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“Oh, that’s just mag!” Mavis dropped down by Bella to poke the image of a keyboard. “It’s the total ult. You can play backup for Mommy! Thanks, Summerset.”
“I thought she’d enjoy it. Music’s in the blood.” Though his voice held as much cheer as Summerset’s ever did, the amusement had gone out of his eyes.
But for Bella, still shy of her first birthday, the world was bright lights and music.
She spotted Eve and Roarke, squealed with boundless joy.
“Das!” As fast as her chubby legs could manage, she toddled over to Eve, and her pretty face glowing with desperate love, lifted her arms. “Up!”
“Oh, well, I—”
“Up, up, up! Das.”
“Okay, okay.” Flustered, Eve reached down. Bella took it from there, all but climbing into Eve’s arms, then clapping both hands on Eve’s cheeks while she jabbered in the foreign language of baby.
“’Kay? ’Kay?” She made an exaggerated mmmm! sound as she pressed her lips to Eve’s.
“Yeah, sure.” It was hard not to grin around a kid just that pretty and happy, but the timing . . . But when Eve tried to set her down again, Bella clung like a burr, dropped the foreign tongue to a hissy whisper in Eve’s ear. Then laughed deep from the belly at the joke only she knew.
And with a bounce, she twisted in Eve’s arms, gave Eve a hot moment of sheer panic before she tried to fly across to Roarke.
“Ork!”
“Good idea. Great idea.” Mentally swiping sweat from her brow, Eve shoved Bella at Roarke.
He received similar treatment—hands, jabber, kiss—and his reaction slid along the same lines as Eve’s, until Bella tilted her head to one side and batted her lashes like a pro.
Despite it all, he laughed, found she seemed less likely to slip out of his hold when she settled on his hip. “And look at you now, quite the flirt already.”
She smiled, just a little sly, played with his hair.
“Men are her playthings.” Mavis’s voice trembled a little before she sipped the wine Summerset offered her.
“Perhaps she can keep me company for a while.” Stooping, Summerset picked up the toy.
“She’d like that,” Mavis began. “If she gets in the way—”
“Pretty girls are never in the way.” Smoothly, Summerset plucked her from Roarke, balanced her on his bony hip with an ease of motion that baffled Eve. Bella launched into a fresh spate of babbling, feet cheerfully kicking in fuzzy pink boots.
“I think that can be arranged,” Summerset told her as he carried her out.
She patted his cheek, said something that sounded like “some shit.” Eve found herself puzzling over it, until she put it together.
Shum shit. Summerset.
Now that she could appreciate.
Bella grinned over his shoulder, waved a hand. “Bye-bye! Bye-bye!”
“Someshit—that’s her name for him. You gotta love it. Did he actually understand her?” Eve wondered.
“She was flirting for cookies,” Mavis said, then just sat, closed her eyes.
“Mavis, what happened?” Leonardo sat beside her, cuddled her as he would a child. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“The girls. We heard the media blast, remember? All those girls. Roarke’s building. They said it was your building.”
“Just recently, yes.”
