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“Three paragraphs,” Lani grumbled, pushing her glasses higher on her nose. “It’s just not coming together.”
“It will,” Sydney reassured her friend. “It always does.”
“Yeah, well. I hope you’re right.”
“Persistence is the key.”
Lani grumbled something else. Rule didn’t make out the words over the rushing of his own blood in his ears as Sydney’s footsteps came closer.
She stood above them. “What kind of fantastical machine is this?”
For a moment, Rule stared at her pretty open-toed shoes, her trim ankles. Then, forcing his mouth to form a smile, he lifted his head to meet her eyes. “You’ll have to ask your son.”
Trev glanced up. “Hi, Mama. I make a machine, a machine with a ‘peller.”
“I see that and I …” Her glance had shifted. Rule followed her gaze. The paper beside him had opened halfway, revealing the outrageous headline and half of the pictures. “What in the …?”
He grabbed the paper and swiftly rolled it up again. “We need a few moments in private, I think.”
Both of her eyebrows lifted. And then she nodded. “Well, I guess we do.”
Trev sat looking from Rule to Sydney and back again, puzzled by whatever was going on between the grownups. “Mama? Roo?”
Rule laid a hand against his son’s cheek. “Trevor,” he said, with all the calm and gentleness he could muster. “Mama and I have to talk now.”
Trev blinked. “Talk?” He frowned. And then he announced, “Okay. I build machine!”
Lani put her laptop aside. “C’mon, Trev.” She jumped up from the sofa and came to stand over them. “How ‘bout a snack?” She reached down and lifted him into her arms.
Trevor perked up. “I want graham crackers and milk. In the big kitchen.” He loved going down to the palace kitchens where the chefs and prep staff doted on him.
“Graham crackers and milk in the big kitchen it shall be.”
“Thank you.” Rule forced a smile for Lani as he rose from the floor.
With a quick nod, Lani carried Trevor to the door. He heard it close behind her.
He and Sydney were alone in the apartment.
She said, “Well?”
He handed her the tabloid.
She opened it and let out a throaty sound of disbelief. “Please. They have got to be kidding.”
“Sydney, I—”
She put up a hand. “Give me a minute. Let me read this garbage.”
So they stood there, on either side of Trevor’s pile of bright plastic wheels and cogs, as she read the damned thing through. She was a quick study. It didn’t take her long.
Finally, in disgust, she tossed the paper to the floor again. “That is the most outrageous bunch of crap I’ve ever read. Do you believe it? The nerve of those people. We’re suing, right?”
“I believe that is the plan.”
“You believe? It’s a pack of lies. Not a single shred of truth in the whole disgusting thing.”
“Well, and that’s the problem, actually. There is some truth in it. More than a shred.”
