Corina yelled through her laughter, “Right! Sure!”
Maria giggled. “Good one. Guess what? I can’t count that high either.”
“I’m sorry, I only meant─”
Corina laughed nonstop. “I’ll tell you how much that is. You can buy a whole town with it, that’s what it is. Who in the world can afford that? A king?”
Alina dropped her gaze again, looking as though she had insulted someone without knowing it. “No… Lord.”
Corina’s giggles faded quickly as everyone drowned in another moment of awkwardness. Alina’s attitude was far from someone making a joke. It entirely altered Corina’s attitude.
“Lord? Lord of what…?” Corina asked, far more serious. “Lord of fuckin’ what?”
“A place.”
“Oh, really? Thanks for enlightening us. What place?”
“I don’t know.”
She fumed. “Are you taking me for a fool?”
“Corina, dear, your temper.” Tati threw his arm over her to extinguish her outburst.
“Don’t you see the games she’s playing? She’s lying straight to my face.”
Cotiso interfered, “Corina, please. I’m sure that she didn’t mean anything of the sort and that there’s a good explanation to all this.”
He then turned to Alina and spoke slowly, like someone talking to a child. “Alina, dear, I want you to listen to me very carefully now. Did your last Master tell you to call him a lord?”