It had been nearly an hour since the sun had finished rising, and still, Prince Gabin remained a prisoner in his own room.

The gilded walls, once a symbol of heritage and grandeur, now pressed in on him like a silent, suffocating cage. The morning light spilled through the tall windows, soft and golden, but it did little to soften the atmosphere inside. Camille sat hunched over her laptop at the foot of his bed, her lacquered nails clacking against the keyboard like claws tapping glass, each keystroke a reminder that she was orchestrating a disaster he couldn’t control. Around her loitered the usual entourage  -  a small crowd of personal staff, whispering and nodding, and the two looming bodyguards who hadn’t taken their eyes off Gabin since he’d tried to shove past them an hour ago.

Their presence made him feel like a criminal.

All he could do was pace: slow steps across antique carpet, then back again. Sit. Lie down. Kick the edge of the sheets with anxious feet. His head sank into the plush pillow, but comfort wouldn’t come. His chest felt tight, every breath heavy with the weight of everything he couldn’t say. And the silence  -  when Camille wasn’t barking orders over the phone or snapping at someone in hushed French  -  was worse than any noise.

He’d tried to reach Padma. Reached for his phone with trembling hands, desperate to hear her voice, to know she was okay, to know she was safe  -  but Camille had snatched it before the lock screen even lit up. His laptop, gone. His iPad, vanished. Even his smartwatch. Every portal to the outside world had been sealed off, as if she feared one more text from him would make the whole country explode.

And maybe she was right. But that didn’t stop the ache in his chest.

“I need to pee,” Gabin muttered at last, his voice muffled as he pressed his face into the pillow. His knee bounced beneath him, restless, a slow rhythm of tension.

Camille didn’t look up right away  -  just shifted slightly in her seat, the light from the screen casting a sharp reflection across her sharp cheekbones. When she did lift her eyes, only her gaze moved. Her face remained perfectly still, like porcelain  -  cold and unreadable.

“Yes, Your Royal Highness?” she asked, raising an arched brow. The artificial glow of the laptop screen made her irises look almost white, her pupils swallowed into pinpricks. For a moment, Gabin could’ve sworn she looked like something out of a horror film  -  the villain who always knows more than you do, who never sleeps and never blinks.

“You’re not permitted to leave,” she added crisply. “The Queen is expected shortly. Until then, her instructions are clear: remain here. We’ll wait for her ruling.”

Ruling.

Like he wasn’t even a son anymore. Just a prince. Just a mistake waiting to be judged.

Gabin didn’t reply. He turned away from her and stared at the ceiling  -  the painted cherubs above his bed suddenly so mocking, like they were laughing behind their clouds.

He felt sick. Powerless. And worst of all, alone.

Padma was out there somewhere, in the storm of all this. And he couldn’t even hold her hand.

“What the fuck,” Gabin muttered under his breath, still staring at the ceiling like it might split open and swallow him whole.

His eyes dropped to Camille.

She was still watching him, lips slightly parted, fingers frozen above the keys of her laptop. But the expression on her face had changed  -  just for a second. She blinked once, too slow, like the sound of his voice  -  and more so, the word itself  -  had knocked her off her axis. Like she couldn’t quite process the fact that His Royal Highness, Prince Gabin Louis Alexandre, had said fuck. That the golden boy of France, heir to centuries of polished tradition, had let something real slip out of his mouth.

Like she was reminded, unpleasantly, that beneath the title and the bloodline, he was still seventeen.

“I’m sorry?” she said at last, quieter this time. The iron in her voice faltered, just for a moment  -  like she expected him to walk it back. To apologize. To remember who he was supposed to be.

But Gabin didn’t back down.

He tilted his chin and laughed  -  a sharp, bitter sound that sliced the silence like glass. “What the fuck is everyone’s problem?”

His voice rose, and his posture shifted  -  no longer curled up and shut down, but awake now, alive with a fire that had been simmering beneath the surface since the moment those headlines first lit up his screen.

He sat up straighter, shoulders tense. His arms unfolded from where they’d been wrapped tight around his body, as if he’d just realized he was done protecting anyone’s feelings but Padma’s.

“I can’t even go take a piss without three people writing a report on it,” he snapped. “Like what, Camille? Do you think I’m going to flush myself down the toilet and reappear at a rave in Montmartre? Or that if I step out of your sight for even one second, I’ll magically teleport to Padma and ruin the royal family even more?”

