‘I think you did.’ Annie shook her head slowly. ‘Talk about hidden agendas. Alberto wanted out, and you wanted to help him because it would get him away from me. Right?’
‘That’s the way it’s worked out,’ said Max.
Annie’s mouth curved in a tired smile. ‘You think you’re so smart. But I’m telling you, you’ve read this so wrong.’
‘Oh? Enlighten me then.’
‘You’ve been watching the wrong woman. I told you it was someone else, not me. Didn’t I?’
‘You did.’
‘Then why didn’t you believe me?’ she said almost sadly. ‘Why do you never believe me?’
Max stared into her eyes. ‘You really want to know?’
‘Yes. I really do.’
He shrugged, frowned. ‘Because Alberto is Constantine’s double. And because you went with Constantine when you should have waited for me. Searched for me. Not just given me up for dead.’
Annie slumped back on the pillows.
‘You never forgave me for that, did you?’
‘I tried to. I wanted to. I couldn’t. And then you kept finding excuses to nip across to America. Seeing him every time you were there.’
‘My stepson.’
‘Constantine’s double.’
‘Oh, Max.’
‘Don’t “Oh, Max” me. What the hell was I supposed to think?’
‘You were supposed to trust me,’ said Annie. ‘I was your wife.’
‘Women love whoever they’re with.’
‘What? How can you say that?’
‘Fuck’s sake, my own mother did. She played around all the time. Led my old dad a dog’s life.’ Max got to his feet and started pacing.
Annie just sat there and stared at him in silence. He’d never told her that before. And it explained so much.
‘I didn’t know that,’ she said at last.
‘Well, now you do.’
‘I was never interested in Alberto, Max. Not like that. And he was interested in someone else entirely.’
‘OK then. Come on. Tell me. Who?’ Max came back to the bed, sat down again.
Annie took a breath and braced herself for the fallout. ‘Layla.’
Max’s face froze. ‘What?’
‘She’s in love with him. I think she has been for years.’
‘What?’
‘This is going to break her in two, him just taking off like that.’
Max stared at her, assimilating the facts. Coming back to the house yesterday with Layla, Alberto taking her arm, her hissing don’t touch me, then the two of them arguing in the car. Shit! Annie was right. He could see it now.
‘I’m going to kill that cocky bastard,’ said Max.
‘Too late,’ said Annie. ‘He’s gone. And I bet even you don’t know where his final destination is.’
‘No. But if I did, straight up, I would go there right now and blow his fucking brains out. You don’t think that they’ve…’
Annie tried hard to suppress the smile, she really did. It tickled her greatly to see Max Carter, feared gang lord and general hard case, behaving exactly as any doting father would on hearing the news that his daughter wasn’t his innocent little girl any more.