"Do you want me to call you Grandma?" Xion asked, half-joking, half-serious.
"Oh, no!" Nazia waved her hand in vehement refusal. "I'd be much happier if you dropped the titles altogether."
"…Okay."
Xion was slightly thrown by the strong reaction. It felt like an oddly intense rejection, but he didn't press the issue. Not everyone wanted a surprise grandson, after all.
Contrary to what Xion assumed, Nazia's thoughts were far too simple. She was just saving herself.
Becoming Xion's grandmother, tempting as the title was, also meant becoming his partner's grandmother. And that was a complication Nazia wasn't prepared to face.
Just imagining that icy, soul-piercing glare from Darius was enough to shake her straight back to her senses.
It wasn't that she didn't want to accept the role. She just didn't dare.
So, with practiced grace, she smoothly steered the conversation away, toward something that might ease her brooding master's burdens.
