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Theron fisted his hands, impatient for Kyros to return, because he knew what was coming. He’d seen it when the old man had looked at him as if he were a stranger. Family meant everything to Kyros. And he was not part of Kyros’s family.
She is your family.
He rejected the thought that sounded far too much like Althaia, making his heart hurt all the more. He felt torn between the absolute desire, a need so powerful it rocked his foundations, to be there for Summer. With her and their child. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t make that promise. Even the thought of it tore his heart, his pulse pounding, a cold sweat tickling his neck.
The breath left his lungs, burning as it did, as he thought of what he would miss. Watching Summer grow big and round with their child. The quick change of her temper, from ridiculous anger to tears, to a laugh so pure it healed everything. The way she’d look at the world as if everything was wondrous and worth study, worth investigation. He’d miss the moment of her success when she was able to find the jewels with her sisters. The moment that her mother would receive the treatment she needed, and the moment Summer realised that it had worked. That it had all been worth it. In his mind’s eye, Theron saw her future, full of love and laughter and sunshine. And he wasn’t in it.
She had everything she needed now. Her father. Her mother. The diamonds. There was nothing for him to give her other than promises he couldn’t keep.
The sound of the Jeep’s engine firing drew Theron back to the present and he looked up to find Kyros standing at the top of the stone steps.
‘She’s incredible,’ Kyros said, as if in wonder at his daughter.
‘She is,’ Theron agreed.
‘I looked for her mother once.’
Theron frowned in confusion.
Kyros sighed. ‘I...thought you might have known because of Lykos, but this surprises you?’
‘I had no idea. I didn’t...’ He clenched his jaw, hating the words he forced from his lips. ‘I didn’t believe her. When she first told me.’
Kyros nodded, looking out over the estate’s long driveway, squinting in the sun. And, without another word, he got into the Jeep and drove away.
Summer was looking for Theron. Meeting her father had been beyond anything she could have imagined. It had healed a part of her that had ached since first finding the photo and soothed a part of her that had hurt for years.
She had just got off the phone with her mother and felt strangely as if everything was falling into place. Mariam had been shocked, yes, but Summer hadn’t missed the hope and the yearning in her mother’s voice. As if she still thought of Kyros, still cared for him. Mariam had been desperate to explain that she had kept Kyros’s identity secret out of respect for his wife. It had been her decision to embark on that affair and she had hated the thought of Summer or Althaia suffering because of it. And even though she’d hated lying to Summer she had honoured the promise she had made to him. Mariam told her that she had always intended to tell her one day, but somehow that day had just got further and further away. She’d peppered Summer with questions about Kyros, and was startled by her response.
‘He will be in England for a while and I was hoping that you would come up to Norfolk. We have some news and I would like you and Kyros to be part of that.’
Her mother had agreed instantly, but Summer had been distracted because she’d seen Theron through the window, looking out at her father’s car driving away.
As she turned towards the estate’s entrance Summer decided that she didn’t want to be like her parents—two people who clearly had strong feelings for each other but had missed so much. She was happy that Kyros had stayed with Althaia, that the love they’d shared had accepted and moved beyond his affair with her mother. But the thought of that lost time was like a pull on her heart.
She didn’t want that with Theron. She didn’t want to miss another minute with him. Because, even when they were arguing, he seemed to understand her. Even when he teased her, he taught her something about herself. And it was more than that...it washim. She wanted to knowhim. She wanted to help soothe the hurts she felt were just beneath the surface. His insecurity about his place with Kyros, the loss of his relationship with a man who was still like a brother to him even after ten years of silence—and the deepest pain of the loss of his parents. She wanted to help him heal. She wanted him to see what she saw in him. She wanted him to see...how much she loved him.
She drew to a stop, her hand covering her mouth in shock.She loved him.
The man who yelled at her for trying to drag compost across the floor, the man whose eyes didn’t glaze over when she talked about her work, who could see how important her independence was, who understood her need to be responsible and accountable to and for herself. The man who had brought her to dizzying heights of pleasure, the man who was the father of her unborn child. He had asked her to marry him once and she had said no. But now it was all she could think of.
She burst through the front doors of the house, hoping that he would still be standing where she had seen him from the window, but he wasn’t. She turned, looking out to the road, her heart thumping with the need to see him, to tell him. Not just about what had happened with her father, but her feelings for him. Her love.
She was teary from happiness and she couldn’t wait to share it with Theron. He had brought this to her. He had brought her father to her and given her hope and a sense of more than she could ever imagine.
A little voice in her head told her to slow down, to hold back, to pull back from the edge, when all she wanted to do was hurl herself over it with blind faith and love. Maybe her head had been turned by Catherine’s journals, a treasure hunt and what she secretly believed was a reunited love between her parents, but all this...happiness...she didn’t think she’d felt it before.
Theron was at the table they had sat at yesterday and, when he saw her, his eyes raked over her hotly as if he’d never seen anything more beautiful and she felt so utterly precious. Until he blinked and the look was gone. She frowned, rubbing her arms against the sudden bite to the westerly wind, and her steps slowed as she approached. It was as if a cloud had passed over the sun and she resisted the urge to shiver.
He sat there, unmoving, as if he were cut from a piece of dark marble, eyes watching her in one long gaze, taking her in completely. She halted on the other side of the table, suddenly uncomfortable. She could see his jaw flexing from here.
‘Theron—’
‘How was it?’ he pressed out through teeth she was sure were clenched.
She looked about the garden, trying to find signs for why it felt as if everything was strange all of a sudden. Off-kilter, as if she were in a dark, twisted, kaleidoscope version of her world.
‘It was...amazing,’ she hedged, not able or willing to lie. ‘He...is beyond what I’d hoped. He wants to see Mum,’ she admitted, unable to prevent the hope in her voice. ‘And I can’t thank you enough. For calling him. Bringing him here,’ she said, hoping that the sincerity in her voice, the truth of it would penetrate this strange, hard outer shell he seemed to have retreated behind. Her stomach twisted as she realised that something bad must have happened between him and Kyros.
