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‘Maybe,’ I conceded. It was nice to hear Harden use the word ‘us’. He hadn’t seemed like he was on Team Queen before, but all it took was a few dead bodies and he was obviously warming to me. Nothing like a bit of death for some positive team building.
‘Where is Ramsay from?’ I asked Harden. ‘Which pack?’
‘He’s Merseyside.’
I wondered if it was a coincidence that he was part of the neighbouring pack to Larsden. I didn’t like coincidences. Lord Samuel had named another wolf as suspect: Aitken. We’d need to check out his pack – discreetly – and make sure his teeth weren’t filled with poison before we did any more interrogations. To be honest, though, if my enemies wanted to kill themselves and each other, it made things a little easier for me. Maybe I could sit back and look pretty while they all destroyed themselves. Here’s hoping.
But looking at the crumpled corpse, it was hard to see this as anything but an error on my part. I’d mishandled the situation, another man was dead and once again he’d died before I could get any information about his co-conspirators. I couldn’t help feeling that I was screwing up royally. If my enemies’ sole aim was to make me look like a screw-up, then objective achieved.
This day was not looking up. Knowing my luck, Mum would even burn the Yorkshire puddings.
Chapter 6
‘So,’ Mum said as she passed Greg some broccoli. ‘What do you do?’
He smiled. ‘I run security at the mansion that Lucy manages.’
‘Oh.’ She sounded faintly disapproving, ‘A workplace romance.’ She frowned slightly at me. ‘Lucy, is that wise?’
‘Mum!’ Ben chastened. He turned to Greg. ‘Ignore her!’ he said as he glared at Mum. ‘Leave the poor bloke alone.’
Mum sniffed. ‘If he can’t cope with one overly protective mother, he must be terrible at running security.’
‘He’s brilliant at his job and he can absolutely handle you,’ I teased. I winked at Greg and his grin broadened.
‘I can,’ he agreed amiably, taking the glass dish of carrots that my father was offering him. He piled some on his plate and passed it to me.
‘At least you have a healthy appetite,’ Mum murmured approvingly.
Greg smiled at her. ‘I understand your concerns, but I can assure you that Lucy and I can keep our personal and professional lives separate when necessary.’ That was completely true, even though it was a tricksy sentence; we could keep our personal and professional lives separate, but it was never necessary. They were intertwined tighter than a DNA helix.
Greg continued, ‘We always discuss things in a healthy way.’
Mum nodded slowly. I could see that she appreciated the upfront way he was discussing her concerns rather than ignoring them or sweeping them under the rug.
Ben looked anxiously towards the front door. ‘What’s up?’ I asked him.
‘My partner is supposed to be joining us.’
I brightened. My brother was pansexual: for him the term ‘partner’ was a deliberately vague choice because he fell in love with the person rather than a gender. I never knew who he’d bring home. ‘Is your current partner male, female or non-binary?’ I asked nosily.
‘She’s a woman – a very late woman.’ He sighed. ‘She’s always a little late so I told her to be here half an hour earlier than planned. Even then she’s late,’ he groused. ‘Dig in, she wouldn’t want the food to get cold.’
‘What’s her name?’ I asked.
‘Pollyanna.’ My brother’s frown dropped away as he spoke her name and a soft smile crept onto his face. Aww, my big brother was in luuurve.
The doorbell rang. ‘I’ll get it!’ He knocked his chair over in his haste to get up.
My dad righted the chair as he watched Ben pelt out of the room. ‘Ah, to be young and in love,’ he murmured.
My mum gave him a shove. ‘Ah, to be old and in love,’ she twinkled and he smiled back. They had a moment together and their affection was so palpable it drew tears to my eyes. I shoved broccoli in my mouth. You couldn’t chew and cry, right?
I was so damned lucky to be raised by them. The thought gave me a prickle of guilt; my biological parents had to die so that I could be adopted, and of course I wished that hadn’t happened … but I had been blessed in my adoptive parents.
I felt so mixed up; in some ways it had been easier when I hadn’t known the truth about my birth parents and I could imagine any scenario I wanted. Most often I’d painted them in a negative light to cope with their apparent rejection, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. The photos Jess had found of my life with them portrayed a warm, loving unit, and I wished to hell I could remember them.
Damn Alessandro and his interfering mind wipe. He’d stolen my memories of my parents and left me with nothing but my life. Some days that was hard to forgive. Under the table, Greg gently squeezed my thigh. He missed nothing, not even my emotional upheaval. I gave him a tremulous smile and his ice-blue eyes seemed to warm for me alone.
