She approached his desk, a single manicured nail trailing along the polished wood. “You involved me the moment you brought her in. The Blackwell Room isn’t a passion project, Gideon.”
She looked up, eyes gleaming. “It’s bloodlines. Legacy. And that meansours.”
Silence followed. Not empty. Loaded.
“She’s off-limits.”
His voice was flat. Iron wrapped in velvet.
Evelyn gave a soft hum, amused. “You’ve always been drawn to possibility.”
Not praise. Dissection.
“Just like your grandfather.”
Henry Hawthorne. Her father.
She didn’t need to say it. The weight of his name filled the room anyway.
Gideon’s jaw tightened.
She saw it. Smiled like she’d struck exactly the nerve she came to find.
“You think this is about a bartender?”
Her voice dipped, almost intimate. Poison in silk.
“Do you know your grandfather’s greatest mistake?”
She took a step closer.
“He believed in you. Enough to overlook his own daughter.”
A beat.
Her eyes stayed on his. Cold. Gleaming.
“And now here you are. Repeating him.”
The air shifted. Colder. Thinner.
“You’ve always had a weakness for strays,” she said.
Another pause.
“For broken things.”
Then, quieter:
“For potential.”
The word hit like a stone. Heavy. Final.
She tipped her head, studying him like a painting she’d already sentenced to burn.
“And potential, when misplaced?”
A slow smile.
