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Ezra had delayed both of the people who the two men were supposed to meet and made a table that was supposed to leave hours earlier, sit around. Through a series of manipulations, he forced his father, Michael and Klaus Bese to sit at the same table, all by themselves while they waited for their business partners to arrive and for the other table to leave.

Such events were unheard of at high end restaurants, as usually, if the guest was particularly important, the table would be reserved the whole day. If any of the men had raised any issues, the problem would have been solved, but both men were understanding and not easy to anger. Especially since, the one that had occupied the table was a woman that seemed to be crying.

The maître d' had explained to them that the woman seemed to be heartbroken and had gotten into the restaurant randomly and just went for the empty table as if she had not seen the "reserved" sign, placed her head down and started weeping softly.

Since she was well dressed and her mannerisms were elegant, the staff was reluctant to throw her out and insult her in any way. There had still been a few hours until the reserved time, after all. Nobody was expecting her to sit there for three hours, crying and having ordered the most expensive wine to not even take a sip.

After about five minutes of sitting at the same table, the two men got to talking and Michael got invited to an event the count was holding at the end of the month; one where Daphne's father would be present.

In a surprising turn of events, as soon as the invitation had been extended and the details explained, the woman left the table. Her face had been red, her cheeks stained with tear marks, and she had left two times the value of the wine on the table and left with a disheartened expression after apologizing to the staff for her behavior.

As the time for the event came, Ezra could do nothing more but desperately hope his father would approach Ander von Schéele when the opportunity presented itself. If he had been the one to go and ask for her hand, he could have risked displeasing Ander von Schéele, who already had other prospects in mind for Daphne.

His long months of scheming eventually payed off and all of the parties involved were none the wiser that he had been the puppet master all along. And he would take this information to the grave.

Ezra had long been afraid of acting on his feelings; lest he be rejected; as such, he was always waiting for some sort of signal from Daphne, a cue, a look, anything that could give him just a little bit of hope and an incentive to act.

The more time passed with Daphne being completely disinterested, the more brokenhearted and passive, he became. In the eve of all of his frustrations, around four years ago, he ended up being unable to concentrate, his work had become a mess and he was always aroused, but reluctant to force anything with Daphne.

The crux of his problem was the fact that she was right there, he just had to reach and he could touch her, but at the same time, the more he saw her unchanged expression, the more reluctant he was to act out anything that might make her hate him.

At least, they were amicable.

At least, he could see her whenever he wanted.

At least, even if someone wanted to take her away from him, he was her husband.