The dining room hadn’t changed.

Long table. Dark wood. Too many chairs for too few people. The chandelier was original — her great-grandfather had brought it back from Valoria, or so the story went. Nobody had verified it. Nobody questioned the stories in this house. The light pooled on the table, catching the silver. Outside, the hedges were overgrown. The fountain had been dry for years.

Joyce sat near Evelyn’s end of the table. Yosef took the chair across from her. Julian slid in beside his mother, and Gio settled at the far end. Quiet. Watching. The way he always did.

Franz pulled out a chair for Arianne. She sat. He took the seat next to her.

Evelyn lowered herself into the chair at the head of the table. Slow. Not weak — just slow. The kind of slow that made everyone else wait.

Soup came. Pale green. Arianne picked up her spoon. Put it down. Didn’t taste it.

Joyce talked.

She was good at it. The kind of good that came from years of sitting at this table with an aunt who didn’t fill silences.

"All right," she said, setting her spoon down. "I’ve been waiting all through the soup to ask. I’m just going to ask."

Julian sighed. "Mom."

"What? I’m allowed." She turned to Franz. "You’re Noah Hart. I’ve watched you on screen for years. And now you’re sitting at my aunt’s dining table, married to my niece. I’m supposed to pretend that’s normal?"

Franz smiled. The real one. "It’s not normal."

"Thank you." She pointed her spoon at him. "The Second Cut. I never missed an episode."

"That’s the one."

"You’re filming the second season soon, aren’t you? I read about it somewhere."

"In a few weeks. They’re still finalizing the start date."

Joyce leaned forward. "Do you die again? In the second season? Because I can’t go through that twice."

Franz laughed — quiet, real. "I can’t tell you that."

"You can’t or you won’t?"

"Both."

"That’s cruel. You’re cruel to your fans."

"He’s protecting the artistic process," Julian said.

"He’s protecting his contract." Joyce grinned. "I understand. But I’ll be watching. The whole season. Even if you kill him off again."

"I’ll pass that along to the writers."

"You do that." She sat back. "All right. I’m done. I promised myself I wouldn’t fangirl at the lunch table and I’ve already broken that promise twice."

"Three times," Julian said.

"Three times. Fine." She picked up her spoon. "Someone else talk now."

Arianne looked at Franz. He caught her eye. A small shrug — this is fine, she’s fine, I don’t mind. She’d seen him handle fans before. The polite ones, the emotional ones, the ones who cried. Joyce was easy. Joyce was warm. Joyce was exactly what this table needed.

"The twins," Joyce said, gesturing with her spoon. "Tell me about your brother’s twins. I heard you and Arianne are taking care of them now."

Franz glanced at Arianne. She gave him a small nod.

"Lily’s learning piano. Scales. Up and down. She does it every morning now."

"Is she any good at it?"

"She’s four. She’s terrible." He said it with a warmth that took the sting out. "But she doesn’t care. That’s the thing about Lily. She doesn’t need to be good at something to want to do it."

Joyce smiled. "I like her already."

"Leo’s different. He doesn’t play. He sits next to her on the bench and listens. He’s got this whale doll. He carries it everywhere."

Julian looked up from his soup. "He still has that?"

"Still has it. Won’t sleep without it."

Joyce’s expression softened. "Julian told me about the accident. That he hasn’t spoken since."

Franz nodded. "He uses a tablet. Types what he wants to say. Short words, mostly. But you always know what he means."

"That must be hard."

"It is. But he’s okay. They’re both okay." He paused. "They’ve been through a lot. We all have. But they’re getting there."

Arianne looked at her plate. He’d said we. Not they. We.

"And the two of you?" Joyce asked. "How are you holding up? The company, the lawsuits, the press — Julian says it’s been a lot."

"It’s been a lot," Arianne said.

Joyce waited. Arianne didn’t elaborate.

Franz stepped in. "We figured out what works. She does the board stuff. I do bedtime. We try not to mix them up."

"That’s a system?"

"It works. Most days."

"Most days," Arianne said.

Franz looked at her. "Eighty percent."

"Seventy."

"I’ll take seventy."

Yosef made a sound — not quite a laugh. "Bedtime. You put kids to bed?"

"Yeah," Franz said.

"Your older brother. Alex." Yosef reached for his glass. "I met him once. Years ago. Some function. He didn’t look like the bedtime type either. Always seemed like he was somewhere else in his head."

"He was. For a long time." Franz’s voice didn’t change. "Then the twins were born and that changed. It happens like that."

Yosef looked at him. Whatever he was looking for, he seemed to find it. He drank.

Evelyn hadn’t said a word.

She ate slowly. Spoon up, spoon down. Her eyes went back and forth — Arianne to Franz, Franz to Arianne. She was reading them. The way Gio read a room before he spoke. The way Arianne read a contract before she signed.

Arianne didn’t know whether to be flattered or unnerved.

Then Evelyn set her fork down. The clink was soft. The table went quiet anyway.

"I didn’t think you’d marry the younger one."

Just like that. No warm-up.

"You were always with Alexander. And the Pemberton boy. Gilbert." She said it like she was reading off a list. "I assumed it would be one of them."

