Unexpected Rise of Leonard Storm

Chapter 181

What she had admitted about her mother … She had only told Hadiza upon entering the Torre. No one else. She had told no one else, not since she’d staggered onto her mother’s cousin’s farm and begged for sanctuary and shelter.

She wondered how long his own story had been locked in his chest.

“Let me order food first,” Matilda decided. She glanced toward the wood screen shielding the bathing room from sight, then down at her blood-crusted chest and dress. “While we wait … I might beg to use your bath. And borrow a set of your clothes.”

Leonard was still watching her with that focused, calm face. A different one from any she’d seen on him before. As if in shaving off some of that darkness, it had revealed this facet beneath.

This man she had not yet met.

She wasn’t sure what to do with it. With him.

“Take whatever you want,” Leonard told her, his voice low—rough.

Matilda was light-headed when she crawled off the bed, taboss his ruined shirt with her, and hurried for the bathing cha