Chapter 0035
Agnes
The next morning dawned bright and clear, and I found myself once again heading toward the parlor for another etiquette lesson
with Rosa. Elijah was busy today, so he wouldn’t be attending. I was a bit relieved not to have to interact with him, but I did
wonder what Rosa had in store for me.
As I entered the room, the soft clinking of china greeted me. The table was set impeccably with delicate teacups, gleaming silverware, and an array of tiny pastries that looked almost too exquisite to eat.
“Good morning, Luna Agnes,” Rosa said, glancing up from her seat.
“Good morning,” I replied with a polite smile. My eyes traveled over the table setting. “This looks lovely.”
“Yes. We’ll be practicing table etiquette today.” She gestured toward the teapot. “Why don’t you pour us some tea? Let’s see how you handle serving.”
“Of course.” I moved to the table, carefully lifting the ornate porcelain teapot. Thanks to my years of working in the restaurant industry, things like this were a no–brainer for me. I poured tea into her cup first, then mine, making sure not to spill a single drop, then offered her a few pastries and plated them up nicely.
“Well done,” Rosa said. “Your movements are graceful.”
I took a seat across from her. “Thank you. I actually waited tables for many years, so I’ve had a lot of practice.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Is that so? I thought you came from a high–status family.”
“I did,” I replied, suddenly feeling awkward. “But… I haven’t been involved with my family for years.”
“I see.” A silence settled between us before she broke it again. “Tell me, Agnes, how are things between you and Elijah?”
I glanced up, slightly startled by the directness of her question. “Oh, they’re… fine. We’re still getting to know each other.”
“It must be challenging, given the circumstances.”
“It is,” I admitted, looking down at my teacup. “Everything happened so quickly during the Mate Trial. We didn’t have much time to… connect.”
Rosa smiled gently, which was surprising given her stern demeanor yesterday. “It’s not every day that one is thrust into such a
role.”
I chuckled softly as I stirred my tea. “That’s an understatement.”
She set her teacup down. “You know, I’ve known Elijah since he was a child.”
My interest piqued at that. “Really?” I asked, sitting up a little straighter.
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“Yes,” she nodded. “I was his nanny for many years. I changed his diapers, actually.”
I blinked in surprise. “I had no idea.” Elijah certainly didn’t tell me about that. But then again, I never asked.
“There’s much you don’t know about him,” she mused, her eyes twinkling a little as she took another sip of her tea.
I couldn’t help myself; if there was a chance to get a better insight on Elijah, I had to hear it. I leaned forward slightly. “What was he like as a child?”
A mischievous glint appeared in Rosa’s eyes. “Oh, he was quite the handful. Would you like to hear a story?”
“Absolutely,” I replied eagerly.
She chuckled. “When Elijah was about five years old, he had a rather… dramatic encounter with a spider. He was in the bathtub when he spotted it on the wall. The poor boy was so terrified that he leaped out of the tub and ran screaming through the house- completely naked.”
I burst into laughter, nearly spilling my tea. “You’re joking!”
“Oh, I wish I was,” Rosa said, chuckling a little along with me. “It took me ages to catch him and convince him that the spider was gone. He trailed water all over the house, and his little rear end-” She paused, shaking her head. “Well, I’ll save some dignity for him. But it was quite the sight.”
I shook my head, still smiling. “It’s hard to imagine him like that,” I said, and it was true. Seeing Elijah smile was a rare occurrence. He seemed so… stern. The only time I’d really seen him being truly lighthearted was that night he cooked for us in the kitchen, and even then, I figured he was just putting on a smile for Thea’s sake and not because he was actually happy.
“Well, he wasn’t always the stoic Alpha you see today,” Rosa mused. “He had a soft heart and a wild imagination. Loved collecting rocks and leaves, always bringing little treasures home.” She sighed and looked down at her plate. “But… becoming Alpha changed him. The weight of responsibility can harden even the kindest souls.”
I looked down at my hands. “I’ve noticed he can be quite reserved.”
“Except when he’s with Thea,” Rosa pointed out. “He adores that little girl. She’s the brightest light in his life.”
