****
VEIL’S MOOD WAS CONTEMPLATIVEas he descended the stairs. His mother’s new assistant was...interesting. He had been expecting the usual, to be honest. Giggles and blushes and “accidental” touches. Manufactured opportunities to be alone with him. Breathless questions about what it’s like being a duke. The same tired performance he’d sat through a dozen times with his mother’s previous assistants.
But Evianne had barely looked at him.
Oh, she’d been polite. Professional. Shaken his hand with exactly the right amount of firmness.
And then she’d looked away like he was a piece of furniture.
Like he wasn’t the Duke of Veilcourt with a fortune that made most people’s eyes glaze over with calculations.
Like she genuinely didn’t care.
Geena glanced up when her son rejoined her in the drawing room, and the expression darkening his features was telling. She waited for him to look at her before smiling in amusement as she signed,‘She’s not into you, son.’
‘I didn’t say she was.’
‘You didn’t have to. I know that look.’
‘What look?’
‘The one that says you’re already planning how to prove me wrong.’
Veil smiled. His mother knew him too well indeed.
‘She’s had a difficult day,’Geena continued, her expression softening.‘Be kind to her.’
‘I’m always kind.’
His mother gave him a look that clearly said ‘liar’, and Veil had to concede the point.
He wasn’t unkind. But he wasn’t...soft. Not anymore. Not since he’d learned exactly what people wanted from him and how far they’d go to get it.
‘You said she had a difficult day...’
Geena shook her head at Veil’s question.‘That’s her story to tell, not mine. But truly...just try to be kind to her.’
‘You wound me, Mother.’
Geena rolled her eyes. That would be the day.‘I’ll see you at dinner.’
With his mother gone, the duke was left once again with his thoughts, and he was disconcerted to find his mind drifting back to Evianne. He found himself recalling how her hands had been shaking when she’d greeted him even though her voice had been perfectly steady. And how the shadows under her eyes suggested she’d been crying recently.
But most of all...
Veil remembered how she had looked at him like she was truly seeing him...and not a bank account, the way most other people did.
Frankly, he couldn’t remember the last time another woman had looked at him like that, and this...put him on guard.
Because he had learned a long time a long time ago that the moment you let someone in, the moment you believed they saw you instead of what you could give them, that’s when they had all the power.
His mother’s new assistant might not be like the other women who had worked for her, but who knew if it was all an act?
There was only one way to find out, and his lips slowly curved as he contemplated his next move.
