Chapter 196

Sarah POV

Ella texted both me and Zane for lunch with the girls on Saturday at the latest must-go restaurant. Even as I was reading it on my phone, Zane walked through the open door to my study with a frown.

“I’ve become so wary of her even, ‘Let’s do lunch at Cézaane’s with Sarah and the girls tomorrow. My treat,’ has me looking for hidden messages.”

“I got, ‘Bring the girls and your lovely self to lunch with me and Zane tomorrow, OK?’ So I suppose we could compare the texts and look for a hidden cipher.”

He sighed through his nose. “Why Cézaane’s, I wonder?”

“Isn’t it just the latest place to be seen?”

“It caters to wolves,” he said. “I had to tell them to tone down their anti-human marketing when the first opened, and they’ve edged up to the line ever since. Not to mention the menu features a variety of raw meats and offal.”

I made a face. “Can we make a counter-suggestion?”

“We can do what we like, and as far as I’m concerned, she’s never seeing either of the girls again.”

“But you do think we should see her?”

He shrugged, walking across the room to sit down in front of my desk. “If we suddenly cut ties, she’ll pester us to death with requests to meet. I’m thinking a gradual withdrawal is best.”

I nodded. “We could suggest meeting somewhere else and then just not bring the girls. If she asks, we can say they had a playdate.”

He nodded, then looked at me uncertainly.

“Yes?”

“Olivia’s journals. You said she talks about Ella?”

I nodded. “Quite a bit in the early books, but then less as you and then her marriage and pregnancy become more important.”

“Ella told me they were very close growing up.”

I snorted. “Olivia had a—”

He raised his eyebrows at me.

I shifted in my seat. “I’m sorry to say this, but it’s important for the girls, so I need to say that Olivia doesn’t always come across as an example of the greatest behavior in her journals.”

“Translation?”

I shrugged. “She was quite young in the early journals, so she wrote some things that I’m sure later she would say differently.”

A reluctant grin curled one side of his lips. “Olivia had a what?”

I grit my teeth. “She had a bit of a superiority complex, especially when it came to Ella. As far as Olivia seemed to have been concerned, Ella needed to defer to her on anything important because she was the alpha.

“From what I can tell, they had a lot of arguments where Olivia argued her alpha status made her the more valuable sister, and Ella argued that she was prettier.”

“When they were pups, you mean?”

“Well, no. This continued after she was mated. And when Olivia was pregnant, well, you can just hear how, well, proud she was, which is fine, but she also seemed to think it was her birthright being married to you, getting pregnant right away, having alpha twins.”

“Olivia didn’t know Chloe and Grace were going to be alphas.”

I grimaced. “Well, she did, actually. She had them tested in the womb.”

Zane frowned. “She never told me that.”

“I know. She debated telling you and then decided she didn’t need to.”

“Why not?”

“You would get them when they were born. Until then, they were all hers.

“I see.” Zane looked out over the hedge maze in silence for a few minutes. “I had no idea.”

“Twins are common among wolves, but twins alphas? Incredibly rare. She wrote that she wasn’t going to let Ella have free access to the girls because her beta-ness wouldn’t be good for them. I think, well.”

Zane made a circular motion with his hand.

“I think she thought it was wrong that she wasn’t the prettier one between her and Ella, that she should be superior in every way. When Ella got her first modeling job, Olivia was furious. And when Ella made a comment about how she hoped the girls inherited her looks, she told Ella she’d never see her children at all.”

Zane nodded slowly. “That explains it.” He saw my inquiring look. “Ella wasn’t there when Olivia had her girls. She claimed she couldn’t get out of a photoshoot.”

“I can’t tell from the journal entries around the time exactly what else was said between them. There’s no mention of Ella at all in the last part of her final journal. Of course, I’d know more if I could find the journal before the last one, but it’s not with the others you gave me.”

“I know,” Zane said, surprising me greatly. With a nod, he stood up and left and then returned a moment later with a little leather-bound book in his hands. He opened it, flipped a few pages near the end, and then gave it to me.

Why did no one tell me being pregnant was horrible? I feel sick all the time, not just in the mornings, like people say. I’ve put on enough weight, but I know the doctor wants me to put on more, especially since it’s twins, like I knew it would be.

I find myself daydreaming about my twin daughters’ futures, my hands on my belly, a silly smile on my face. But I am increasingly worried that I won’t be there to see it. I don’t know why.

Something is wrong, and I don’t know what.

I nodded. “Yes. That feeling that something is wrong is all over the last book.” I looked up at him. “Why did you hold this one back?”

He held out his hand, and I gave the journal back to him. He flipped pages near the beginning this time, sighed, and gave it back.

Zane came in drunk last night, basically fell on top of me, came inside me, and then went to sleep like a pig. I could feel it taking; what a great way to become pregnant. Is this the sort of boorish behavior I get to look forward to forever?

It’s so different being married to this man who farts and burps and picks his nose. Today at lunch, he was on the phone and eating. He shoved this forkful of corn in his face and kept talking. I saw the chewed-up corn in his mouth, and my stomach turned.

I cried this afternoon, hiding from Zane by saying I had a headache. A heartache more like. I could have had anyone, and this is what I got.

I looked up from the page at Zane’s disappointed face. “Harsh,” I said.

“Deserved, I suppose. When she died, a few months later, actually, I decided to read her journals and started with the one that included our mating. I made it that far and stopped.”

“It’s not fair to judge your marriage with some petulant words said while she was angry at you. Everyone goes through an adjustment period, and we all fart and burp.”

A rueful smile replaced his look of disappointment.

“I’ve read just about all the journals now, and she was her happiest during those last months, pregnant with her alpha daughters and mated to you. You made her very happy.”

“Goddess, I hope so.”