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Kyros nodded. ‘You have sisters. That is good. You have...’ he seemed to search for the words ‘...you have had a good life?’ he asked tentatively.
‘Yes. So very good,’ she said sincerely and reassuringly. ‘I never blamed you. Mum made it very clear that you would have moved heaven and earth if you’d known about me. But...’ Summer hesitated, not wanting to paint her mother in a bad light ‘...she...she told me that she didn’t know your full name and how to find you.’
Confusion passed into realisation in her father’s gaze and a nod that reminded her of Theron seemed to conclude his thoughts.
‘I would like to tell you how we met,’ he began. ‘I don’t want to...contradict or say anything your mother wouldn’t want you to know, but... I want to be honest,’ he said, shrugging into the words as if feeling his own way through this strange situation.
Summer nodded and as they huddled together he explained how he had met Mariam Soames.
‘I was on one of the islands. I had gone there by myself in order to figure some things out. My wife, Althaia—I loved her greatly. We had been together since we were sixteen and twice that many years later our love was still strong. It was a soft, gentle kind of love, but one that was unbreakable.’ His eyes misted for a moment and Summer put her hand on his. ‘We had just found out her diagnosis and our world had been shattered. Althaia had asked me to leave to give us both some time to process how we felt.
‘I was...devastated. Selfish. Hurt. Angry,’ Kyros admitted, shaking his head at himself. ‘Your mother, Mariam. She...burst into my life at that moment and, somehow, took it all away. Before I even knew her name, I—’ He clenched his jaw, seemingly to stop himself from saying more. ‘I told your mother. Everything. About Althaia and her diagnosis, our marriage. She told me about the loss of the partner that she was still grieving, about her daughters and the love she felt for them. She was so...bright and fierce. She was like a whirlwind and I couldn’t help but be drawn in. Somehow, together, we found more than solace in each other, and I need you to know that what we shared...it was incredibly special to me.’ Summer looked at him as his gaze clouded with memories and unspoken moments, before it cleared enough for him to carry on. ‘We agreed, nothing more than that one week together, but it’s important that you know it changed my life.
‘The moment I returned home I told my wife about Mariam. Althaia’s understanding was as surprising to me as my short time with Mariam. Althaia understood the kind of love we shared was different and that the future we would have was not for a moment what anyone could ever imagine or choose. But I did. Each and every day, I chose that life and her love and I would do it again in a heartbeat. But it was your mother who helped me make that choice.’
He gazed at her with watery eyes, the sincerity and truth shining in them warming her through.
‘Mari and I—’
‘Mari?’
He smiled, as if embarrassed by the name he had given her mother. ‘Mariam—’ he stressed for her benefit ‘—and I knew that what we shared, even for that brief moment, was special but could not be. I had Althaia, she had her daughters... We felt as if it had been a gift of sorts. One that we could carry within us for ever, but not something to be revisited.
‘I thought at one point...’ He trailed off and Summer searched his face for a conclusion, until Kyros shook his head and any possible ending away. He sighed deeply. ‘But I am here now. And so are you!’ The exclamation lifted his features from darker memories and she thought she recognised some of herself in him once again. She lifted her hand to sweep aside a tendril of blonde hair that had fallen from the band and Kyros’s eyes caught on her collarbone. ‘Oh.’
She immediately pressed her hand over it, protectively rather than secretively.
‘You have the family birthmark?’ He laughed, surprised and pleased.
‘Yes. It was how I first realised you were my...’ The word, so strange and unused, sat on her tongue.
‘Father. Yes, Summer. I am your father.’
She had waited her entire life for those words, half convinced she’d never hear them, never feel this bond that welled up between them, surrounding them, binding them together, and tears brimmed in her eyes.
‘You were in Thiakos’s apartment. Five months ago?’
‘Yes.’
‘I...’ His head hung down. ‘I am ashamed. I did not know who you were. An urgent business deal had brought me back from the island and I—’
‘Please. You don’t have to explain. What happened with Theron—’
‘No. Let’s not discuss that now. I will deal with him later.’ Summer frowned, worried, but not wanting to contradict or push things with Kyros when things were so fresh and new. He took her hands in his and held them tight. ‘There is so much I want to tell you. So much history you have back home in Greece. Perhaps, when things are settled, you could come and visit.’
‘I’d like that very much,’ she replied, feeling a wetness against her cheek that he reached up to brush away. His hand paused and he looked to her, seeking permission, and when she nodded his thumb swept away the tear and she leaned into his palm as if it had always been there.
Theron looked out across the impossibly flat Norfolk horizon that seemed incredible to him. It gave the sky so much space that it seemed further away than ever, so untouchable that it made his chest hurt.
He was unused to the silence and it was unnerving. It gave rise to too many thoughts—thoughts that were on the future now. Summer had her father. When she and her sisters found the Soames diamonds and sold the estate, Summer would be more than financially secure. She had their love and support. She would be protected by them, her family. And Kyros would make sure that she never wanted for a single thing.
But not him.
Because he couldn’t give her the one thing she wanted. It ate at his soul, scratched and lashed out like a living thing, breathing fire and burning everything it touched.
I want you to be there.
Bitter breath fell from his lips. He hadn’t even been there for Kyros. He’d lied to the old man, kept him from his daughter. He had taken her virginity and kicked her out of his life as if she were less than nothing. And now she was pregnant.
