The invitation was no longer veiled in anything.
Julian remained still. His gaze stayed where she had directed it, fixed on the soft pale curves rising and falling with each breath she drew. There was something almost hypnotic about the rhythm of it… the way each slow inhale deepened the view just slightly before the exhale let it settle again.
They seemed somehow more tantalizing with each passing moment, as though the longer he looked the more the room shrank around that single point of focus.
Louisa did not move. She simply held the position and let him look with the patience of someone who understood that stillness could be its own kind of pressure.
And Julian looked.
For nearly two full minutes, his gaze remained there without apology, without hurry, without any indication that he felt the need to be anywhere else or do anything else. The clock on the far wall counted every second of it.
Neither of them spoke.
