Page 41 of Retrograde

“You could donate some of your mother’s dresses this way like we do,” Treena said as she read over my shoulder. “It’s smart. Where are you starting?”

“Food assistance,” I answered immediately. “While demanding everything rare and fancy, they were constantly cutting food assistance programs and letting my parents take the hits about how they still lived lavishly in their gilded castle. Father had to make cuts, but he wanted other ones. It’s…”

I was saying too much and swallowed down my annoyance that I kept doing that. I knew better.

I kept reading and saw he wanted everything brought to the castle for protected storage instead of renting a place or whatever. I frowned, but then it hit me. “You’re worried about the places being burgled.”

He nodded, and the look he gave me was intense.

Oh, he was worried about theeldersgoing and breaking in to get their belongings.

“There are three appraisers and all came with references from Alpha families—a fourth from your Uncle Darren,” he told me. “They can make themselves available and are willing to work for a discounted rate given it’s charity.”

“And?” I purred.

He nodded. “They’re hoping to find some good items for their private collections since it will—there’s a lot, and as you said it’s all high-value.”

“That could complicate things with their pricing should they want it,” Treena worried. “You’d have to cross-check everything and do a double-blind basically.”

“Yes, but also I think everything should be listed on the website with suggested values before the auctions,” Gavriil said.

“And a way for others to submit their beliefs on the value because that could kill the credibility of the appraisers,” I said, completely understanding where his mind was.

He had a good head for business. A little extra sneaky and—the plan was good. A few small tweaks and checking with Raquel we could manage it before I decided to agree. Raquel was hesitant but said there wasn’t anything planned for the ballroom or other rooms given all events my parents had had on the calendar were canceled.

Yeah, dying would do that.

But it was a win. Other candidates were ready to help Gavriil, which surprised me.

Velle pulled me aside later. “Some of these guys are idiots, but they were legit shaken by you being drugged and what’s going on. They just wanted to keep a low profile for the moment. Like… They had enough intelligence to give you space is what I’m saying.”

That actually helped. I found myself going to seek out Joris though because I wanted to check his thoughts before we started.

Nothing shocked me more than to find him fuming in his suite. He did a double take when he saw me and winced, glancing over his shoulder.

“Well, that doesn’t make me suspicious,” I drawled as I pushed past him and walked into the suite.

“I want to make a crack that it’s cute you think I’d be some fucker who would cheat on you in your own…” He sighed and gave a half shrug. He also looked out of sorts, so I forgave it.

But then also went over to him and shut the door. “Tell me.” He swallowed loudly and I growled. “Are you not my obedient beast?”

“Cheating, Sagan,” he groaned and gave me a quick kiss. “I was watching the night shows monologues. They’re fucking assholes.”

“And?” I pushed.

He sighed and led me into his suite more, pulling me to sit down even. “I got a lecture that I’ve pushed far enough with the temples and it’s time to let this go before the family looks bad.” He nodded when I blinked at him. “I pushed back for once and made it clear I’ll let it go when it’s better, not because of politics.”

I ignored his worried look and kissed him. “You’re doing this for more than me, I know that. You’re a devout believer and I think that admirable. I don’t even know what I am some days and—do what you think you should. I appreciate you running it all through Toni and being on the team.”

“Thank you. I was starting to doubt that I wasn’t being a baby and like…” He sighed, snuggling up to me.

“Glad I could knock your head out of your ass,” I teased. “Now show me what you don’t want me to see.”

He did and it wasn’t actually as bad as I had worried. The weeknight comedy and interview shows had had opening monologues that picked on lots of people and just about everything. That was part of life in the spotlight, and sometimes I even laughed at the ones about me.

Except that one fucker.

The jokes were mostly that apparently I wanted to start a trend to not sue for alimony, but just sue for breakups and people talking trash when they did. The younger generation of mine didn’t understand that it was part of the process to move on and blah, blah, blah—a whole lot of stupid and jokes.