The candlelight flickered across the long dining table, illuminating the delicate tension between two unwilling acquaintances. Raphael Vaudrin sat at one end, swirling the wine in his glass with practiced indifference. Across from him, Edmund Sinclair leaned back in his chair, one arm resting casually over the backrest, his ever-present smile unwavering.

"You hardly speak, Vaudrin," Edmund mused, tilting his head. "One might think you don’t care for company."

Raphael didn’t glance up. "Perceptive of you."

Edmund chuckled, unbothered by the frost in Raphael’s tone. "I was hoping to remedy that. After all, we’re to be family soon." He raised his glass in mock cheer, though the warmth in his eyes was genuine.

Raphael’s grip on his own glass tightened. Family. A loathsome thought. Isadora was ecstatic about her engagement to the Sinclair heir, but Raphael found the entire arrangement tiresome. Worse still was Edmund himself—the golden son, the perfect gentleman, the kind of man the world adored. Everything Raphael was not.

And yet.

There was something about Edmund’s ease, his unwavering confidence, that gnawed at him. Not out of admiration, but out of something unspoken, something clawing at the depths of Raphael’s carefully controlled mind.

"You’re wasting your time," Raphael said finally, placing his glass down with a soft clink. "We will never be friends."

Edmund studied him for a long moment, amusement flickering in his hazel eyes. "Perhaps," he said, voice softer now. "But I don’t think that’s the real problem, is it?"

Raphael’s breath hitched, just slightly, but it was enough. He turned away, focusing on the candlelight, as if it could burn away the truth Edmund could never know.

Not now. Not ever.