His voice cracked slightly on her name, but he didn’t stop.

“I can’t touch my phone. I can’t breathe. And that one - ” he jabbed a finger toward one of the guards, who stood frozen like a stone carving “ - won’t stop staring at me like I’m about to pull a knife out of my sleeve and start beheading the staff.”

Camille straightened her spine, the flicker of emotion in her eyes replaced by polished professionalism.

“My Prince, you need to understand - this is a very serious situation. The Queen is doing her best to contain it. There are protocols in place. Rules that must be followed. We’re trying to ensure this doesn’t spiral into something - ”

“Her best?” Gabin interrupted, his voice quieter now but thick with venom. He let out a joyless laugh that made everyone in the room shift uncomfortably. “Her best is locking me in my room and treating me like a walking scandal? Her best is banning me from speaking to the girl I - ”

He stopped himself. Bit the word off before it could surface. Too dangerous. Too sacred.

He swallowed hard and kept going. “She’s treating me like an addict. Like a drunk who threw himself on some random girl. But Padma isn’t random. She’s not some tabloid fantasy. And I didn’t ‘throw myself’ on her. I love her.”

He hissed the last sentence through gritted teeth, standing now, fists clenched at his sides. “And you - ” his gaze bore into Camille “ - you’re the one who called her a commoner, right? Like she’s dirt? Like the girl who’s been in this palace since she was in diapers doesn’t deserve to be in the same room as me?”

 Camille’s lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line. But she said nothing.

“Well,” he breathed, voice shaking, “if that’s the definition of ‘best’ - then she can keep it. The Queen. You. The entire PR team. You can all shove it. This whole twisted, hypocritical circus of yours - ”

He slammed his fist into the pillow beside him, the sound muted but jarring. Everyone flinched. Even the bodyguards.

The room had gone still. Still enough to feel the sharp edges of silence cutting against the tension that lingered like smoke.

Camille was drained of color. Her usually immovable composure had cracked at the edges, her expression pale, tight. The carefully sculpted woman who lived for control now looked more like a wax figure under a heat lamp  -  wilting. The PR staff beside her  -  all new hires, clearly  -  sat frozen, mouths slightly ajar, as if the sheer force of Gabin’s fury had knocked the air out of their lungs. This was likely their first time meeting the Prince of France.

They hadn’t expected him to bleed.

Camille opened her mouth, no doubt to retaliate or reassert herself  -  but before a single syllable could fall, a soft knock at the door sliced through the thick tension like a violin string snapping mid-performance.

All heads turned.

The guards moved first, stepping aside with choreographed precision, and the double doors eased open.

A woman stepped through  -  tall, spare, and composed in the way only those who have learned to live in the Queen’s shadow can be. Her frame was delicate, almost too slender for the weight of the world she helped carry. A pair of fancy white stilettos, her long brown skirt brushing her ankles, a rich cloth coat wrapped around her torso like armor spun from silence and duty.

It was Louise.

The Queen’s personal assistant. Always nearby, but never intrusive. The kind of presence that existed in the periphery of royal life  -  the oil in the machine, never the spotlight.

Her eyes scanned the room quickly, settling on Gabin’s for the briefest moment  -  a flicker of emotion passing between them that he couldn’t quite pin down. Pity? Sadness? A glint of maternal softness? He didn’t know. He only knew it wasn’t cruel, and that already made it rare.

Then she turned to Camille and spoke, her voice low, calm, and firm enough to silence the room.

“Her Royal Highness the Queen has arrived,” Louise said. “She asks that everyone vacate the room immediately. She would like to speak with Prince Gabin alone.”

Not a second passed before Camille was on her feet, her hands darting to shut her laptop, wires coiled with the urgency of someone eager to disappear. She didn’t make eye contact. With a quick flick of her wrist  -  a practiced signal  -  the others filed out behind her, shuffling awkwardly past the guards, through the open doors, and out of sight.

In seconds, the room was quiet again.

Except now, it was only Gabin and Louise.

She stood by the door a moment longer, her hand resting on the handle like she was bracing herself. Her eyes flicked toward him again  -  softer now. Measured.

