"No."
Leo shook his head, his tone calm.
"I'm not some male chauvinist. I don't care if the person sitting across from me is a man or a woman."
He stood up and walked over to the bookshelf.
"But I am a realist."
"For two hundred years, the rules here were made by men. The games here were played by men."
Leo turned and looked at her.
"This world, especially the world of power, was never made for women."
"Those old men, those bankers, those uncles and grand-uncles in the great families. They're used to seeing women as ornaments in a ballroom, not as decision-makers at the negotiating table."
Evelyn's fingers tightened slightly around her wine glass.
"So?" she asked coldly. "Are you trying to say I'm not worthy?"
"Quite the opposite."
Leo walked back to the table. He braced his hands on its surface and leaned forward, closing the distance between them.
There was no contempt in his eyes, no mockery.
