‘What?’she said, louder this time.
Theron’s hands were cold and he felt as if he’d swallowed stones. He clenched his jaw, stifling the desperation he felt lest it show in his tone when he next spoke. He was used to people simply doing what he said. Managing his business like an army. It was how he’d achieved what he had in such a short time. Supreme self-confidence and determination. But Summer was like a live wire, twisting and turning, and he never knew what she would do next.
‘We will marry,’ he announced and this time she laughed.
‘No.’
‘What do you mean, no?’ he demanded, shocked by her response.
‘What do you mean, we will marry?’
‘Well—’ he frowned, confused ‘—exactly that.’
‘Yeah. Me too. Sono.’
Theron frowned. Opened his mouth. Closed it again. He’d not foreseen this. He stood up, feeling that he needed the height advantage, and regretted it as she seemed intuitively to know he’d done so on purpose. He realised this the moment she took two steps back to meet him at eye level.
‘I don’t know you,’ she growled softly.
‘I hardly think that matters,’ he replied, mentally batting away how much her statement had hurt.
‘Really?’ she demanded. ‘Whatdoesmatter then?’
‘That you have my name and my protection,’ he insisted.
‘I’m happy with my name, Theron, and I don’t need your protection.’
Her response was so damn reasonable, when he felt anything but. He wanted to shout, to yell, to roar against this strange sense of everything he’d never known he’d wanted slowly slipping through his fingers. He tried to get himself under control before he made things worse, but Summer seemed to be one step ahead of him at every turn.
‘Look,’ she said, striving for a calm that felt impossibly out of reach. ‘Clearly we have to talk, but it’s late. Why don’t you go and come back tomorrow, or...?’
‘Never? Would you prefer that?’ he demanded, cursing himself and his own anger when he saw her eyes flare in defiance. She made him so...emotional. He took a breath. ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he explained, keeping his tone as calm as possible.
‘You can’t stay here,’ Summer replied with a shake of her head.
‘It’s not as if there aren’t any free rooms,’ he pointed out.
She held his gaze for a moment, an explosion of wicked sparks in her eyes. ‘By all means, take your pick.’
She’d known, he realised half an hour later, as he lay down on a dusty mattress that was sure to give him allergies in a room that probably hadn’t been heated for one hundred years. She’d done it on purpose, leaving the choice to him, knowing there was literally no good option. This was the sixth room he’d tried and he was too exhausted to care any more.
The wind howled down an empty fireplace and reduced the room’s temperature by another degree or two. It was definitely the least he deserved and if there was more, Theron swore to himself and his unborn child, then he’d do whatever it took. Because they were now—whether Summer liked it or not—his family.
CHAPTER FIVE
THEREWASSOMETHINGin the walls. Theron didn’t believe in ghosts, yet he would have sworn that he’d heard footsteps. But when he’d stuck his head into the corridor it had been empty. And then, after returning from the most unpleasantly cold shower he’d had in at least ten years, he’d thought there was someone actually in the room, even though it was obviously empty.
He threw his trousers on and rubbed his hair dry with a towel, thinking back over last night. The way he’d reacted, the way he’d demanded she marry him...
An explosion crashed through the estate and adrenaline instantly drenched his body as he ran towards the sound.
‘Summer!’ His heart pounding, he tried to figure out where the sound had come from, searching left and right. ‘Summer!’ he yelled again. He cursed in Greek and careened around a corner to find a slowly dissipating cloud of dust. In the middle of it was Summer, dressed in jeans, a jumper stretched over her belly, dust in her hair and on her face, coughing.
‘What the hell is going on?’ he demanded, striding forward, grasping her arm and pulling her from what looked suspiciously like a giant hole in the wall.
Summer sucked in huge lungfuls of air and shook her head, sending little bits of centuries-old plaster flying. She coughed once more, fanning her watery eyes and then looked up at him, her eyes seeming to clear.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked.