From the corner of her eye she could've sworn she saw him suffer a brief loss of composure but it seemed to pass so quickly that she wasn't entirely convinced she hadn't imagined it. Unable to think of a reason for what she thought she'd observed, she shrugged it off.

Tig took another drag of the cigarette in what finally seemed to somewhat resemble the smooth and confident manner she'd intended for the very first puff.

"I never claimed to be a victim." She wrinkled her nose both at the unpleasant taste in her mouth and the idea that he might think she was some helpless creature of circumstance. She'd certainly tell Tiberius that he'd ruined her life and all that, but she'd passed the point of crying over her lot in life. Maybe she hadn't accepted it with grace, but she firmly believed that she had taken control of her situation rather let herself get swept away in the current of Tiberius' will. Tig wanted to say something that would make him feel as though his issues were trivial but found she couldn't do so without inviting his pity. She'd extinguish her cigarette on his exposed skin before she let him pity her.

"But as you said," she released a lungful of smoke, "you know how this family is." The smoke punctuated her cryptic response with an added flair of the dramatic that pleased her immensely.

---