Evelyn's POV
I took a slow breath, forcefully stuffing all that messy emotion back where it came from and trying to look like a reasonably functional human being again.
Then I looked up at him.
“And besides…” I paused, my tone settling back into polite, professional distance. “You don’t really have the standing to say that, Mr. Julian.”
“No standing.”
Julian repeated the words under his breath, like he was slowly rolling them around in his mouth, testing the flavor. Or maybe he was just saying them to himself.
Then he gave a small laugh. Faint. A little self-deprecating.
Honestly, I didn’t think the line was all that offensive. If anything counted as offensive, it was the barrage of barbed comments I’d just thrown at him earlier. Those had been more like chucking rocks straight at s
