Odette's POV
For a second, I just… froze.
Did he—did he just say get up?
My brain went quiet. Not the calm, peaceful kind of quiet, but the loud, ringing kind—the kind that hums in your ears when you can't tell if the world just ended or began again.
I swallowed hard, my throat dry. I didn't even dare breathe too loud.
Because—let's be honest—when I decided to come down here and throw a full-blown tantrum, I wasn't exactly… confident about it.
At first, I'd walked in thinking maybe, maybe, if I just asked him politely, like a normal, reasonable person, he would say yes. I'd imagined something simple:
"Evander, may I go out for tea?"
"Sure, Odette."
But of course, this is Evander we're talking about. The man who could turn "good morning" into a declaration of war.
So when I heard that first "no," I thought—fine. If reason doesn't work, drama will.
And oh, it had been a gamble.