She wasn’t a woman Gabin had spoken to often. She was younger than most of his mother’s staff, in her late forties, maybe early fifties. But unlike Camille, Louise had a gentleness about her  -  a warmth she never wore too obviously, but which still seemed to cling to her like perfume. He didn’t understand how she worked under the Queen, how someone so soft-spoken could survive in the glare of such cold power.

She looked at him now with brows pulled gently together, her mouth pressed into a tight, unreadable line. It was sympathy, maybe. Or something heavier  -  guilt? Resignation? She didn’t speak for a while. Just looked at him like she saw too much.

Then, finally, she let out a quiet sigh.

“Take care of yourself, Your Highness.”

And with that, she stepped out, pulling the door shut behind her.

It clicked softly into place  -  and just like that, Gabin was alone again.

Alone, and about to face the woman who taught him how to wear a crown like it was glued to his skull.

He could hear it before he saw her  -  the steady, razor-sharp rhythm of her heels striking the floor like a ticking clock.

Click. Click. Click.

The sound had been seared into his memory years ago. He could recognize it anywhere. His mother didn’t walk  -  she arrived. Every step was calculated, controlled, inevitable. There was no room for hesitation in her movements, no room for softness either. That knock of her shoes used to make him sit up straighter as a boy, guilt blooming in his stomach whether he’d done something wrong or not.

She hadn’t visited his room much when he was younger  -  and never just to see him. She only came when she was summoned by duty, or disappointment, or scandal. When he was a child, it was for “antics” that embarrassed the family  -  things like laughing too loudly at the dinner table or crying during a portrait sitting. Later, it was for nothing at all. He could breathe wrong and she’d look at him like he’d spit on the crown.

Most of the time, he only saw her at mandatory appearances. The dull gleam of royal galas. The stiff choreography of public-facing family dinners, the kind where every bite of food tasted like protocol and silence. Or those cursed “family vacations” that were really just PR obligations wrapped in flights and photo ops.

He couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a conversation that wasn’t about optics, duty, or shame.

As for his father  -  the King, technically  -  he was barely a ghost.

Gabin’s relationship with him couldn’t even be called distant, because distance implied there had been closeness to start with. There had been nothing. Just the polite nod of a man who seemed to be sleepwalking through life. A man who’d inherited a title and quietly handed the reins to his wife. His mother ruled the family. His father… stood beside her. A nobleman from an old family that had, generations ago, joined the royal line through alliance - two legacies bound by duty, not desire.

Sometimes Gabin wondered if the man even had thoughts. Or if he just recited lines he’d been given and called it a day.

That was probably why the Queen had married him. Because he didn’t fight back. Because she could direct his every move like one of her PR teams. Because he was easy to control. Easier to ignore.

Gabin had never seen a flicker of love between them. No passion. No warmth. Just duty, pressed into place like a heavy cloak. They weren’t lovers. They were co-rulers. Cohabitants of a palace built on obligation. And they both wore that role like it had calcified into their bones.

And that was what terrified Gabin most.

That he was next.

That no matter how loudly his heart beat, how fiercely he tried to break free, he’d be forced into the same kind of life. A royal marriage for the sake of alliances. A hollow partnership dressed up in gold leaf. Children raised by staff and policies. A legacy built not on love  -  but survival.

He didn’t want that. He didn’t want their version of royalty.

He wanted something else. Something real.

But he wasn’t sure if that kind of life was even allowed for people like him.

And then, her footsteps stopped.

Right outside the door.

The Queen had arrived.

The door creaked open slowly, its ornate hinges groaning with the weight of what waited on the other side. The very air in the room shifted  -  colder, sharper  -  like it had braced itself, too.

Gabin felt it in his bones before he saw her.

He rose to his feet like lightning, his body moving faster than his mind could catch up. It was instinct, muscle memory scripted into him since childhood  -  you stand when the Queen enters. You don’t think. You obey.

He didn’t know if he respected her. He wasn’t even sure if he hated her. All he knew was the truth: he was afraid of her.

His mother was not a woman who needed to raise her voice to command a room. Her presence alone was enough to make you lower your eyes, shrink an inch, question your worth. It wasn’t just the crown that made her terrifying. It was her. The way she moved like a sharpened blade in heels. The way she looked at you  -  not with rage, but calculation. Not fire, but frost.

And then she entered.