Chapter 154

Sarah POV

It was an odd sort of coup, but Whitfield had agreed to join us for high tea, to which the girls had become completely addicted. I had to admit I enjoyed it as well, and Eliot had moved dinner back an hour in our schedule in recognition.

The fact that Zane was fine with changing his household’s schedule back an hour just made me love him more. Lately, everything he did made me love him more.

Yes, I knew I loved Zane, and I knew he loved me back. The issue wasn’t love. It was the impossibility of being together, and I couldn’t blame him for it.

So, I sat there on the loveseat in the front sitting room and watched as Eliot and a new housemaid named Hannah set out the tea with towers of sandwiches and slices of cake. I thought of Miss Liesel then, another car accident, and another hit-and-run.

I sat there for a moment, teacup in hand, and wondered who I had become. Who was I? This weird woman around whom people died?

But what could I do? Why were the people around me dying? Was I some sort of secret agent and didn’t know it? Did I understand the politics of assassins and mysterious fires and nuclear bombs? What did I know about anything?

I sat there, and I had never felt more ridiculous. I loved Chloe, Zane, and Grace more than I loved myself. But what could I do about it? What did my love matter at all?

I had no more real power than I’d had months ago, mother to a little orphan wolf holding down various jobs to pay the rent. Human mother to a little orphan.

A wolf alpha orphan.

I had been so naive. But then I shook off the memories with a reminder of what my life had been less than a year ago, and I scolded myself with old worries about whether I could afford enough protein for Chloe to develop fully.

So I smiled and asked Whitfield how many sugars he wanted in his tea while the girls smiled and giggled. I pointed out how the sandwiches were crust-less.

This was my life now: this opulent life that would see Chloe and Grace grow up with every privilege, every happiness, and I thanked the goddess for it all. To wish for more for myself was just greed.

“The girls are more popular than ever,” Whitfield said. “Your current strategy of showing them occasionally so they don’t get mysterious but keeping them out of the limelight so they don’t get common is working perfectly.”

“Is that my strategy?” I couldn’t help asking because it hadn’t been. “Just what is ‘limelight,’ anyway?”

“Inventor Goldsworthy Gurney developed a blowpipe that burned hydrogen and oxygen to create an extremely hot flame that he called ‘limelight,’” Lainey said, which told me she had prepared for this conversation with my preference for trivia in mind.

I scowled at her, and she smiled happily in return. I wanted to growl at her next.

“Is that so?” Whitfield asked. “How interesting.”

“Eliot made us smoked salmon sandwiches,” Chloe said.

“And cucumber,” Grace said. “They’re my favorite.”

“I thought your favorite was the strawberries,” Zane said before sipping at his cup.

“They are, but those are strawberries. Cucumbers go in the sandwiches.”

Zane nodded and suggested in a deadpan tone, “Perhaps you’d really like a strawberry and cucumber sandwich.”

Grace scrunched up her face. “Bleh.”

“Bleh?”

“Things don’t belong in the same sandwich just because they taste good.”

Everyone laughed, and not long after that, the girls drained their cups and went to play outside. I knew they were headed to the creek and that Mavis would be keeping an eye on them.

“What’s on your mind?” Zane asked me as soon as they left the room and it was just the four of us left.

“Strawberries and cucumbers,” I said.

“Really?”

“So much has been happening in my life, things have been so busy, even frantic. I’m wondering if we’re putting strawberries and cucumbers in the same sandwich.”

“I’m going to need help with that metaphor,” Whitfield said.

“Everything has been feeling urgent, crisis-level, but some things cannot be connected.”

Zane nodded and then explained to Lainey and Whitfield about the pattern Travis and the police had found, “Go time, gentlewolves,” in the free ads section of Cavendish.com.

“All right,” Whitfield said, “so we need to figure out what’s strawberries and what’s cucumbers, or what’s actually a threat to your lives, what’s a threat to your lifestyles, and what’s just bad luck or unearthed corruption.”

“The actual physical threats are for Agents John Travis and Alicia Wetmore,” Zane said.

“John is Travis’s first name?” I asked in surprise.

“Yes. Did you think it was ‘agent’?”

“I thought it was Travis,” I said, knowing I sounded petulant and not caring.

“So our separation of—does anyone mind if I stop saying strawberries and cucumbers?” Whitmore asked.

No one did.

“We need to treat possible scandals as separate from social issues. The mine and the school are associated with Sarah in the public eye, and in both cases that cast her in a highly favorable light.”

“Your collaboration with Melissa Wilson is particularly popular,” Lainey said. “You work very well together.”

“Yes, I’ve been glad about that,” I said, which was putting it mildly.

“So, those are the social issues,” Whitmore said. “Which leaves us with scandals.”

“The primary one being that I’m a human living in the Pack Alpha’s household.”

“You were sanctioned, or at least not rejected, by the Luna Temple, but for many wolves, that’s fodder for conspiracy theories.”

“We need data,” Lainey said.

“No surveys,” I said firmly. “We’ve discussed this.”

“There are ways to gather data without looking like you’re collecting data.” She looked at Zane. “What I need are two assistants, just temporarily, to filter through the information coming in online.”

Zane shrugged with one shoulder. “Hire whomever you need.”

“Thank you.”

“When it comes to your being human,” Whitfield said, “we do, well, sorry, but a strawberry in the cucumbers.”

“You’re thinking of the anti-human terrorist group that took a shot at Sarah outside the hospital,” Zane said.

“Yes, to which we might also attribute the attack on Grace,” the publicist said, shooting me an apologetic look.

“And Marshall Kim,” I said, “and Miss Liesel.”

“Who?” Lainey asked.

“The previous housekeeper,” Zane said. “She quit, and then a month ago she was killed in a hit-and-run accident. The police have nothing on it.”

I bit my lip.

“What?” he asked sharply.

“It’s just, well, that’s the second hit-and-run,” I said.

“Who’s the first?”

I hesitated to say it, but it was too late now to keep silent. “Scott’s mother.”