The polite, distant tone and the name 'Olga' pierced straight through the older woman's composure. A sharp, hollow pang seized Olga's heart, aching with the bitter reminder that her own flesh and blood addressed her as a mere stranger instead of calling her mother.
Olga swallowed the sorrow rising in her throat and turned her attention fully to Cassian, fixing him with a sharp, unforgiving glare. "When are you going to tell everything?"
She needed no further words for him to grasp her meaning. The truth of Cixi's real identity, when it was revealed, she asked Cassian.
Cassian met her hostile stare with complete indifference, his fingers tapping a slow rhythm against his knee. "Talk with your husband and arrange an official engagement between your daughter and Rafael. On that day, I shall announce to the world that I am very much alive, and perhaps I will spill the secrets you wish so desperately to see dragged into the light."
