Chapter 187

Sarah POV

“She’s back,” Grace told me.

Frowning, I turned away from my desk and the paperwork on it to see Grace standing in the doorway of my office. Behind me now, a breeze blew in the open French doors, and I smelled jasmine. It was jarring to see with this the frown on my little girl’s face.

“Who’s back, honey?” I asked, pushing away from the desk and opening my arms for a hug.

She ran over and got into my lap in a routine we’d long since mastered, and I held her close.

“Who is back?” I asked very gently.

“Ella. She’s having coffee with Daddy.”

“Oh.” Goddess, I hadn’t even thought of her lately, my ex-employer and Zane’s sister-in-law. She’d been in Paris, hadn’t she? Wearing haute couture and getting her photo taken over and over.

“I suppose I should go down and greet her,” I said.

“Do I have to go?”

The worried note in Grace’s voice shook me. I had long suspected Ella had been purposefully eroding Grace’s self-esteem, but I had thought perhaps it was some misguided attempt to protect her or coddle her. In that moment, it struck me how it could be so much more.

I also realized I actually had been thinking about Ella lately, but it was through Olivia’s journals. Their relationship hadn’t been all that close, and Olivia had a tendency to see her beta sister as a sort of extension of herself, a part of her world, not an autonomous entity.

What had it been like for Ella to grow up in Olivia’s alpha shadow? True, empirically speaking, while Olivia was lovely, Ella was stunningly beautiful, but that was just about show. I knew status meant more to wolves than appearances.

“You can stay in your playroom,” I said. “Is Chloe there?”

“No.” The single word sounded betrayed.

“She’s in the kitchen.”

“Yes.”

“OK, well, I’ll go down, and you can stay up here. Miss Carmen is coming soon, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“That will be lovely, won’t it? And after your lesson, we’ll say you’re tired, and you can stay up here all you like.”

“Really?”

“Promise.”

“OK.” She climbed down off my lap then, and we walked to the playroom. I kissed her on the head and said she was a wonderful girl, which was only true, and then I went downstairs.

Ella, Zane, and Chloe were indeed in the kitchen. Chloe was sitting on a barstool watching the adults, or rather, watching as Ella made a show of talking about her time in Paris. I entered quietly and would have been content to listen with a smile on my face, but upon seeing me Ella went into a sort of spasm of joy.

“Sarah!” she shrieked before running up to me and catching me in a sisterly hug. “You’re looking so wonderful!”

She leaned back to twinkle at me. “I’ve been following your adventures! What great work you’ve been doing!

“The mind, the school overhaul, it’s been amazing! I’ve been telling everyone I meet in Paris that we’re family, you being my niece’s goddess-mother and all. It’s made me the talk of every party I go to.”

“How lovely,” I managed.

She squeezed my shoulders and beamed. “To know that you have been brought into the lives of my nieces and are helping Zane raise them, you cannot know how happy that makes me.”

Chloe giggled. Ella turned her dazzling self to focus on her niece.

“You’re happy too, aren’t you?”

Chloe nodded.

“Well, I’ll see if I can’t make you even happier,” Ella said next, reaching down to the floor to pick up a large shopping bag. Then she looked around. “Where’s Grace?”

“Her voice coach is coming in a few minutes,” I said. “Please excuse her. She takes it very seriously.”

“And so she should! I’ve been reading about her, and they say she’s going to be a very talented singer.” Ella looked at Chloe and grinned.

She reached into her bag and brought out a dress box with some French sprawled over the lid. She put it down in front of Chloe with a flourish.

“Now, I bought this a little big because you’re growing so fast, but there are ways to make dresses a little tighter and not much you can do once a dress is too small.”

“Thank you, Aunt Ella,” Chloe said before she opened the box. Inside was a dress of pure silver sparkles, and Chloe’s joy was obviously genuine as she pulled it from the box.

“Thank you!” she said again and ran out of the kitchen, I was guessing to go try it on.

“That was nice of you, dear,” Zane said. He smiled at me. “Coffee?”

“Please.” I smiled at Ella. We were all just smiling so nicely.

“So, things went well in Paris?”

Ella nodded and launched into a story about a photoshoot that featured a dozen human male bodybuilders who lifted her like she weighed nothing for hours.

“The concept was fabulous. Elani was trying to turn the concepts of fashion upside down, so he put the humans in positions of obvious strength and leadership and the wolves in positions where they were being supported or even flying. The clothes were so light and delicate. It was perfect.”

“What’s the magazine?” I asked, noting that Hans had let Miss Carmen in through the front door. In a moment, I heard her feet on the stairs.

“Madame Figaro, which usually doesn’t go so all-out for a shoot, but it went splendidly.” She turned slightly and looked delighted. “Perfect!”

Zane and I turned as well to see Chloe in her new dress. Personally, I thought she looked like she was being eaten by a giant silver sequin, but Chloe twirled and laughed, so I was happy.

“I have a dress for Grace too, of course.” Ella put another box on the kitchen counter.

“She’ll be sure to model it after her voice lessons,” Zane said.

“Oh, that’s lovely, but you know I can’t stay.” Ella made a sad face. “But I’ll be back soon. I want to show off some of my new clothes at the best places in town.”

“Of course you do,” Zane said with indulgent amusement.

Faintly, the piano upstairs began to play, and in a moment Grace’s voice floated down to us, a poem of music notes, and it was only her warm-up.

I was looking slightly away, but for a critical moment, I saw pure fury flash through Ella’s eyes as her lips tightened. For just that second, she looked downright murderous. Some primal instinct inside me went on the alert, but I managed to keep my face still.

“Is that Grace? Oh my,” she said in sweet tones. “She is talented!”

“Kind of you to say, my dear. Are you sure you won’t stay a bit longer?” Zane asked.

“I must off! You know how things are.” She brushed a kiss past Zane’s cheek, turned to shoot me a look of affection, and then breezed out.

Zane nodded to me amiably and said he had a phone call to make. I just stood there with my coffee cup in my hand.

Ella was jealous of Grace, jealous that a little girl had a real talent. Just what had Ella said and done to Grace as she was growing up? How much of Grace’s shyness was a learned response to Ella’s inner demons?

How was I going to keep Ella away from Grace, and what made me think Chloe was safe? Perhaps that dress really was an attempt to consume her, to make her less than she was so Ella could shine all the brighter.

Growing up with her alpha sister, watching as her future was planned and her mating to the Pack Alpha was negotiated like an international peace treaty, how much had Ella resented her?

The murderous fury I’d seen for just one second in Ella’s eyes: how deeply did it run and how far back?