Page 24 of The Cinderella Prince

Maybe. If I were going to return home, then I would do it on my terms. I needed some bargaining chips before I considered facing my brother and parents. “I’m not going to marry her,” I said flatly.

“I can’t believe we’re actually talking about this,” Tristan said, frowning a little. “I mean, think about it. You’re being forced to marry someone. What year is it in Verdumont?”

I laughed softly. “Same as everywhere, but that doesn’t apply to royalty. This…” I sighed and shook my head. Leaning in, I brought my face closer to his. “To us, this is like a business contract. Or to my brother, at least. To marry someone is to be partnered with a person for a project in the normal world. And it has a certain set of requirements, of course, like the family line and the clean record in the eye of the public.”

Tristan snorted with the same contempt I shared. “Does the checklist mention anything about love?”

I shook my head. “Don’t get me wrong. They’re not completely heartless. My parents love each other dearly, even though theirs was a marriage of convenience. It helps that they’re both heterosexual, which I’m most definitely not. Theirs is the opinion that, giventime, Élodie and I will build something sort of like a nice life together. And it’ll ensure that we remain, for the lack of a better word, employed.”

“And what would you do?” he asked. “Sorry, I’m just trying to understand your life a little better.”

Something tugged my heart toward Tristan. I rarely wanted to explain myself to people or to share my routine. Those things were available on the website of the royal family for those following us closely, and I fled from the sort of journalists that obsessed over our every move. But Tristan? Yes. I wanted Tristan to know what my life was like. And I wasn’t fooling myself; this thing wasn’t going to go anywhere. It couldn’t, and it mustn’t. “Should something happen to Alexander, I would assume the role of the Crown Prince.” Tristan blinked. The word must have crossed his mind. “I’m thespare.” He winced so subtly that I might have imagined it. “Long live the Crown Prince,” I said lightly. “And for as long as he is the heir, my job is to support him in the public eye. It might not cross the Atlantic, but we’re a big deal in Verdumont. Alexander will need our help when he gets our father’s job. The monarchy has never been less stable. My family holds up traditions that, coming from a gay man in this day and age, might be better off dead. If people knew just how much of our lives are staged for photo ops, they’d abolish us immediately. We’re a remnant of another time, Tristan.”

“Whoa,” my knight in shining armor said. “You’re very harsh.”

“It’s not easy growing up knowing you’re different,” I said. “It should be. Verdumont is a progressive place. We were among the first countries to legalize same-sexmarriage, enact bans on non-necessary surgical intervention for intersex children, and legalize everyone’s right to self-identification. There hasn’t been a hate crime against a sexual minority in three decades. All these rules exist to make everyone equal, but…” My gaze dropped as my words grew too strained.

“They don’t apply to you,” Tristan whispered, voice tight with unchecked anger.

I shook my head. “Ironically, I could walk you through the entire history of our family and tell you about King Augustus III, who was so smitten by a young French knight that he offered the man lands and titles just to keep him close. Or King Frederick the Tall, who had married a duchess his father had picked, had a single son with her, and sent her to live on their summer estate for the rest of their lives. Meanwhile, Frederick the Tall appointed Sir Louis de Châtillon as his secretary, giving him apartments next to the King’s own—with a shared door, mind you—a yearly allowance on par with what the Princess Consort received, and was rarely seen in anyone else’s company. They were what contemporary historians would refer to as ‘very good friends.’” And there was no missing the sarcasm in my voice. “My father’s brother is bisexual. My great-grandfather’s brother was gay. Their grandfather had a very public affair with the master of his stables. The list goes on and on.”

“Don’t stop,” Tristan said, a grin splitting his face in half. “Don’t ever stop. I love this.”

I chuckled. His joyful expression was contagious. “There is a portrait of Frederick the Tall with Sir Louis de Châtillon, which I studied privately in my college days. Iwrote a paper on the ill-concealed homosexual subtext in the painting.” I asked Tristan to give me his phone, typed in the name of the painting, and handed it to him. “Just look at it. Sir Louis is holding an apple. Grooms used to give apples to their brides.”

