SELENE’s POV
Leonard was already awake when I arrived at his private residence at seven in the morning. That didn’t surprise me. In four years I had never once caught Leonard Arden unprepared for anything. He existed in a permanent state of readiness always.
His housekeeper led me through the main corridor without a word. The residence was quieter than mine, and filled with the particular stillness of a space that had absorbed decades of careful thinking. Dark wood paneling, shelves lined with documents rather than decorative objects, everything functional and deliberate.
Leonard sat at the long dining table with coffee and a newspaper, folded precisely in half. He looked up when I entered.
“You could have called,” he said.
“I preferred not to,” I replied as I walked toward the dinin
