Page 31
Men like him don’t stay on top by delegating every unpleasant task to someone else. He could’ve sent one of his soldiers. Instead, he came himself, almost as though he’d been waiting for the request.
Has he been watching me on the cameras? I thought that was an empty threat, but now a thrill goes through me at the possibility that those sharp, angular eyes have been on me for hours.
He’s traded yesterday’s suit for charcoal trousers tailored just enough to suggest just how…well he fills them out. A dark button-down with three-quarter sleeves shows off his muscled biceps, strong wrists, and tanned skin. The man must be close to his fifties, but he’d give a twenty-five-year-old a run for their money.
The collar of the shirt is open, softening absolutely nothing. If anything, the five-o’clock shadow darkening his jaw seems more dangerous, more rugged.
More annoyingly handsome.
My traitorous brain supplies details I neither need nor want as I give him one last look, lingering a little too long on those trousers.
Perfect.
Exactly what I was hoping for.
Because if there’s one thing I know about men, it’s this: Confident men are easiest to manipulate when they think they’re the ones doing the manipulating.
I lift my chin, schooling my features into something softer than the open hostility he’s seen so far.
His eyes narrow almost imperceptibly. He notices the change and doesn’t trust it. Now there’s two of us pretending. Let’s see how good he is at deception.
“Matilda.” His voice is as composed as ever, cultured and calculated. “How can I help you?”
I tilt my head. “You can start by calling me Matty.” The correction leaves my mouth before I have time to reconsider it. A moment later, the logical half of my brain reassures, that’s perfect—create trust.
Matty. Hardly anyone calls me that anymore. Isla and Emma, but at work I’m Miss Pierce, Pierce, or Matilda.
The nickname has always felt personal. Less polished than Matilda. Less attorney. More like the girl I was before law school taught me to sharpen every edge.
Handing it to him feels strangely like surrender.
His eyes soften as he tests it out, accent adding a lilt that, frustratingly, I kind of like.
“Okay, Matty.”
The name sounds different in his voice. Lower. Warmer.
Damn. This is why I’ve never told anyone, not even exes who hung around for a while, to call me that. I don’t like the shiver it sends down my spine, the weakness in my knees.
“Thank you,” I say, allowing the smallest smile to touch my lips.
His shoulders relax, barely, but enough. So that’s all it takes.
I step around him slowly, trailing my fingertips across the polished wood of the desk instead of touching him outright. Close enough that he has to turn to keep me in view. Close enough that I can smell cologne on him, left over from a day of whatever he does for “work.”
“I’ve been thinking.”
“I’m listening.”
“You made your offer.”
“I did.”
There’s a ripple in the air, a fact neither of us is acknowledging: it wasn’t an offer.
“And I suppose...” I sigh dramatically. “I don’t exactly have a better one.”
One dark eyebrow lifts. “So you’ll represent Mikhail.”
