supposed to have changed towards Maxie since Holly’s last call?
He texted back: She’s here. She’s fine. Doing her job, as far as I can tell.
Holly texted back immediately: Is that it?
That’s it, he confirmed, stowing the phone. What else should there be?
He was just easing his leg when he heard something that made him lurch across the room as fast as he could to stare out of the window. With a violent curse he left his bedroom in such a rush he forgot his cane. With his stiff leg lagging behind, he used the brute strength of his upper body to swing down the stairs, and, limping across the seemingly endless stretch of hallway, he launched himself at the front door and flung it wide. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
‘Oh, hello,’ Maxie replied, turning on the seat of his prized custom-built Harley. ‘I hope you don’t mind. I saw your bike and I couldn’t resist!’
She looked pretty hot on his bike…
And she was making no move to dismount.
She caressed the controls.
‘I hope you weren’t thinking of taking my bike for a ride?’ he derided, making what, without his cane, was embarrassingly slow progress down the steps.
‘I have ridden a bike before.’
‘Not like this, you haven’t,’ he fired back at her, cursing beneath his breath as he closed the distance between them at a limp.
‘I’m not a child, Diego…’
That much he could see for himself. And there wasn’t so much as a trace of guilt in her eyes. ‘Do you normally take things that don’t belong to you?’
‘I wasn’t taking it. I was sitting on it,’ she protested.
A flashback to his past fuelled his anger. He had first started riding bikes with a friend who was dead now. That thought led to the name Parrish banging in his head. ‘Don’t you dare,’ he warned as Maxie’s fingertips strayed dangerously close to the controls.
She had never done anything like this before. She had never rebelled or taken anything that didn’t belong to her without asking permission first. She had been all business, all correctness and restraint for so long she couldn’t imagine what she was doing.
‘Off,’ Diego commanded, in the coldest voice she had ever heard.
She could accept she was doing something wrong, but was it that bad? Something inside her flipped. ‘Okay, so you don’t want this wedding here. I get that. You don’t want me here. I get that too. But as your brother part-owns this island, and his fiancée has hired me to give an opinion, I’m going to stay until I’m in a position to do that.’
‘Then get back to work and get the hell off my bike!’
‘I’ve done my work,’ Maxie raged back. Springing off the bike, she took a stand. ‘For your information, I stayed up half the night to finish my work. Holly will have my report the second she wakes up. What have you done apart from feel sorry for yourself?’
Diego paled. ‘What did you say?’
‘Isn’t that what this is about?’ Maxie demanded as all the pent-up feelings she had suppressed for years burst out of her. ‘So you can’t play top-class polo? You can still ride a horse, can’t you? You’re still breathing!’
‘I should stop there, if I were you,’ Diego warned her quietly.
‘Why? Does the truth hurt, Diego? How long have you been on the island, exactly? Are you never going home? And if the pain’s so bad why don’t you take painkillers like everyone else?’
‘You’re really pushing it, lady…’
‘Am I?’ she said, standing her ground when he took a step towards her. ‘Perhaps it’s time someone did. Maybe I shouldn’t have sat on your bike—but for God’s sake, Diego, it’s only a bike. I was hardly going to roar away on it. Where would I go?’ she demanded angrily, staring around. ‘This was an island the last time I looked!’
‘Are you finished?’ he demanded, looking more ferocious than she’d ever seen him with his ruggedly beautiful head thrown back, earring glinting, black eyes blazing.
Absolutely, devastatingly, gorgeous…
As they glared at each other Maxie slowly began to realise that the attraction between them was mutual. She drew a sharp breath in as Diego came towards her. Incredulity mixed with excitement and sheer blind terror at what she had stirred up churned inside her. He backed her towards the bike. She could feel the cool metal against her overheated skin and the leather seat pressing into her back. Passion boiled in Diego’s stare—in hers too, she had no doubt.
‘Next time ask me first,’ he ground out.
She gasped as he seized her arm. ‘Get off me!’
What was more terrifying? The cold, blind fury in Diego’s eyes, or the cruel twist of his smile? Just his grip on her arm was alarming. But as they stared it out it was as if they were joined in some deeper, primal way. Almost as if they were meant to be like this—close, passionate, exclusive and intense.
‘I said, get off me!’ she raged.
Diego merely angled his chin to stare down at her, as if she were a particularly interesting wild creature of a type he had never encountered before.
‘Don’t you hear me?’ She tried and failed to shake herself free. ‘Don’t you dare look at me like that—don’t you dare smile!’
Diego’s answer was simple. She dragged in a shocked breath as he swung her off her feet and dumped her back on the saddle. Swinging in front of her before she had chance to protest, he started the engine and kicked the stand away. ‘You want a ride?’ he snarled over his shoulder. ‘Then I suggest you hold on.’
A red mist clouded his vision as he powered up the bike. Maxie hadn’t just breached his privacy, she had opened Pandora’s Box on the past. She had insulted him. She had—
No. He refused to contemplate, even for one second, that she might have held up a mirror to his face. He wanted her, but he also wanted her gone. He couldn’t inflict himself on anyone—his leg, his mood, the