What Is The Origin Of The Tea Party Tradition?

After I secured a billion-dollar partnership for Horizon Ventures, the sales department celebrated with an afternoon tea spread where everyone got to choose their own order. When it was my turn, the new hire, Jessica Osborne, suddenly cut in. "Chicken sandwiches for the rest of them. No need to order anything else." I ignored her and calmly told the admin clerk, "I’ll have a slice of chocolate cake." The next second, Jessica slammed the menu right across my face and glared at me furiously. "I said no, so you don’t get to order. Who do you think you are? A princess?" The hard menu left a stinging red mark across my face, and a surge of anger flared up inside me. Without hesitating, I grabbed the menu and hurled it right back at her face. Jessica immediately shrieked and roared at me, "Do you have any idea who I am?! My dad is Royce Osborne, the biggest client this company has! Even our CEO, Emily Hopkins, treats me with respect. How dare you lay a hand on me? Believe it or not, I can get your $600,000 bonus canceled and have you blacklisted from this entire industry!" I froze. Royce Osborne's my maternal uncle. He’s forty, famously single, and has never been married. When exactly did he have such a grown-up daughter?

On my fifteenth birthday, I begged my mom to teach me how to make a cream cake from scratch. We only had cream at home. No flour. So we went out to buy some. When we came back, we didn't walk into a birthday surprise. We walked in on my father pressing a strange she-wolf down onto the dining table. Cream was smeared all over her bare body. That night ended with my parents signing the Mating Dissolution Agreement. From that day on, cake became my nightmare, a taboo I could never touch. The night I mated with Alpha Kaelen of the Shadow Pack, amidst the pain and pleasure of his marking bite, I whispered in his ear. "Honey, if you ever want to end our mating, just bring me a cake." He frowned, his eyes burning with possessiveness, and kissed the words away. "Don't talk nonsense, Seraphina. You are my fated mate. How could I ever let you go?" Later, on his birthday, his intern secretary Elena ordered a three-tier luxury cake. Kaelen went into a rage, throwing both the cake and the intern out the front door. Back then, I was moved, even telling him not to be so harsh on a low-ranking wolf for my sake. But six months later, Elena had been promoted to Kaelen's personal assistant. On my birthday, she walked into my laboratory, swinging her hips, holding a burnt, homemade cake. I called Kaelen, asking him to remove the provocative item. On the other end of the line,his tone was casual. "Elena put her heart into making that for you. It would be cruel to throw it away. Be a good girl, don't be so sensitive. Have the grace of a Luna." The phone slipped from my hand. It turned out my mother wasn't wrong. Cake really is best served with a side of rejection papers.

Two weeks before the wedding, I took my parents to dinner at my fiance Derek Matthews's family home in Larkhaven, Franklin. The evening was supposed to be the last planning meeting between both sets of parents, where we would finalize the ceremony and the honor-table seating. I hadn't expected Derek's childhood friend, Paige Bennett, to be there too. Mrs. Matthews suggested a little dinner-table game. Everyone would draw a numbered envelope. Whoever drew the highest number could ask one small favor of whoever drew the lowest. I drew the lowest number. Derek drew the highest. Everyone urged him to make his request. Paige smiled as though she were only joking. "Derek, let me choose for you. "At the wedding, my parents should sit at the honor table." I thought Derek would at least say that a game was a game and wedding arrangements were not prizes to be claimed. Instead, he merely frowned at me. "It's only two seats. "Paige's parents have always been close to our family. "I won the draw, and the rules say you owe me one request. "Don't embarrass everyone over this." I set down my fork, picked up my phone, and posted a message in our family-and-friends group chat. "There has been a change to the wedding seating. My parents will no longer be at the honor table." Derek visibly relaxed. Paige smiled at me through shining eyes. "Thank you, Hannah. I knew you would be generous." I didn't look at her. I simply continued typing. "Because my parents will not be attending this wedding. "Neither will I."

I still remembered a night from my childhood. At midnight, my grandfather took me to what became the most unforgettable feast of my life. The host was Daniel Lee, the poorest man in the town. He didn't own a single farm animal and often struggled to put food on the table. Yet when his father passed away, he laid out ten full tables piled high with roasted lamb heads. My grandfather served as the town's funeral coordinator and came to oversee the service. My grandfather glanced at the tables, unable to hide his curiosity. “Where'd you get the money for all this? And those lamb heads don’t look cheap, either." Daniel smiled. "All you need to know is that only the finest lamb heads were served tonight."

Edward and I held our engagement party in Las Vegas. Everything seemed perfect—until someone suggested a game of Truth or Dare. One of Edward's female coworkers looked me straight in the eye. "I am pregnant. It is your fiancé's baby." Laughter burst out around us. Everyone thought it was a joke—except Edward. After the trip, we returned home. He looked uneasy. "I'm the father of Juliet's baby," he admitted. "Don't overthink it. We were on a business trip and got too drunk with a client. We accidentally spent the night together. "She is from a British aristocratic family. Reputation matters a lot to her. She will never marry me. She only wants to have the baby and raise it alone." "So what are you saying?" I asked. "I am the father. I have to take responsibility. I will stay in the apartment I rented for her and take care of her pregnancy on weekdays, and come home on weekends. "Our wedding will be delayed. We will get married after the baby is borned." I gave a small smile. So he had it all planned out. He was just here to inform me. He let out a sigh of relief, picked up his Rimowa suitcase, and walked out without looking back. I wiped the tears off my face and began packing away all the memories of our relationship. Suddenly, my phone buzzed. The voice on the other end sounded messy and emotional. "Margot, I freaking love you. Don't marry him. Marry me instead." I froze for a second, then replied, "Okay."

It was the holiday season, so I took my foster daughter, Megan Delgado, to our mansion for a vacation. However, I found out that the property had been occupied by someone else. The woman who opened the door looked at us with an impatient expression. “What do you want? You’re interrupting my daughter’s birthday party. Are you asking for trouble?” For a moment, I thought I might have the wrong house. That was until I noticed the clothing and jewelry the woman was wearing. Every piece was an exact match with what I kept in my wardrobe here. The timing could not be more telling. Just a week ago, my husband, Richie Delgado, said he was planning a surprise for me and Megan. He asked for the spare key to the mansion. I glanced past her at the crowd of party guests in the living room. “So, you’re saying you’re the lady of the house?” She sized me up and noted my simple outfit. “Who else if not me? You? You’ve ruined my daughter’s party. You’d better beg for her forgiveness now!” she said in a condescending tone. When I did not move, she warned, “My husband will be home any minute now. Do you know who he is? He’s the CEO of Beran Corp! A nobody like you can’t afford to cross him!” They were using my mansion to throw a birthday party for his illegitimate daughter. It was quite the surprise indeed!