"What is your Lordship doing here?"
Olivia's voice pierced the silence of the room like an icy blade. She stared directly at Matthias, who was sitting right across from her—a stranger in her own home, yet painfully familiar. At the mere sound of his voice, "Black" jumped from her lap, wagging his tail in a clumsy frenzy as he rushed toward him.
Matthias leaned down, lifting the cat to his chest, and pressed a light kiss onto his forehead. "You've grown, you little troublemaker. It seems you've received a treatment fit for kings in my absence."
His eyes shifted slowly, letting go of the cat to lock onto Olivia's. His gaze was testing boundaries, while her eyes were an impenetrable fortress of coldness and alertness—two pools of blue refusing to back down.
"Is a man not allowed to visit his own property?" Matthias asked, his voice soft, carrying the rasp of the old game he played so well.
