Dylan arched his eyebrows in mock interest. "Really?" he replied, shutting his bedroom door behind him. "What has my dear brother been telling his new bride then?" Violet watched as he pulled out a rumpled package of cigarettes from inside his jacket. She shook her head when he offered her one. "He said you'd picked up smoking." Dylan smirked in response, exhaling a stream of smoke into the room. "He said you've grown distant and cold. He's very concerned about the direction you're heading towards."

Dylan's emerald eyes did not conceal the contempt he held for Ned. "He's just angry because Prada considers me a valuable client while taking no interest in him." His gaze settled on her, taking a good long look at the beauty before him. The evening's business function was still raging on in the gardens just below his bedroom windows, and by the looks of it, Violet had most definitely been a good wife, standing beside her husband, drawing powerful men towards them with her grace, charm and beauty, the very things Ned probably took for granted. Now, she stood here and he wondered if she'd found her way to his room, purely by accident.

Violet was slightly unnerved by his deliberate examination of her. Her stomach fluttered when he took a step towards her. "Does he even know where you are?" he asked softly. "Or is he too busy making business partners laugh at his pathetic jokes?" The hungry glitter in his eyes magnified. "How can you talk about your brother like that?" she asked, her knees growing weaker as his hypnotic gaze intensified. "Because it angers me when he doesn't appreciate what is standing right before him," he replied.