5

“The new guy who started working for your father. He seems like a nice young man, and he looks well-mannered. Your father told you yesterday that someone new had moved into the room upstairs on the rooftop.”

A small smile appeared on Ghalia’s lips despite herself as she remembered the young man with the green eyes that reminded her of breathtaking nature.

She had met him that morning and mistakenly thought he was a thief.

Though, technically, there shouldn’t even be thieves around in broad daylight.

What kind of idiot would choose to rob someone during the day?

Especially a building owned by Haj Helmy.

But the moment she saw a strange man staying on their rooftop, the first thing that came to her mind was that he must have come to steal something.

“Where did you go just now?”

Her mother’s question pulled her out of her thoughts.

She cleared her throat and asked curiously,

“Honestly, Mom, he does seem like a decent guy. But what brought him here?”

Her mother raised an eyebrow suspiciously.

“And where did you see him to know that he’s a decent guy?”

Ghalia immediately realized she had walked straight into a trap.

Her mother wouldn’t let the subject go until she knew everything.

She stammered, trying to recover.

“I just saw him on the rooftop this morning while I was feeding the pigeons.”

“Hmm… The rooftop? All right, sweetheart, cut down on going up there so often. From now on, I’ll be the one going up. There’s a strange man living up there now. And I know you—when you see your pigeons, you lose track of everything around you.”

Ghalia pouted.

Pigeons were the one thing that always made her happy.

She absolutely adored birds, especially pigeons.

She had insisted that her father build a small coop on the rooftop so she could raise them.

Because her father spoiled her terribly, he had agreed despite her mother’s objections.

Her mother had argued that they didn’t need pigeons and had no reason to build a coop just to raise them.

But the very next day, her father hired workers to build a small pigeon coop for her.

Then he bought her the pigeons.

The moment her parents brought them home, Ghalia had spent the entire day on the rooftop, overjoyed with her new pets.

“Anything but the pigeons, Mom. You’re the person who knows best how much I love them. And as for that tenant—I don’t even know where he came from or when Dad decided to let someone live on the rooftop. I’ll just go up when he leaves for work. You said he works for Dad, didn’t you?”

Her mother shook her head helplessly and headed toward the kitchen, leaving Ghalia standing there with a happy smile she couldn’t quite explain.

It certainly wasn’t because of the pigeons.

It was because she was going to see the green-eyed young man again—the one whose eyes had caught her attention the moment she looked at them.

The following morning

Mrs. Suad approached her husband’s sister, who was sitting in the living room.

She carried a small tray filled with glasses of fresh juice to offer her.

“Welcome, Elham! The house is brighter with you here. Where have you been all this time?”

Elham rose from her seat and took the juice tray from her, returning the smile with a sly, fake one.