Nisha shivered. She hated the word sweetmeats, for no good reason except that the staff at the Sripore palace used that word to describe mithai, or any dessert really, and Nisha hated thinking about meat in her dessert. Which was 100 percent Nisha.

She grabbed two sandwiches from the plate and blew Vansh a kiss with a thank-you. India and Esha took only one sandwich each like civilized humans.

“Nursing mother. Must make milk.” Nisha pointed at her breasts with the sandwiches and Vansh rolled his eyes. No way was he reacting with embarrassment. First, his sisters had beaten any embarrassment about womanly things out of him young. Second, if he reacted, they’d lecture him about how breastfeeding was perfectly natural. It was. Even so, a lecture about it over cucumber sandwiches wasn’t at the top of his list of fun conversations.

India Dashwood was kneeling on the floor beside his grandmother with her hands on Aji’s knees. She was massaging above the kneecap with careful movements.

Vansh dropped a quick kiss on Aji’s head.

“I haven’t seen you since breakfast last morning,” their grandmother said. It was her way. Aji always started every conversation with her grandchildren with when she’d seen them last. This usually involved tears when Vansh was away and talked to her on the phone, at least a few times a week. It was much more lighthearted when he lived in the same house as her.

“I had lunch with you up here yesterday, Aji,” he said without much conviction because he knew what she was going to say in response.

“Well, scarfing down a salad in ten minutes and then running off does not count. How do you have these big muscles when you don’t eat anything?”

Vansh scooped up his nephew from his baby carrier. Ram had come into the world on the day Yash won the election, and Vansh didn’t think there was another being on earth he loved more than this guy. Maybe Mishka, Nisha and Neel’s older daughter, who was nine going on nineteen. But it was close.

“Ram Raje Graff, you are unarguably the most beautiful baby ever born on God’s green earth,” he told his nephew, who listened with rapt interest, his lovely blue-gray eyes twinkling. “You have the legendary lashes of your Vansh Mama. Now, this isn’t for the faint of heart. It brings with it far too much attention from women. But I will share my tricks for managing the adulation. And don’t worry about the cheeks. They might be the chubbiest cheeks in existence, but they will give way to this finely chiseled jaw.”

“Will he also grow into the obnoxious vanity?” Ram’s mother asked, not looking in the least bit worried.