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The image of herself with a swollen belly months from now made Genie’s breath catch. Filled her with such overwhelming feelings she could only nod again and accept the plate of food. Studying it, she noticed that Lita had picked everything a pregnant woman could safely eat.
And surprisingly, her appetite was ready for the delicate pastries, the stuffed peppers and vegetable kebabs making her mouth water.
She was mostly ignored as Lita chattered excitedly to her grandson.
But when the room fell silent, she glanced up to see two sets of eyes on her. Lita’s dropped fleetingly to Genie’s left hand, a hint of a question in her eyes before Seve rose to his feet.
‘Give her time to adjust. This is all news to Genie too.’
Lita frowned. ‘News to her? But you said she’s two—’
‘I know what I said, Lita,’ Seve interrupted firmly, faint warning in his tone making the old woman’s lips purse. ‘The priority for Genie now is to get some rest. We crossed several time zones to get here.’
‘But we will have dinner together tonight,sí?’ Lita pressed.
‘If Genie is up to it, yes.’ He reached her and glanced at her nearly finished plate. ‘Are you ready to be shown to your room?’
A chance to be alone? To take all this in?
Hell, yes.
Setting the plate aside, she rose.
Lita approached them with a smile. ‘Are you sure you’ve had enough? I can have another plate brought up to your room?’
Seve glanced sternly at his grandmother. ‘You need to eat too, and rest.’
She made a face and waved him away. ‘I’m only seventy-five, not a hundred and five. Besides, I can sleep when I’m dead.’
‘Technically, being dead isn’t sleeping. It’s ceasing to exist,’ Genie retorted.
Lita looked startled for a moment, then she threw her head back and laughed.
Genie looked bewildered. Adorably so. So much so Seve wanted to run his knuckle down her flushing skin.
He locked his knees and frowned at himself.
Since when was he obsessed with finding excuses to touch a woman? Normally, the reverse was what occurred. Except in this moment, he couldn’t think of any other woman he wanted to touch more than the one staring at his beloved grandmother as if she were a cipher she dearly wanted to decode.
‘I like this one. But I get the feeling she doesn’t like you very much,’ Lita said to him.
‘I don’t,’ Genie responded in perfect Cardosian, making his grandmother’s eyes sparkle even brighter in pleasure as she smiled wider in delight.
‘You speak Cardosian?’ she asked, approval brimming in her voice.
Genie nodded briskly. ‘I do, and if you want to know why I don’t like him, your grandson—’
‘Would like nothing more than to get himself and his guest settled. So shall we?’ The warning tone in his voice was hard to miss. By both women. As much as he loved his grandmother, he didn’t owe her an explanation for why he’d turned up with a pregnant stranger who was carrying his baby.
As for Genie...
She got the hint well enough to purse her lips as the housekeeper stepped forward and ushered her out.
His grandmother watched everything with shrewd eyes, and when he caught her gaze, she raised an eyebrow. He shook his head, prompting the old woman to stay her words once more.
Genie eyed him the moment they stepped into the corridor.
‘You two always speak to each other in sign language?’
