Mediterranean Mavericks: Greeks. Кейт Хьюит

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СКАЧАТЬ phone greeting. Her father had replaced it with his own. For the first time in two months, she heard his recorded voice, and it sounded different. Fragile. Weak.

      Terror rushed through her.

      Her body was shaking as she looked up at Mrs. Pollifax. “Which hospital?”

      The housekeeper told her. “But you’re in no fit state to drive. I’ll have Collins bring around the car. Shall I come with you?”

      Letty shook her head numbly.

      The older woman bit her lip, looking sad. “He’s in room 302.”

      The drive to Brooklyn seemed to take forever. When they finally arrived at the large, modern hospital, Letty’s body shook as she raced inside.

      She didn’t stop at reception, just hurried to the elevator, holding her heavy, aching belly. On the third floor, she followed the signs toward room 302.

      Her steps slowed when she saw a man sitting in the waiting area. He looked up and saw her, too. She frowned. She recognized him from somewhere…

      But she didn’t stop, just headed straight for her father’s room.

      “Miss!” a nurse called anxiously as she passed the third-floor reception desk, barreling toward the corner room. “Please wait just a moment.”

      “It’s all right,” Letty said. “I’m his daughter.” She pushed open the door. “Dad. Dad! I’m—”

      But the room was empty.

      Letty stared around in shock. Was she in the wrong room? Had she misunderstood?

      Was he—oh, God—surely he couldn’t be…?

      “I’m sorry,” a woman said behind her.

      “You should be!” her father’s gruff voice retorted.

      With a sob, Letty whirled around.

      In the doorway her living, breathing father was sitting in a wheelchair, glaring back at the dark-haired nurse struggling to push him through the doorway.

      “You practically ran me into a wall. Where’d you learn how to drive?”

      Letty burst into noisy tears. Her father turned his head and saw her, and his gaunt, pale features lit up with joy.

      “Letty. You came.”

      Throwing her arms around his thin frame in the wheelchair, she choked out, “Of course I came. As soon as I heard you were sick. Then when I didn’t see you in the bed, I thought…”

      “Oh, you thought I was dead? No!” Glancing back at the nurse, he added drily, “Not for some people’s lack of trying.”

      “Hmph.” The nurse sniffed. “That’s the last time I agree to help you win a wheelchair race, Howard.”

      “Win! We didn’t win anything! Margery crushed us by a full ten seconds, in spite of her extra pounds. After all my big talk, too—I’ll never live this down,” he complained.

      Letty drew back with astonishment. “Wheelchair race?”

      “Admittedly not one of my best ideas, especially with Nurse Crashy here.”

      “Hey!”

      “But it’s what passes for fun here in the hospice wing. Either that or depress myself with cable news.”

      “It’s totally against hospital protocol. I can’t believe you talked me into it. Ask someone else to risk their job next time,” the nurse said.

      He gave her his old charming grin. “The race was a good thing. It lifted the spirits of everyone on the wing.”

      Looking slightly mollified, she sighed. “I guess I’d better go try convince my boss of that.” She left the room.

      Her father turned back to Letty. “But why are you crying? You really thought I was dead?”

      She tried to smile. “You’re crying, too, Dad.”

      “Am I?” Her father touched his face. He gave her a watery smile. “I’m just glad to see you, I guess. I was starting to wonder if you’d ever come.”

      “I came the instant I heard,” she whispered, feeling awful and guilty.

      Howard gave a satisfied nod. “I knew he’d eventually tell you.”

      “Who?”

      “Darius. Sure, I promised I’d never contact you. But there was nothing in our deal that said I couldn’t contact him. I left him a message four weeks ago, when I woke up in the hospital. I’d collapsed in the street, so an ambulance brought me here.”

      Four weeks? Letty was numb with shock. Darius had known for a month that her father was in the hospital, just an hour away from Fairholme?

      Her father stroked his wispy chin. “Though I’m pretty sure he knew even before that. He’s had me followed since the day you ran off with him. The guy must have noticed me going to my doctor’s office three times a week.”

      She sucked in her breath, covering her mouth. Not just one month, but two? Darius had known her father was sick, dying, but he’d purposefully kept it from her?

      Your father is spending his days playing chess with friends down at the park.

      A lie!

      Last night, when she and Darius had been cuddled by the fire, dreaming about their child, even then, her husband had been lying to her. While Letty had been eating cookies and drinking tea, her father had been spending yet another night in this hospital. Alone. Without a single word of love from his only daughter.

      A cold sweat broke out on her skin. She trembled as if to fight someone or flee. But there was no escaping the horrible truth.

      Darius had lied to her.

      The man she’d loved since childhood. The center of all her romantic dreams and longings. He’d known her father was dying, and he’d lied.

      How could Darius have been so callous? So selfish, heartless and cruel?

      The answer was obvious.

      He didn’t love her.

      He never would.

      A gasp of anguish and rage came from the back of her throat.

      “He never gave you the message, did he?” her father said, watching her. When she shook her head, he sighed. “How did you know I was here?”

      “Mrs. Pollifax.”

      “I see.” He looked sad. Then his eyes fell to her belly and he brightened as he changed the subject. “You’re so big! You’re just a week or two from your due date, aren’t you?”

      “Yes.”

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