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Her words had echoed in the silence of the journey back to the estate and it felt as if they were eroding his foundations—the very things that he’d clung to for security for all these years. He searched his heart and had to admit the truth. There had been a part of him that sought to appease a future he could see on the horizon. A reckoning with Kyros that he’d perhaps always sensed coming in one form or another.
But it wasn’t the only truth. And that was the thing that scared him the most.
After their return he had spent a couple of hours in the room he’d taken as his, answering work emails, concluding business with one client and reassuring another, before going to look for Summer.
As he rounded the corner to the kitchen, she was drawing various ingredients from the fridge that he registered with disgust.
‘What is that?’ he demanded.
‘Dinner.’
‘It is no such thing,’ he replied, taking steps towards the monstrous selection of food she had gathered together. She turned on him, and had to lean back to peer up at him. He hadn’t intended to get so close that he could smell the faint traces of salt and sea air still clinging to her clothes and skin. But he wouldn’t retreat. Couldn’t.
‘There is nothing wrong with a cheese sandwich,’ she said defiantly.
‘“Dinner” is supposed to behot. And it should most definitely have a vegetable in there somewhere.’
‘Fine. Cheese and tomato then,’ she snarked. Only he wished she hadn’t, because the gold flecks in her eyes sparkled and danced when she did.
‘Tomatoes are a fruit,’ he dismissed. She had to step back as he went to the fridge to see what there was and sighed heavily. ‘Is this an English thing?’ he demanded.
‘What?’
‘A horrible relationship with food.’
‘No. It’s just that...well...’ He turned to find her looking uncomfortably at the floor and he bit his tongue. He hadn’t meant to shame her. ‘Skye cooked. For us,’ she clarified, ‘when we were growing up. She always cooked.’
‘Mariam can’t cook?’ he asked, more gently this time.
‘She can. Actually, she’s a great cook,’ Summer said, her shoulders tensing slightly at the mention of her mother. ‘It’s just that...she was a bit scatty when it came to mealtimes. She’d always be lost in a sunset, or her yoga or...like, right now, she’s focused on her candle magic and...’ She trailed off and Theron hoped to God the confusion he felt wasn’t on his face this time.
‘You’ve done it again.’
‘Done what?’ she asked.
‘You’ve stopped mid-sentence.’
‘Oh, well, I was expecting some kind of commentary on candle magic.’
Theron frowned. It might not be his thing, but who was he to judge? Althaia had insisted on reading his coffee grains whenever he had visited on a Sunday morning. ‘Nope. I don’t have any. But I’m curious how you and science fit with such a free spirit.’
‘Not easily,’ Summer said, and he wondered if she was aware of the tension in her voice. ‘I sometimes felt too serious for her, but I always felt loved.’
He doubted that she realised how much she defended her mother to him. As if it was important to her that he thought well of Mariam. He gestured for her to take a seat as he finally figured out what he could do with the limited ingredients in the fridge, pulling the potatoes out before he went looking for a pan.
‘You cook?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ he stated.
‘I thought you’d be more of a restaurant kind of guy,’ she said, shrugging.
He smirked. ‘I do that too, but...’ He sighed. ‘Althaia taught me. On Sundays, when we’d visit, she’d teach me a new recipe and we’d eat it together.Not like that,’ he echoed, his hand coming down in the air in a cutting movement.‘Like this,’he said, smiling as he repeated the gesture at Althaia’s ‘correct’ angle. But then he remembered the days she hadn’t been able to help so much. She’d sat in the corner of the kitchen, rattling off directions like an army general.
‘I’m sorry,’ Summer said, and he frowned. ‘She clearly meant a lot to you.’
He nodded and poured boiling water over the potatoes and then pulled flour down from the shelf.
‘What are we having?’ she asked, eyeing the potatoes and flour suspiciously.
