The rehearsal room smelled like old wood and dusted curtains—history soaked into every surface.
Nara Elise stood at the center of it, hands clenched at her sides, trying not to overthink the fact that two pairs of eyes were focused on her.

“Positions,” Ms. Seraphine Hale commanded, sharp and final.

Silas Vailon moved first.

He stepped into place with precise, almost mechanical grace, his posture perfect, his expression unreadable. When he glanced at Nara, it wasn’t curious or warm—it was analytical, as if she were a variable in an equation he hadn’t solved yet.

Rowan Maren followed, far less rigid. He rolled his shoulders, stretched his arms, and flashed Nara a quick smile.

“Guess we’re doing this,” he murmured, light and teasing.

Nara swallowed.

Ms. Hale held out three scripts. “Your first exercise is simple,” she said. “A confrontation scene. Two rivals in love with the same person. Tension. Subtext. No exaggeration.”

Silas’ jaw tightened.

Rowan’s smile widened just a little.

Nara’s heart dropped straight into her stomach.

“You’ll rotate,” Ms. Hale continued. “Silas, you’ll begin opposite Nara. Rowan, observe.”

Silas stepped closer.

Too close.

The air shifted instantly—tight, heavy, controlled. Nara felt it in her chest, the way his presence seemed to demand focus.

“Page three,” Silas said quietly. “Stick to the text.”

Before she could respond, Ms. Hale snapped, “Begin.”

Silas’s voice changed the moment the scene started—low, intense, dangerously calm.

“You think you can walk away,” he said, eyes locked onto hers, “after everything you promised?”

Nara’s breath caught.

This wasn’t the cold prodigy everyone whispered about. This was something sharper. Something real.

“I didn’t promise anything,” she replied, voice trembling just enough to feel honest. “You only heard what you wanted.”

Silas stepped closer again—too close for comfort, too close to be just acting. His hand lifted, stopping just short of touching her wrist.

“Liar.”

The word hit harder than it should have.

“Cut,” Ms. Hale said.

Silas stepped back instantly, expression sealing shut like nothing had happened.

Rowan clicked his tongue. “Wow. That was… intense.”

Ms. Hale turned. “Your turn.”

Rowan took Silas’s place, the shift immediate. The tension didn’t vanish—it transformed.

Rowan’s gaze was softer, warmer, but no less focused.

“You don’t have to push so hard,” he said gently as the scene resumed. “I’m not your enemy.”

Nara felt her shoulders loosen before she could stop herself.

“That’s what makes this worse,” she said. “You’re the one I might actually lose.”

Rowan reached out—

—and this time, he took her hand.

Her pulse spiked.

For a split second, she forgot the room. Forgot the audience. Forgot everything except the warmth of his fingers curling around hers.

“Cut,” Ms. Hale said again, slower this time.

Silence fell.

Silas hadn’t moved.

His gaze was locked on their joined hands—sharp, calculating, unreadable. Something flickered behind his eyes, quick and dangerous, before his jaw set hard enough to ache.

Rowan noticed.

And didn’t let go.

Ms. Hale’s eyes flicked between the three of them—Silas, perfectly composed but rigid; Rowan, still holding Nara’s hand like it belonged there; and Nara herself, breathing harder than she realized.

“This,” Ms. Hale said finally, “is exactly why I couldn’t choose.”

Silas looked away first.

But when his eyes returned to Nara, they were colder than before—focused, intent, and unmistakably possessive.

Nara realized, far too late, that this wasn’t just a rehearsal.

This was the beginning of a rivalry neither of them intended to lose.