Protecting Love (LarssonSiblingSeries #3)

CHAPTER FIVE

Betty

You're a born performer. Several family members tell me through text message, saying that I stole the show last night at the wedding reception. I'm still buzzing from the high of the performance, feeling like I could run a marathon with all the energy. I kick my feet back and forth against my mattress sending them all thank you texts back.

The majority of our family will already be on their way back to Holland. But, my Oma is staying behind a few extra days to carry on the celebrations. Mama will be entertaining while dad jets off to Paris for a few days to show his face at an art gallery exhibition he part owns. Mama says that he has no business going there and he's using it as an excuse to get out of her mother's visit.

"Delilah, get back here," Edward growls from outside my door, feet hitting the floorboards.

I sit up in bed and pull on my dressing gown, hearing Delilah shout something back.

"I'm doing it for your good. You don't need the stress right now."

"Betty!" Delilah bellows.

I dash out of the room to find Delilah standing near the bookcase, arms crossed over her chest and Edward near my bedroom door. "Everything all right?"

"No," Delilah narrows her eyes at my brother. "Edward won't let my mum stay over at the apartment. He expects for her to stay in a hotel."

I turn to see Edward massaging his temples. I approach him calmly. "Why can't DeDe's mum stay over?"

Edward closes his eyes. "Because, no offence, baby," he winces in Delilah's direction, and I want to shout for him to stop while he's ahead, "but, your mother is a little batty. I like my home to be a peaceful place, not a trashy 90's nightclub."

Oh, Jesus.

Delilah grits her jaw. "Excuse me? Do not talk about my mum in that way."

Edward lifts his hands up. "If Sabrina is coming too then there won't be enough room."

"We have a queen sized bed in the guest room," she responds, looking like she's not to be messed with today.

"A guest room that we are turning into a nursery. Come on, D, compromise with me here."

"No, I will not. They are staying here, or I'll get a bloody hotel room with them," she says, storming into the kitchen.

Edward gives me a helpless look, and then we both follow her, seeing she's getting the vegetables ready for her morning juice. "I'm not letting you stay in a hotel room when you have a perfectly good room at home."

"Oh, so you'd let my family?"

"Yeah, I would," he shrugs, and I want to hit him beside the head. Stubborn man.

Sensing the pair of them are getting nowhere with this argument I step in to try and cool things. "Edward, don't you think you are a bit of a hypocrite right now?"

"What?" he glances my way. "I'm not a hypocrite."

I nod. "Yes, you are, because you let me stay here, yet not DeDe's family who will be staying only a few nights?"

"It's different," he walks towards the fridge to get out his overnight oats.

Delilah winks at me. "Oh, is that right? Please share with us how different it is?"

"Oh, stuff off the both of you. They can stay. I'll just make sure I'm at work when they are here," Edward says, grabbing a spoon from the kitchen drawers and heading out of the room.