I smiled as I thought about them together. The DNA test proved that Thea wasn’t my daughter, but if she had been, I’d been finding it more and more difficult to imagine that Elijah knowingly took her from me. He seemed to love her so much, like she was his own daughter. I couldn’t imagine him knowingly stealing her.
Suddenly, I had an idea. I hesitated before asking, “Rosa, were you… were you here when Thea was born?”
Her expression shifted slightly. “Ah, Thea’s birth was a rather unusual event.”
“Unusual?”
She sighed. “Olivia and Elijah weren’t officially mates at the time. Olivia disappeared for several months and then suddenly returned with a baby. She just showed up on the doorstep, holding a baby girl who was a few weeks old.”
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I blinked in surprise. “So Elijah didn’t know she was expecting?”
“He had no idea,” Rosa confirmed with a terse nod. “It was a shock to everyone, really. But Elijah, being the honorable man he is, took responsibility without question. He married Olivia to provide a proper family for Thea.”
“Did he ever doubt that Thea was his daughter?” I blurted out. As soon as the words came out, I regretted them, worrying I had overstepped.
But to my surprise, Rosa just gave me a knowing look. “He did. In fact, he had a paternity test done to confirm that Thea was indeed his daughter.”
My heart skipped a beat. “And… was she?”
“Yes,”
Rosa said, albeit a little hesitantly. “But between you and me, I’ve always had my suspicions about Olivia’s sincerity.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that she never seemed fully committed to being a wife or mother. Her interests always lay elsewhere.” She shrugged. “It was just surprising that she had the baby to begin with. Not to mention the fact that she and Thea never bonded like mother and daughter.”
That last bit came as no surprise. But as I absorbed this information, my mind raced. So there was never much love between Elijah and Olivia despite being mates. Peculiar…
Later that evening, I sat with Thea in her bedroom, gently brushing her hair as she played with a toy. As I brushed her hair, I noticed a few strands caught in the bristles. My heart quickened at the sight, and I froze.
I thought back to my conversation with Rosa, then to my own daughter, recalling how she had suddenly been taken from the hospital without a trace. It seemed unlikely, but if Olivia just… showed up unexpectedly with Thea…
The whole ordeal, it seemed, was so surprising to everyone that even Elijah didn’t fully believe that Thea was his. But she was, wasn’t she? I mean, Rosa said herself that Elijah had a paternity test done just to be sure, and he was confirmed as Thea’s father.
But what if paternity wasn’t the issue, but… maternity?
my
At the same time, I thought back to the circumstances surrounding my own pregnancy. I’d been drugged that night at the bar, and had a one night stand with a man I never saw again. Honestly, I didn’t remember anything except for vague flashes of a dark room and a muscular arm.
Over the years, I’d accepted that night for what it was: either a big mistake or something… worse. The idea of assault wasn’t something that I liked to entertain, because I had felt so happy and warm when I woke up, but it wasn’t out of the question.
Still, I never found out who the father of my baby was. It seemed unlikely that it was Elijah, though, and even more unlikely that he would do something as heinous as assaulting me.
And yet, something didn’t feel right here.
I bit my lip as I looked down at the strands of sun–bleached hair in the brush, and as I did, I thought back to the first DNA test I’d
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performed. How sure had I truly been that the hair I had tested had been Thea’s and not Elijah’s?
If it was Elijah’s… Then it was no wonder, when compared to a sample of my own DNA, that we were unrelated. That much was a fact.
But
also meant that Thea might not have been tested at all, meaning that she could still be my daughter.
Eliah was-
Which would mean that Elijah
“Mommy?”
I was suddenly snapped from my thoughts by Thea’s tiny voice. She was looking up at me in the mirror, confused. I didn’t realize that I had just been standing there for Goddess knows how long, staring at the hairbrush.
“Sorry,” I said, managing a smile. “I guess I was daydreaming”
Thea giggled. “About Daddy?”
My cheeks flushed. “Something like that.”
After tucking her into bed and reading her a story, I quietly slipped out of her room. Holding the brush in my hand, I walked to my bedroom, closing the door behind me.
Sitting at my vanity, I carefully pulled the strands of Thea’s hair from the bristles. My hands trembled slightly as I folded them. into a piece of tissue, taking care to slip them into a hidden spot in my purse.
A second opinion wouldn’t hurt, right?
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