[ The clearcut firmness in her rejection has him raising a brow, though his smile keeps to that same level of politeness while he quickly begins reevaluating his perception of her. He's far from the sort to be inflexible about admitting when he's wrong in an assessment; what was always more important than that sort of pride was recovering fast enough to make sure one didn't end up on the short end of a stick. ]
no subject
[ She was sharper than he'd first thought. ]
[ He could work with that. ]
Not as of yet.
[ No need to reveal the why for that. ]