He laughed quietly, the sound warm and private, already heading for the back door—the staff exit no one but palace veterans and overly clever cats used. The worn brass handle gleamed in the morning light.
Before he slipped out, he turned back, his expression shifting to something more serious, more intent. The King falling away, leaving just Alexander—the man who still looked at her like she was the only constant in his shifting world.
“Tonight,” he said softly, a promise and a plea. “After the gala dinner.”
She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, knowing what these events cost him in energy and patience. “You’ll be exhausted.”
“I won’t care.” Three simple words, carrying the weight of everything between them.
Her heart did that helpless swoop again, the same feeling she’d had when he first kissed her— like stepping off a cliff and finding you could fly.
“Go,” she whispered, making a shooing motion with her hand. “Before your mother ‘accidentally’shows up for a garden stroll.”
He grinned, that rare unguarded expression that made him look years younger, crossed back to kiss her once more—quick but thorough—and vanished into the quiet morning, coat over his arm, collar still askew. The door closed behind him with a soft click that somehow felt like both an ending and a beginning.
* * *
Queen Eleanor stood at her bedroom window, already dressed in a silk dressing gown the colour of polished pearl, its subtle embroidery catching the morning light. A delicate porcelain cup of Earl Grey tea balanced elegantly in her hand, steam rising in lazy curls. Her dark hair was already perfectly arranged, even at this early hour, a woman who had never allowed herself to be caught unprepared, not even by dawn itself.
She watched as Alexander slipped out of the side path near the ivy-covered wall, adjusting his cufflinks with one hand and checking his watch with the other. His collar was still crooked, his hair more disheveled than she’d seen it since he was a boy of twelve.
Her lips pressed into the faintest line, a microexpression that would have been undetectable to anyone who hadn’t spent decades studying the nuances of royal displeasure.
Not her first choice. Not even her second.
But, Eleanor had to admit, Emilia Carter hadn’t run. Hadn’t crumbled under scrutiny. And at least she was intelligent. Not some vapid actress or influencer with more followers than thoughts.
There was a steel there that reminded Eleanor, uncomfortably, of herself at a younger age.
With a quiet sigh that carried decades of compromise, Eleanor turned from the window, setting her teacup down on its saucer with barely a sound.
Let them think she hadn’t seen, that she didn’t know.
Discretion was still a virtue, after all, and she had other battles to fight. The monarchy had survived wars, scandals, and revolutions. It would survive love too, messy and inconvenient as it might be.
She rang the small silver bell on her side table, summoning her lady-in-waiting. It was time to prepare for the day ahead. There was a kingdom to run, with or without her son’s full attention.
The sun continued its climb, indifferent to the quiet dramas playing out beneath its gaze. Another day in the palace had begun.
7
When Your Origin Story Is a Tragic Rom-Com (With Bonus Soundtrack)
For Sebastian, arriving in Paris felt like slipping into a dream he used to have.
Everything was still exactly as he’d remembered it—wrought iron balconies, elegant Hausmann buildings, cafés spilling onto sidewalks with practiced indifference. The same slate-colored sky. The same sharp scent of rain and cigarettes. It should have been comforting.
It wasn’t.
The city hadn’t changed. Sebastian had.
He wasn’t the boy who once begged to stay here over school holidays, back when Paris had meant freedom and indulgence and an uncle who let him order dessert before dinner. He was the man who’d come back for answers, and maybe vengeance.
The car Jérôme sent was black and silent, the driver perfectly professional and blessedly quiet. Sebastian welcomed the stillness, let it settle over him as he watched the rain trail across the window in hesitant streaks. His reflection stared back: pale, tired, overdrawn around the edges.
He pressed his fingers to his temple, trying to stop the spiral before it swallowed him whole. He didn’t even know what he was looking for. Was it closure? Justice? A ghostof something real? Or maybe just proof he hadn’t imagined it all, that once, someone had loved him.
Jérôme’s flat looked almost unchanged, the designer-label version of a bachelor pad— high ceilings, polished floors, floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the Seine. Every surface gleamed with that effortless Parisian disdain, like even the coffee table thought it was too good for fingerprints. The kind of place that didn’t scream wealth, because it didn’t have to. After all, the Rousseaus had been bankers since the Bourbons. Jérôme had simply inherited the family seat at the table of power, and made it even more formidable.