Fitzgerald looked at Timothy. "You've been making friends lately."
Timothy almost laughed. "And if I didn't know you," he said, "I'd think you were jealous."
A dry, humorless chuckle escaped Fitzgerald.
Jealousy… What an oddly human emotion.
"I met Sebastian Remington at Maximilian's funeral," Timothy said matter-of-factly. "We've had a drink together a few times since then. We went to school together, remember? Unlike you, I have friends, and I wish to meet them often."
He shrugged.
"I do have a life outside this family and you."
There was a pause, as if Fitzgerald was taking in every syllable and etching it somewhere.
"You make it sound," Fitzgerald observed, "as though I've been responsible for the absence of one."
There was no accusation in his voice. Only curiosity.
He tilted his head slightly, watching Timothy with the same detached fascination one might reserve for a laboratory specimen.
"Do you resent me?"
