Chapter 193 The News

• Valerie called her mother that evening.
• Xavier was in the kitchen making dinner when he heard the call begin in the sitting room. He couldn't hear the words exactly. Just the particular quality of Valerie's voice which shifted within thirty seconds from normal to something warmer and then her mother's response which didn't require proximity to understand because it arrived through the phone at a volume that suggested considerable enthusiasm.
• He kept cooking.