‘It was a shock, that’s all,’ he answered weakly. ‘Didn’t expect it. Forgot to take my pill today. My fault. I’ll be all right again in a few minutes.’
The doctor was waiting with blood-pressure pad at the ready once the pill had been given a chance to take effect. Caroline flicked him an anxiously questioning look and he answered it with a small nod. Relief flooded the tears into her eyes.
Her father saw them and his grey face looked weary. ‘Don’t weep for me, Caroline,’ he sighed. ‘I have enough to contend with right now, without adding your tears.’
‘But it’s all my fault,’ she choked. ‘I should have warned you about Luiz and me. It was—’
‘Supposed to be a pleasant surprise for all of you,’ Luiz grimly put in, still aware of their audience, and protecting his damned deal from the risk of exposure even in the face of all of this, Caroline realised bitterly.
Her father seemed to understand and accept that. His tired eyes lifted to Luiz. ‘We need to talk,’ he murmured grimly.
‘Not tonight, though,’ the doctor decreed. ‘For tonight you will be staying as my personal guest in my private hospital.’
And even as he spoke the sound of a siren whined its way into the room, curdling Caroline’s blood and making her cling tightly to her father’s hand. But what really worried her was that her father didn’t attempt to put in a protest.
His eyes fluttered open. ‘Don’t look so stricken.’ He smiled at her wearily. ‘I plan to be a thorn in your side for a long time yet.’
‘Promise?’ she insisted with the kind of painful seriousness that had those who witnessed it lowering their eyes.
‘I promise,’ he ruefully complied. Then to Luiz, who was standing behind Caroline, ‘Not quite the response you were looking for, I think,’ he drawled.
‘No,’ Luiz quietly agreed.
‘Does she know yet?’
‘Know what?’ Caroline put in sharply.
But on a wince her father closed his eyes again, and all conversation came to a standstill as the doctor began pumping up the blood pressure pad wrapped around his arm.
Two medics entered the room then, and Luiz was gently drawing Caroline to her feet, to make way for them so they could do what they had to do unencumbered. But the moment the medics began to move her father onto their mobile stretcher she was back at his side. The rest of the people in the room had slithered off into the ether. She neither saw them nor wanted to see them.
The drive to the hospital was undertaken with the minimum of fuss. Caroline travelled with her father in the ambulance while Luiz followed behind in his car. After that everything became a worried blur again as they waited while her father was put through several examinations before Luiz’s uncle Fidel eventually came to pass on the reassuring news that it had not been a heart attack as such. ‘But his blood pressure has remained a little high,’ he added. ‘So I am going to keep him in here overnight, just to keep an eye on him.’
With a sinking sense of profound relief, Caroline leaned weakly against the wall behind her. But when Luiz attempted to touch her she shrugged him off abruptly. ‘I’m all right,’ she said.
‘You don’t damn well look it,’ he argued gruffly.
Ignoring him, she looked at his uncle. ‘Can I see him now?’ she asked.
‘For a few moments only,’ she was told. ‘He is sedated, so he will not know you are here.’
They did stay for only a few moments, for as the doctor had said he was asleep, but his colour was much better. Caroline stood by his bed gently stroking his hand for a few minutes while Luiz looked on in silence from his position at the bottom of the bed. Then, with the helplessness that came from knowing that she could do nothing more by remaining there, she allowed Luiz to take her away.
They didn’t speak as they walked through the hospital, but then they had barely exchanged a single word since the whole horror had begun in Luiz’s drawing room. They reached the exit doors to find Luiz’s uncle was waiting for them.
He glanced gravely from one face to the other—seeing too much maybe; Caroline wasn’t sure. ‘He is going to be fine,’ he assured her gently. ‘It really was only a small scare.’
‘Yes, I know…’ Nodding, Caroline fought yet another battle with tears, then impulsively stepped up to embrace Luiz’s uncle. ‘Thank you for being there,’ she whispered simply.
‘It was my pleasure,’ he replied, but his attention was fixed on her own drained pallor. ‘Take her home,’ he said to Luiz. ‘Make her go to bed, and don’t allow her to come back here until lunchtime at the earliest.’