Page 109 of Liberating Lily

She looked down at herself. Eek!

“Um, leave everything for me. I’ll clean it up after my shower.”

He just shot her a look that she was pretty certain meant that wasn’t going to happen.

Well, she’d just have to be quick with that shower.

25

Lily stared down at the second half of her grilled cheese.

She didn’t really have to eat all of it, right?

Harvey picked up the sandwich and held it to her mouth. “Open up.”

Before coming here she’d have never imagined eating dinner at a kitchen island.

Dinner was always extremely formal, eaten at the dining table and would never be just grilled cheese. Her mother would die of horror if she was served up grilled cheese for dinner.

“I can feed myself,” she told him, feeling a blush of embarrassment fill her face.

“But will you?” he said. “Because it didn’t look like you were going to pick up the other half and eat it.”

Urgh. Drat. He wasn’t wrong.

“I’m really not that hungry.”

“Baby, you ate the equivalent of one piece of bread and two slices of cheese, if that. It’s not enough. I know you’ve barely eaten all day. Do you want me to do a choo-choo train or something?” He grinned at her.

Good Lord. She rolled her eyes at him, shaking her head, and reached for the sandwich, taking it from him so she could feed herself.

The man was out of control.

“We’re going to get you back into fighting form, baby, even if I have to feed you every meal myself.”

“You don’t have time for that. What about your job? Shouldn’t you be getting back to it?”

He shrugged. “I’m my own boss, so I gave myself some time off. And my assistant is happy. She’s currently sunning herself on an island in Fiji. She’d be mad if I made her come back early.”

“Oh, wow. That does sound nice,” she said. “I’ve never been out of the country.”

“Really? Not even when you were a kid?”

“No. I don’t think my mother liked to travel much. She’d send us to Grandma June’s, but I never really liked it there. I found the whole thing overwhelming. I didn’t know the rules of Grandma June’s place. I knew the rules back home, what Mother expected of us, and I was good at playing the game so she wouldn’t get mad at me.” She shook her head at the memories. “Clem wasn’t good at playing the game. I tried to do what I could to keep Mother’s attention on me. I even tried to get Mother to leave me at home and just send Clem because I knew how much she loved it there. I just didn’t fit in. Mother always went on about how it was a depraved place filled with people doing terrible things, but I don’t understand what she meant.”

“Where is it?”

“Haven, Texas. Have you heard of it?”

“Sounds like it could be an interesting place to visit.”

She would love to be able to visit Clem, but she was pretty certain that she wouldn’t be welcome.

Harvey picked up the piece of sandwich again and held it to her mouth. “Seems like I am going to have to feed you after all.”

Oops, she hadn’t realized that she’d put it back down. She had a bad habit of letting her emotions affect her appetite. Whenever she was upset, sad, or worried, she just couldn’t eat.

“Come on, open wide.”