Rival Hearts

Chapter Seven: The Dinner

The Ashcombe dining room had been built for exactly this kind of evening — long enough to seat twenty, dressed in the kind of quiet formality that made every voice sound louder than it meant to be. Candlelight pooled along the dark wood table, catching the crystal, throwing soft gold across the place settings my mother had rearranged three times that afternoon until they satisfied her. Rain had started somewhere around six, tapping steady against the tall windows, and the whole room smelled faintly of the rosemary and roasted garlic drifting in from the kitchen, warm and out of place against how cold I felt standing in the doorway in a dress I hadn't wanted to put on.

I hadn't spoken to Kael since the community square. Two days of silence, and now here we were, forced into the same room by parents who apparently thought a dinner could smooth over a public accusation of sabotage like it was nothing more than a misplaced fork.

The Voss family arrived at seven sharp. Julian first, tall and composed in a way that made my own father look almost relaxed beside him, followed by Elena, warm-eyed and clearly trying very hard to ease a tension she hadn't caused. Kael came in last, jaw tight, eyes finding mine across the room for exactly one second before sliding away.

"Wren." Julian took my hand when he reached me, his grip firm, his smile the practiced kind. "It's good to finally do this properly."

"Likewise," I said, and meant almost none of it.

We sat. My father took the head of the table, my mother beside him, Odette settled near the middle with the particular satisfaction of a woman who still believed, against all evidence, that this dinner might go well. Kael ended up across from me, close enough that avoiding his eyes took actual effort.

The first twenty minutes went the way these dinners always went — polite nothing, weather and travel and the renovation happening two streets over from the Voss estate. I answered when spoken to and said nothing else, pushing food around my plate, aware of Kael doing roughly the same thing across from me.

It was my father who broke the pattern.

"I understand there was some unpleasantness at the harvest celebration," he said, setting down his glass with deliberate care, his eyes moving between Kael and me. "I'd like to address it before we go any further tonight."

"Desmond," my mother started, a warning in her voice.

"No, it's better we clear the air." He looked at Kael directly now. "My daughter tells me you were found near the food just before it was discovered contaminated."

"I was asked to check a container." Kael's voice stayed level, but I could hear the strain underneath it. "I didn't sabotage anything."

"That's not what it looked like."

"With respect, sir, what it looked like and what happened aren't the same thing." Kael's tone sharpened, and for the first time all evening he sounded genuinely tired of defending himself rather than merely polite about it. "I've said this to Wren already. I'll say it to you too. I had nothing to do with it."

"He's lying." The words were out of my mouth before I had fully decided to say them, sharp enough that Odette's fork paused halfway to her plate. "I saw him back there. Alone. Right before it happened."

"Wren." Julian's voice carried a quiet warning of its own now, protective enough that my jaw tightened on reflex.

"I'm not going to sit here and pretend I imagined it." I set my own glass down harder than I meant to, the clink of crystal against wood cutting through the room. "This is exactly what I was afraid of when I found out about this arrangement. That I'd be expected to smile through anything your family does, because apparently a merger is worth more than the truth."

"That is not fair," Kael said, his composure finally cracking in full. "You accused me in front of half the city without a shred of actual proof, and now you want to sit here and lecture me about truth?"

"I want you to admit what you did."

"I can't admit to something I didn't do." His voice rose to match mine now, both of us leaning forward across the table like the distance between our chairs had shrunk without either of us moving. "You decided I was guilty the second you saw me standing there. You didn't ask a single question. You just started shouting."

"Because I know what your family thinks of mine." My hands were shaking again, that same helpless fury from the bar rising fast and hot. "You've spent this entire dinner sitting there like the wronged party, and meanwhile my family's reputation took a hit in front of the entire city because of what happened at that party."

"Your family's reputation." Kael let out a short, humorless laugh, and the sound of it landed like something breaking. "You have no idea what my family has sacrificed for this arrangement. No idea what it's cost my father to sit across from yours and pretend twenty years of history doesn't exist. And you want to talk to me about reputation."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Enough." Julian's voice cut through the room like a blade, sharp enough that both Kael and I went silent at once. He was on his feet, one hand flat against the table, his composure gone entirely, his expression closer to fear than anything I had seen on him yet. "That is enough. Both of you."

The silence that followed was total. Rain kept tapping against the windows. Somewhere in the kitchen a pan clattered against a counter, and nobody at the table so much as flinched at the sound. My mother's face had gone pale. Odette had set her fork down entirely, watching Julian with an expression I couldn't read. My father sat very still, his eyes narrowed, studying Julian like he had just heard something he hadn't expected to hear tonight.

Julian sat back down slowly, straightening his jacket, and when he spoke again his voice had returned to something careful and controlled, though his hands, I noticed, were not quite steady around his glass.

"I think," he said, "we should move on to the wedding details."

Nobody argued. But the words he had let slip sat in the middle of the table like something none of us could unhear, and across from me, Kael's eyes had gone distant, fixed on his father with an expression I hadn't seen on him before.

Confusion, mostly. And underneath it, the first real flicker of doubt.