“I’m the same when I make carrot cake for him.” I took another bite.
“Aria is such an amazing cook. You need to try the cakes she makes. She used to make them all the time when we were younger,” Serfina said.
“Looks like we will be setting up a girlie lunch, then,” Berevan suggested.
“That would be lovely.”
“We can go through your wedding plans, Serfina.” Berevan smiled.
“I need all the help I can get.” She chuckled. “Right now, though, I’m going to get us some food. I’m starving.” She wandered off through the crowd.
“I’m looking forward to the wedding.”
“Me too. How long have you and Soran been married?” I asked.
“Six years now. Pretty much since the moment I came to the UK. But we’ve known each other since we were children. We grew up in the same village. Then Soran came over to England when he was around nineteen, and I stayed.”
“Why didn’t you come over together?”
She paused for a moment before answering. “The Kurdish people were oppressed during that time, and my family fled the village before I had a chance to leave.”
“I’m really sorry. I didn’t know.”
She squeezed my hand. “It’s fine. After, I joined the Kurdish female army and started advocating for women’s rights over there. There was so much I wanted to do, but unfortunately, I had to leave the country for political reasons.”
My eyes widened. Berevan looked so delicate, and I would never have thought she’d done all of that in her life. It made me think about university and what I really wanted to do with mine.
“Nyx?” I heard Sebastian’s voice from behind, and I turned around to face him.
“Hey, I’ve hardly seen you today.”
“I know. I didn’t want you to miss out on the fun.” He kissed me softly.
“Berevan was telling me about her life in Kurdistan.”
Sebastian looked over at her, and she smiled at him. “Not too much. I don’t want to bore Aria with it.”
“Don’t be silly,” I replied.
“Sorry, Berevan, do you mind if I steal Aria for a minute?”
“Of course,” she replied.
I took Aria’s hand and led her a few feet away. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I need to go deal with something at the office.”
I furrowed my brow. “What do you mean? It’s 9 p.m.”
“I’ve had an alert on my phone with the alarm, and security needs to give me a rundown.” He took hold of my hands and squeezed them.
“Oh. Has someone tried to break in?”
“They think it was a system error, but I have to be there as I’m the CEO.”
“Ok. I understand.”
I let out a silent sigh that he was leaving to go deal with something at work that Caspian could have probably dealt with. The whole point of having him there was to take some of the pressure off Sebastian.
