MATILDA’S POV
“I thought you said we need to talk,” I said, my voice cutting clean through the silence. “So talk.”
The words sat between us like something thrown, something sharp enough to draw blood if it landed wrong.
Gideon didn’t answer immediately.
Of course he didn’t.
He never rushed anything. Not words. Not decisions. Not people.
He sat there in that perfectly tailored three-piece suit, like he had been carved into it instead of dressed, posture relaxed but not careless, one arm resting along the back of the chair like he owned not just the room, but the air inside it. And his eyes—
God.
His eyes moved.
Slow.
From my face…
Down.
Deliberate. Unapologetic. Like he was reading something written on my body that I didn’t even know was there.
And I hated that I felt it.
That
