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She looked up at him, her eyes watery but glinting with something else. Something fearfully like understanding.
‘I think...’ she said, her breath shuddering through her words as if she were fighting to say them. ‘I think...’ she tried again ‘...that you are scared.’ His scoff gave her pause, but she pressed on. ‘I think that you have experienced great loss and hurt over the years and that...that the idea of family is terrifying to you.’
‘Summer—’ he warned.
‘I think that this family is something you want so much that it terrifies you.’
He turned away, unable to look at the truth shining in her eyes as she spoke. From over his shoulder, he heard her words.
‘So I don’t need a promise from you that you’ll be there for me. I’m promising to be here for you.’
He took a step away from her, the anguish in his heart so severe that he feared he’d never recover.
‘I willalwaysbe here for you,’ she said as he took a second step and a third. And just as he reached the car he could have sworn that he heard her say, ‘I love you.’
‘Oh, Summer, when did this happen?’ Skye asked.
Summer held back a sob and looked at her hands. ‘A couple of hours ago.’
‘Oh, hun!’ Star cried, pulling her into a hug that Skye quickly added herself to.
Summer let herself sink into her sisters’ embrace for a moment, indulging in their comfort. She’d meant what she’d said to him. She did have faith that he would come back to her. That he loved her. But there, in their arms, she allowed herself to accept the possibility that he might not be able to overcome the traumas of his past.
‘You’re sure he’s going to come back?’ Skye asked and Summer nodded, blinking away the tears.
‘And if he doesn’t?’ Star tentatively asked.
‘Then we will be fine,’ Summer insisted, pulling her head up from the hug to speak and lock eyes with her sisters. ‘Mum raised us all on her own. And I have you both. And we’ll find these damned diamonds and sell the estate to Lykos and Mum can be receiving treatment as quickly as the beginning of next week. And then—thenI can make a plan.’
‘What about uni?’ Star asked, her eyes glistening with sympathetic tears.
‘I’ll take a few years’ sabbatical,’ Summer replied, her own eyes glistening. Not with regret, but determination. ‘This is the twenty-first century, and I can and will have my child, my educationandmy dream job.’
After a beat, her sisters sent up squeals of delight and cheered, Star started to dance and when Skye turned to watch her, laughing, Summer allowed herself just a moment of hurt that Theron wasn’t there to witness her family’s joy for her. Because now the ache in her heart wasn’t just for herself, it was for him. It was for the damage done by his childhood that held him back from being all that he could be, feeling all that he could feel.
As she looked up at her sisters, celebrating her pregnancy, the culmination of their journey to find the Soames diamonds, their heritage, their mother’s future health and the love that had inspired it all, Summer felt and saw the richness of life. She understood why Catherine had protected the jewels from a husband who would most likely have sold them. She understood too how Catherine had embraced the love she had felt for Benoit and Hatem, despite the heartache. How she had used it to give her the strength she’d needed in her marriage and her motherhood. Summer looked around the room and felt the Soames heritage rise up, as if generations of Soames women were here to witness and celebrate yet another of their line.
She allowed a tear at the thought of having to sell the estate to roll down her cheek—she would give it that—knowing that she would take their heritage with them forward into their new future, with their mother’s health secured and her sisters’ happiness assured.
‘Let’s do it,’ she announced.
Skye frowned. ‘Do what?’
‘Find the diamonds!’
‘What, now?’ Star asked. ‘It’s five-thirty in the morning,’ she replied as if Summer had lost her mind.
‘We’ve been talking all night?’ Summer asked, shocked.
‘Yes!’ Star and Skye announced together, laughing.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Summer said, thinking of how tired they would all be.
‘Don’t be,’ Skye said. ‘It’s been a while since we stayed up like that. I’ve missed it.’
‘And I’ve missed you,’ Summer said, looking between Skye and Star. ‘The last couple of years, it’s felt a little like we’ve all been drifting apart.’ She’d been scared to say it, but breathed a sigh of relief as she saw on their faces that her sisters felt the same way. She reached for their hands, a smile of joy pulling at her lips. ‘And now you’re going to be living in France, and you in Duratra... Everything’s changing,’ she said, her voice soft with wonder. ‘But that’s okay. We don’t always have to have a plan, we don’t always have to see our path. Sometimes, we just need a bit of faith.’
This time Star laughed. ‘Who areyouand what have you done with Summer?’ she demanded.
