Yep. They exchanged love letters using fake names, at the very least (it was stated the "Esther Penselors" in the letter of chapter 15 was code name for "Hessel Orpenster", the name of the ML's dad, the former Crown Prince). In chapter 17, there is a flashback where the ML's father told the child ML how to monopolize a love interest, and he was talking about what he did to get the person he himself wanted, which we now learn was the FL's adoptive father. And the FL's adoptive father was the only one the ML's father didn't want to kill (he was the only one he tried to save immediately after stabbing him, which he did only bc the FL's father told him he knew all the truth... and the Crown Prince would have never hurt him otherwise)
And the more telling clue: chapter 20, where we see in a flashback that the crown prince even interfered the relationship between the FL's adoptive father and his fiancéé at the time, Leona (who later was forced to marry the crown prince himself, and gave birth to the ML, so she ended up being the ML's biological mother).
No matter how many times I read this, I'm a bit confused with previous emperor and FL father ( adopted since the real one died) relationship. All this mess up shit events happened because of the emperor's obsession?