Lilly is anxious

Feeling embarrassed of his expression, Jeremy tossed a towel to cover the mirror and then proceeded to his shower. 

Meanwhile, in the King's mansion master bedroom, Lilly could be heard sighing a million times on her side of the bed waking Joseph up, "What is it honey, isn't it a bit too early to be tired or stressed? You just woke up..", he probed in his half asleep state,

Lilly sat up straight to let out her grievance, "Honey, I am worried..."

Seeing the distress on his wife's face, Joseph instantly became fully awake to sit up straight with his beloved, "What are you worried about?", he asked while pulling her in for a warm cuddle.

Buried in her husband's chest, Lilly laid all her worries out in the open, "This game Linda is playing, I fear it won't end well..." 

Joseph squeezed her even more, given her health, he knew it was important for her to stay away from stress, but it could not be helped, given that their only connection to their eldest child was playing such a reckless game, "I understand, but we have to trust her"

Lilly lifted her head to make eye contact with Joseph, her eyes clearly red from crying making Joseph's heart heavy. Lilly looked at him with even more anxiousness hovering around her face, and she stammered, "B-But honey, I don't want to repeat the same events from years ago, John is-"

Joseph's face turned dark, and he hurriedly put his finger on Lilly's lips, "Shh, we promised to never talk about that again! What are you doing now? What if someone hears?"

Lilly gently removed his finger from her mouth, and sighed heavily, "Eventually we will have to come clean, Linda has to hear it from us because if the truth comes out, I am telling you, she won't forgive us. We are also responsible for the death of her pare-"

Joseph jumped out of bed, to put on his gown as fast as he could, failing to understand the sudden change in Lilly's behavior, "No! Lilly King, never mention a word of this, in that way, she will never know." he yelled out of frustration, but it did not dishearten Lilly because she understood where it was coming from, after all, they made the decision to keep this big secret collectively, it was their burden to carry. 

Joseph made his way to the patio by the pool, still flabbergasted by Lilly's concerns, it had never been a problem before, so why now? 'is it perhaps old age?', he pondered as he lit a cigarette, something he stopped doing many years ago. He pulled once and instantly choked on the smoke, his rough hoarse coughs made Lilly run downstairs thinking it was a medical emergency, "I must have made you extremely anxious.." she chimed seeing the box of cigarettes in his hand, "I am sorry honey, because of me you had to smoke after 25 years of repentance." Seeing the guilt that covered Lilly's face, Joseph threw the box on the table and rushed over to comfort her, "No honey, it's not you. I know you are worried about Linda, but we need to trust her, Linda is smarter than we think. And we absolutely cannot tell her-"

"Tell me what?", Linda's voice suddenly pierced through their backs making them jump in fear, 'Did she hear us?' both of them thought, 

To avoid suspicion, Joseph jumped to reply, "That grandpa began smoking, your grandmother caught me.", he tried to remain as natural as he could, but in reality, his heart was beating at the speed of sound, and he was trembling in his shoes, 'Please let her buy it' he prayed silently awaiting his granddaughter's reply,

"Grandpa! No, we spoke about this?!", Linda replied with a disappointed look, 

"I am sorry honey, I just had a bad dream...", Joseph replied with an awkward smile, and hearing her husband's shaky voice, Lilly jumped in, with a less agitated look, "And I already gave him a proper scolding," she chuckled while going in for Linda's hug in efforts to change the subject, "Oh honey, why are you here so early? We just saw each other yesterday. Is everything okay?", 

Linda dropped her face, and teased her grandmother, "Oh, you are tired of me already...fine, I will leave...",

Lilly held both her hands and a smile covered her wrinkled face, "What? Us? Tired of you? Never! I am just surprised, you don't usually come to visit in the mornings, especially on Mondays. So imagine my surprise. Come, I will make you breakfast...", Lilly said leading Linda to the kitchen, before she completely turned to look her tense husband, who had been holding his breath the whole time, 'If it were a second later, everything would have been ruined.' seeing their backs, he finally took a deep breath out to release all the tension he held in.

Linda took a sit at her usual chair by the kitchen counter, "It's okay granny, I ate. I just brought these over, I forgot to give them to you yesterday.", Linda handed Lilly a brown envelope, then proceeded to brief her on its content, "That is the list of the artists that will be auctioning their work at the charity gala event next weekend, I need your approval on those and also confirmation of the guest list."

Lilly put on her glasses and began scanning through the document in her hand but her pleased expression suddenly became gloomy when she was reading the page with Jeremy's name on it, "No Linda, why is he here?", she asked with concern in her voice,

"I knew you would give me that look, but Granny, he is really a good artist. and I came prepared with the portfolio, I never compromise on quality, you know that. This is not personal, it's strictly business." She gave her a second white envelope with Jeremy's work. 

Lilly sighed heavily, 'There is no stopping this now' she thought seeing the precious look on her granddaughter, 'She is clearly smitten by this boy yet she insists is business...', "Okay, let me look at it, I will call you to come get them or I can ask the driver to drop them off."

"Fair enough, I have to go now, I have a meeting in 2 hours",

As soon as Linda left, Joseph came and wrapped his arms around a visibly worried Lilly, "I really hope she knows what she is doing. She might be dealing with forces above her."

"Don't worry, she is not alone, if the need arises, we will show up for her. We won't make the same mistake twice.", Joseph assured her with determination on his face, 'Not this time.' he declared.

In the car, Linda was visibly in deep thought, Jackson kept stealing glances at her from the rearview mirror, 'Did she get scolded? Was it about Jeremy? Did Madam Lilly figure it out? I mean it's not like the young Ms. can easily hide such things. It didn't take much for me to know something happened last night. Should I ask her? But if she did get scolded, it is my fault for leaving her there...'. Jackson's guilt immediately set in, he cleared his throat preparing to apologize when Linda suddenly spoke, "It has nothing to do with you".

"Oh..how did you kn- anyway, what is it then?"

"I cannot tell you the details, but my grandparents were acting weird this morning. I feel like they are hiding something..", 'I clearly saw my grandpa let out a sigh of relief when Grammy was whisking me away', She thought as she recalled the glimpse of Joseph she saw through the glass door by the patio.