Tristan snorted. “You wrote a paper about an apple?”

I laughed loudly. He was challenging me. I liked it. “If it were only that, I’d call it a coincidence. Look at their hands.”

Tristan frowned. He made the gesture on his screen to zoom it, frowned harder, then let his mouth hang open. “Are these matching rings?”

“When I said ‘ill-concealed,’ that’s exactly what I meant,” I said. “And look at the background. That rosebush in full bloom is entwined with thistle. Those are the symbols of love and defiance, sometimes secrecy. Ferdinand’s cloak partially covers Sir Louis, which they say shows the impressive height of the king, but it’s very clearly a symbol of protection in every other portrait that depicts a king and a queen. And that dove up there on the branch? It’s paired with a crow, the bird that represents hidden truths.”

“Alright. I’m convinced,” Tristan said, chuckling. “Your gramps had a thing for Sir Louis the Hot.”

I glanced at the screen of his phone. Sir Louis was indeed very attractive. Dark locks of hair framed his chiseled face, his eyes brown and big, his nose slightly crooked. He was shorter than Ferdinand, of course, but not by much.

“What’s with the pomegranate?” Tristan asked.

On the other side of the painting was a small table with a white cloth draped over it and a silver tray containing asingle open pomegranate. I snorted. “I asked my art history professor,” I said. “It seemed out of place in the context of a gay relationship. My professor insisted it was to symbolize the fertility of the country in their united leadership. Ferdinand the Tall is considered one of the most revered leaders in the history of Verdumont, bringing years of prosperity and peace to otherwise war-riddled times. But I think Ferdinand had a wicked sense of humor. Why else would he commission this portrait? Why else would it hang in his apartment? I think it was a juicy ‘fuck you’ to his deceased father. He had done his duty, fathered a son to take over, and provided money, privacy, and freedom to his wife—the Duchess lived with several ‘very good friends’ over the years and wrote fond, friendly letters to Ferdinand, hinting at some spicy secrets of her own—and he could live his life however he chose. I think that’s why the pomegranate is sliced open.”

Tristan rubbed his face. “This is bonkers. Do you understand that, Cedric? It’s absolutely insane that you are a…royal.”

“I just want to do the dishes, Tristan,” I admitted. “I just want to clean Mama Viv’s kitchen and dance at her shows and get a little drunk.” I was tired of always worrying about where the lens was and what face I needed to show it. I was tired of living like a goldfish in an aquarium.

“I can do that much for you,” Tristan said.

It was still beyond me why he would want to. He was an odd one.

“There’s a party the day after tomorrow. Make sure you’re off that night because we’re going to dance,” he said with a big grin that wouldn’t take no for an answer.

My heart clenched. Or maybe the reality clenched my heart when it tried to leap.Yes, I wanted to say.Yes. That’s all I want to do. To dance with you, to touch you as I touched you that first night, to kiss you again as I kissed you with the entire city glimmering behind us.My throat tightened, and I cleared it, then drank some of my beer. “Let’s do that,” I said. It was all I could say.

My soul burned with the desire to never do anything else, but I knew better than to expect such a life. Tristan was right about one thing. I didn’t mean to stay here forever. And even if I meant to, I couldn’t. Prince or not, there were rules about staying in a foreign country. Whether I wanted it or not, I needed to remember that Verdumont still beckoned me, roped me in, and pulled me back. Sooner or later, Tristan would stay in Hudson Burrow, and I would walk up the steps of the Royal Palace.

Sooner or later, this sweet, unpredictable fling would have to end.

And I wouldn’t make it any harder for either of us when the day came to part ways. I wouldn’t let myself fall for this wild, beautiful man, and I wouldn’t let him fall for me. If I could avoid that heartbreak, then I would go back to the real world a happy man, knowing I’d done something right, knowing I’d spared one beautiful person from falling apart because my life was a mess.

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