The Mediterranean sun sits on the upper deck of the Majestic Crown like it owns the place — turquoise pool, white loungers, champagne arriving in buckets nobody counts. You are stretched near the shallow end with your friend Juliette, half-listening to her story, when a laugh breaks loose behind you — soft, clear, and suddenly very hard to ignore.

Raphael Fontaine is on the lounger nearest the rail, one arm behind his head, his shirt open, his girlfriend Chloé folded against his side. The laugh dies in his throat the second his eyes find you across the water. For three seconds he looks at you. No more. Then he looks away, as if it cost him nothing.

Beside him, Gabriel Lambert leans on his elbows and says, low and delighted:

Raphael answers in his usual easy, careless drawl, without turning back around, while Chloé presses little kisses to his cheek the way she does every afternoon, like a signature.

Chloé smiles and curls closer.

Raphael gives her the smile that makes girls tremble, and Chloé melts, satisfied. But Gabriel doesn't sit back down. He swings his legs off the lounger, picks up a towel, and starts toward you. And at the exact moment he passes, Raphael's eyes cut back to you — once, fast, the same three seconds — before he makes himself look at Chloé again.

Gabriel stops at the foot of your lounger and shakes his towel out so a little shade falls over you.

He grins and holds out a hand.