My gaze narrows on the polished doorknob as it turns—and doesn’t snag on the lock.
Those embers of rage simmer in me, in my narrowed stare, as the door inches open, and Oliver slips into the room.
The rich emerald of his eyes finds me on the couch. Something softens in him. “Morning.”
My face crumples. “It’s the afternoon.”
Unfazed, he presses his fingertips into the wood of the door, lazily closing it over until it clicks shut. “Oh, is it?”
There’s no sincerity in the question.
Still, I glance at the mantel clock and see it’s hours past noon.
I return a frown to him—to his refined fatigue.
Dark strands of hair are tousled, as if he’s been running his fingers through it over and over, and his plain black outfit, a sweater and slacks, is notably wrinkled. Not wrinkled in a shocking and improper way, but sort of like he’s fallen asleep on a couch somewhere in the abbey, and he just brushed out the creases.
He steps around the litter of my exploded wardrobe.
The sleek leather of his loafers glistens under the lights.
The closer he gets, the more my eyes narrow.
“Spent the day packing?” He gently kicks aside a pile of bags. “Or was this a fit?”
I don’t answer beyond the slitting of my eyes, following him as he moves around the arm of the chesterfield.
“It’s a touch last minute,” he adds, like we’re in a conversation, like we’re friends. “You should be packed already.”
With each step he takes closer to me, a hike over all the piles of clothes and shoes, even the baskets of skincare I left out, my mouth twists more and more.
Oliver didn’t strike me.
Mother did.
Oliver didn’t ground me.
Father did.
But he did drug me at Versailles, forced me into a sleep that meant my family wouldn’t have to deal with me—with my ‘fit’.
Just a fit.
Just a tantrum.
Just Olivia being a brat again.
Not the utter and absolute collapse of my fucking sanity.
As far as I’m concerned, Oliver is as much the problem as my parents are.
So I’m unkind in my regard of him, the way my mouth purses as he inches around the edge of the sofa—then drops onto it, too close to my feet.
His smile is sly.
I aim a snarly look at him before I make a point of yanking my feet closer to myself.
But all I did was make room for him.
