"Have we met before… perhaps in another life?"
There. That was the question.
Maximilian stilled.
For the first time, Catherine truly looked into his eyes.
Blue. Strikingly so... sharper than Jonathan's, clearer, colder. Were they always that color? Why couldn't she remember?
His gaze met hers without flinching. Calm. Measured. Unreadable.
"Another life?" he echoed.
She leaned closer.
And that was when she saw it.
The overhead light shifted by the smallest degree, and the blue fractured. Along the rim of his iris, something darker surfaced in his iris... not gray, not shadow.
Violet.
Cool. Precise. Unmistakable.
Her breath caught.
It wasn't dramatic. It didn't glow or flare. It simply appeared, like ink bleeding beneath water. The blue softened, deepened, and the purple slipped through, quiet and intimate, as though it had always been there and she had only just learned how to look.
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
How… pretty.
