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‘Theron, did something—’
‘It’s good. That he wants to see your mother.’
She frowned at his responses, his actions, all just a little delayed. She felt out of step with him in a way that she’d never done before. Giving up all pretence, she rushed round the table and went to him, kneeling on the floor, her hands reaching for his, uncaring of how desperate or needy she might look.
‘Theron, in the last week...’ She struggled to find the words. His lack of response, the way he looked at her as if he couldn’t comprehend her behaviour, was awful in comparison to how she’d always felt understood by him. She huffed out a breath, shook her head a little and said, ‘Theron, ask me to marry you again.’ The smile pulling at her lips, the sparkle she could feel in her eyes hung on a heartbeat. And as if she could sense him withdrawing even in her silence, she leant upwards, reaching for him, and pressed kisses against firm, unyielding lips.
It was then that she realised her heart was already breaking. It had cracked just a little each minute since she’d seen him sitting at the table. And still she kissed him. Again and again, hoping that he’d open beneath her. Wishing that he’d let her in.
Finally, he reached up to her hands to pull them free from his neck and leaned away from her, that dark hollow look in his eyes. And this time she wasn’t able to prevent the shiver that trembled through her body.
‘Ask me to marry you,’ she whispered. ‘Please, just—’
‘No, Summer.’
And her heart shattered.
‘Why?’ she asked, not quite sure she wanted to know the answer.
‘I could ask the same question,’ he said, his tone devoid of emotion. She stood up and frowned at him, stepping away from him, wondering why the sun she felt against her skin wasn’t warming her.
‘What?’ she asked. ‘Why I want you to ask me to marry you?’ He nodded. ‘Because I...’ The words felt silly now. Strange. Even though in her heart she knew it was the truth, saying them to him now when he was being like this felt wrong. ‘I want us to be a family,’ she replied eventually.
Her stomach dropped as she looked at his face, and she knew somehow that she’d said absolutely the wrong thing. But, before she could take it back, Theron stood from the chair and turned his back on her as if unable to look at her any more. The ground beneath her feet shifted and Summer couldn’t work out what had happened. When had everything gone so wrong?
‘You have a family, Summer. Your sisters, your mother... Kyros.’
‘Is that what this is about? My father?’
Theron took her question and turned it in his mind. Was it about Kyros? It might have started out like that, trying to protect Kyros from Summer and then to protect the old man from Theron’s own mistake.
Liar. You were protecting yourself then, just like you are now.
No!
Theron knew how much growing up without Kyros had hurt Summer, he knew what she wanted, what she needed. Stability, safety, security...she’d asked him to make that promise and he just couldn’t. A part of him knew that he was being irrational, but the feral part, the animal instinct was flooding him with the need to flee. It felt visceral and all-consuming and he shook with the effort to fight it.
I want us to be a family.
He’d wanted that for so long. For ever. But he couldn’t... Images of his parents’ fear-filled eyes, of Althaia’s, full of pain, of Lykos’s hurt and anger, turning away from him, and his heart turned in on itself.
‘No,’ he said, having to clear his throat, finding the strength for what he needed to do. ‘This has nothing to do with Kyros,’ he said, turning to hold her gaze, surprised at the numbness settling over his body. ‘You have what you need now, Summer. You have the diamonds, your mother will receive her treatment and you will be supported by your family. Kyros will ensure that none of you will want for anything ever again.’
‘But I wantyou,’ she said, her words bouncing off the barriers around his heart. ‘Iloveyou.’ A distant part of him recognised the panic, the hurt flooding her expressive features, but that numbness was too strong. ‘Can’t you see that?’
‘You can’t see love,’ he retorted.
‘Neither can you see faith,’ she returned instantly.
‘So you think you love me? In a matter of days?’ he scoffed, wondering at his own cruelty.
‘In a matter ofmoments,’ she replied determinedly. As if somehow his dismissal of her had only made her stronger. ‘From the moment I saw you I—’
He shook his head, the act cutting her off mid-sentence. He was glad. He didn’t want to hear the rest of what she had to say. He knew instinctively that he would bring out those words to torture himself in years to come. When he thought of her. When he thought of their child.
Would his child feel the same sense of loss as Summer had done? As he himself had done? The ground beneath his feet jerked, but he ignored it. No. She and Kyros would make sure that the child wanted for nothing, including love.
As if her thoughts began to follow the same path as his, her hands flew to her stomach as if to protect it from their words. Their hurt.