Julian coughed into his glass. Water went everywhere. Joyce handed him a napkin without looking. Yosef’s jaw tightened.

Arianne’s mouth pressed into a thin line. Not angry. Just — tired. Tired of people who’d been absent for years having opinions about who she married.

Franz didn’t flinch.

"That makes sense," he said. "She and Alex were close. Gilbert too. Everyone thought the same thing for a long time." He picked up his water glass. Set it back down. "Even I didn’t think she’d marry me."

No self-pity. No false modesty. Just a fact, stated the way he stated everything.

Evelyn’s eyes stayed on him. The silence stretched.

Then: "At least you know your limits. That Blackwood brat thought he was owed the world."

The room went cold.

Arianne’s hand stopped halfway to her glass. She set it back down. The name sat in the air — Blackwood — like something dragged in from outside.

"You met him." Her voice was level. One question. The exact gap she needed filled.

"He approached me." Evelyn’s tone was dry. "Months before your engagement party. A charity gala in the city. He made a point of introducing himself. Very eager. Very polished."

Arianne waited.

"He wanted the family’s acknowledgment. He seemed to think you were his way in." Her mouth pressed thin. "I told him nothing he wanted to hear."

"What did you tell him?"

"That the Conways didn’t need another man with ambitions and no substance. We have enough of those."

Julian sucked in a breath. Joyce studied her soup bowl like it held the secrets of the universe.

Arianne sat very still. Dominic had told her the Conways were cold. Unreachable. Not worth the effort. He’d made her believe they’d shut her out by choice — that there was no point in trying, that the door was closed and always had been.

He’d tried. He’d been rebuffed. He’d hidden it.

"That was years ago," she said.

"Yes."

"You never mentioned it."

"It wasn’t worth mentioning." Evelyn’s eyes flicked to Franz. "He wasn’t worth mentioning."

Joyce broke the silence. Her voice was careful. "I didn’t know about any of this."

"Because it didn’t matter. The engagement didn’t happen. The man was a waste of time." Evelyn picked up her fork again. "I assumed you knew he was a waste of time. That’s why you ended it."

"He ended it," Arianne said. "At the banquet. In front of everyone."

Evelyn’s hand paused over her plate. For the first time since she’d sat down, something flickered behind her expression. Not warmth. Not sympathy. Something closer to recognition.

"Then he was even stupider than I thought."

Julian made a sound that was almost a laugh. He turned it into a cough at the last second.

The meal wound down. Plates cleared. Coffee came — silver pot, small cups, same ritual as everything else in this house.

Franz reached beside his chair. The third paper bag. He’d kept it with him through the whole meal.

He placed it near Evelyn’s setting. Didn’t push it toward her. Didn’t announce it. Just left it there.

"This is for you," he said. "Julian helped pick it out."

Evelyn looked at the bag. At Franz. At Arianne.

She didn’t open it. She didn’t thank him. But she didn’t push it away either. Her fingers touched the edge of the paper — once, brief — and then withdrew.

"You’re either very polite," she said, "or very strategic."

"Probably both," Franz said.

Something moved in Evelyn’s face. Not a smile. The same flicker from before. The thing that happened when someone met her expectations instead of falling short of them.

Evelyn set her napkin on the table.

"Arianne." She rose. The room shifted — everyone straightening, adjusting. "We’ll speak privately now. The study."

A pause. Her eyes moved to Franz.

"Your husband can wait with the others."

Not a question. Not cruel. Just the way it worked in this house. Evelyn decided who stayed and who left.

Arianne stood. Her chair scraped against the floor.

Franz caught her eye. One look. No words. I’ll be here when you get back.

Joyce opened her mouth. Closed it. Her napkin twisted between her fingers.

Julian’s jaw was tight.

Yosef studied his empty cup.

Arianne followed Evelyn out of the dining room. The door clicked shut behind them.

The room exhaled.

Joyce let out a long breath. "Well. That went better than I thought it would."

"She called him a brat," Julian said.

"She called Dominic a brat. She called Franz self-aware. In this house, that’s practically a blessing." Joyce reached for the coffee pot. "Anyone need more?"

Yosef rose. Crossed to the sideboard. Poured two fingers of the gifted whiskey into his glass. He didn’t offer it around. He didn’t apologize.

Franz stayed where he was. Hands on the table. Eyes on the door.

Gio spoke from the far end of the table. First words since they’d sat down.

"She met him before the engagement," he said. "And she never told anyone."

"Because he wasn’t worth mentioning," Julian said.

"She remembers him well enough to call him a brat years later." Gio’s voice was even. "That’s not nothing."

No one had an answer for that.

Joyce put a fresh cup of coffee in front of Franz. He looked up. She smiled — smaller now, less performative. The smile of someone who’d been running interference for an hour and was finally allowed to stop.

"She’ll be fine," Joyce said. "Arianne. In there with Aunt. She’s been handling difficult women her whole life."

"I know," Franz said.

"Doesn’t make it easier. The waiting."

"No. It doesn’t."

He wrapped his hands around the cup. The heat pressed into his palms. He didn’t drink.

The chandelier hummed overhead. Outside, the hedges scraped against the windows. Somewhere down the hall, a door opened and closed.

The study. Evelyn’s territory.

And Arianne, alone with her.