“Kiki,” he said, grazing my shoulder with a light hand that then traveled along the line of my neck to my face, resting briefly on my lower lip even though that is not the way you’d normally greet a friend. He flashed me a look of pure intensity: white-flecked blue eyes, dark lashes, straight black brows. See what I mean? Trailing a finger along a jawline: sexy. Touching a lip: sexy. Eye contact: always sexy.

“Thank you,” I whispered into his ear. He isn’t tall, Declan: only an inch or two taller than I am, but trim and strong. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you keeping Beau and Rorie. And I can’t wait for you guys to join us in Morocco.”

“Delighted to have the little man,” said Declan, dropping his finger from my face and ruffling Beau’s hair. Beau produced a happy chirping sound. Declan turned his attention to Rorie, who still lay sprawled on top of the quilted Indian coverlet. “You’re welcome as well, Aurora.”

“Can we stay here?” said Rorie.

“Ah, well . . .”

“Roar,” I said. “Please don’t bring this up again.”

Rorie sat up, conceding defeat. I expected hostility but she surprised me with a shrug. “Okay, Mom,” she said. “Maybe the Alhambra will be dazzling.”

Overreacting to your victory over a teenager would be counterproductive, so I kept my cool. “Worst-case scenario, you’ll have lots of gorgeous pictures that you can InstaTweet on your FaceSnap.”

“Very funny.”

“I am so sorry you can’t come to the Alhambra, Mommy,” said Beau. “Declan and I will take lots of pictures for your Antigram.”

Rorie snorted in delight.

“We will,” agreed Declan, before pausing to take this in. “Wait, pictures for your what?”

“And we will take lots of notes, right, Declan?”

I spoke at the same time as Beau: “I don’t actually have a—it’s something that—never mind, it was a joke.”

Rorie slid from the bed, grinning at the success of her mockery of me. “I’m gonna repack.”

“Beau, why don’t you help her?” I suggested. Beau, still shouldering his overloaded duffel, obediently trotted after his sister.

I’d been rolling my scarf—a delicate, almost transparent square of fine blue cotton—but now I set it down, one edge still loose.

“What’s happening at work, Dec?”

His back straightened, belying the casual note in his voice. “We’re close.”

“The antiviral?” Declan’s lab was currently assembling the final data needed in order to request a CTA—a Clinical Trial Application—for a medication he’d spent the last few years developing. The drug was a small fragment of an antibody, called a nanobody. While not as expensive to develop and produce as monoclonal antibodies, nanobodies were still costly, meaning Declan’s small outfit continually faced serious funding challenges.

“Yeah. A lot of data to sort still, but yeah. If all goes well, human trials soon.”

“And you’re up for taking the kids out of town anyway? Ah, Dec.”