Her frame appeared in the doorway, backlit by the soft hallway light. Her blonde hair fell in perfect, practiced waves, the silver strands at her temples long since erased by color touch-ups. Her face was frozen in the same expression it always wore  -  ageless and unreadable, sculpted in porcelain and political instinct. Her blue eyes  -  his eyes  -  were glacial as ever, cool enough to burn.

She wore a pale rose suit, tailored so precisely it looked like it was stitched onto her body. Not a crease. Not a thread out of place. Her golden wedding band flashed subtly as she adjusted the sleeve of her jacket. Even now, even furious, she was composed to the point of godliness.

Perfect. Polished. Untouchable.

But Gabin could sense it  -  the storm under her skin. The rage she would never show the cameras but always saved for him.

She turned her head, met his gaze, and began to walk toward him. Her heels struck the marble like a metronome counting down to catastrophe. Gabin parted his lips to speak  -  to apologize, to explain, to beg  -  but the oxygen never came. His throat closed.

He could only watch her approach, locked in place.

Then she stopped in front of him.

And without hesitation, without a flicker of doubt or pause, she raised her hand  -  the one bearing the ring of a loveless monarchy  -  and slapped him.

The sound cracked through the room like thunder.

His head snapped to the side, the sting rushing across his cheek like fire. Heat bloomed beneath his skin, and he could already feel it beginning to swell and redden.

He didn’t lift his face. He didn’t dare.

His curls fell into his eyes as he bowed his head, gaze fixed on the polished floor, trying to keep the tears at bay. But they burned anyway  -  a storm behind his eyes, tangled with shame and pain and something deeper, more ancient.

He felt like a wounded animal, small and cornered  -  a rabbit trembling as the wolves closed in.

And his mother  -  his Queen  -  stood above him in silence, unmoved.

“Do you know what you’ve done?”

Her voice pierced the air like a blade  -  sharp, metallic, and dangerously precise.

It wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be.

The stillness of it, the chilling flatness, carried more weight than any scream could have. The fury was buried deep beneath a practiced calm, but Gabin heard it. He’d always been able to hear it. Other people might have mistaken her tone for composed, even elegant. But not him.

He’d spent his whole life decoding the spaces between her words  -  the iciness that meant disappointment, the clipped consonants that meant shame. The quiet was always worse than yelling. It meant she’d had time to prepare the pain.

“Do you realize the disgrace you’ve brought on yourself?” she continued, enunciating each word like it offended her to say it aloud. “On this country? On me?”

There was no tremor in her voice. No break. Just tightly controlled syllables strung together like pearls on a noose.

Then her voice rose  -  not in volume, but in command.

“Look at me when the Queen is speaking to you.”

The Queen. Not your mother.

That word echoed in Gabin’s mind like a dropped glass: Queen. The Queen. Always the Queen.

His whole body flinched at the sound of it. He wanted to obey. His instincts screamed at him to lift his gaze  -  but it was like his spine had turned to stone, like his muscles had locked themselves in grief. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t raise his head. Couldn’t bear to see what he already knew would be waiting in her eyes.

So she made the decision for him.

With a movement so sudden it made him gasp, the Queen reached out and grabbed his chin, her manicured fingers biting into his skin as she forced his face upward. Her rings  -  golden and glinting  -  pressed against his jaw with calculated indifference.

Gabin’s eyes met hers.

Cold. Sharp. Pale blue, just like his own  -  but his had always felt too soft for royalty. Hers were pure ice.

“You were always a difficult child,” she said coolly, her grip still tightening, as if his silence somehow validated her disappointment. “Always following your own head. Never once thinking about your family. About me.”

Her lips curled, just slightly  -  a bitter, humorless scoff.

“It’s like you enjoy embarrassing me.”

Gabin didn’t speak. He couldn’t. His chest was too tight, his thoughts too loud. The heat of shame crept up his neck, but he tried  -  tried  -  to hold her gaze.

She let go of his chin with a sharp flick of her wrist, as though disgusted to have touched him. Then she stepped back, folded her arms with impeccable grace, and continued.

“But I suppose I should have expected this,” she said, her voice softer now  -  more venomous in its restraint. “The signs were always there. When you turned fourteen and told me you didn’t want to attend Saint-Rémy like every other heir in our bloodline, I should have known something was wrong. You wanted private tutors. A tailored schedule. More solitude.”

She laughed under her breath  -  not with amusement, but contempt.

“You told me it would help you focus. That it would help you excel. And I believed you. I thought, ‘How mature. How disciplined. Sensitive, perhaps  -  but promising.’ I thought I was being understanding. Allowing my son to grow into his own kind of leader.”

Her words twisted, cracked.

“But I should’ve seen it for what it was.”

She took a slow step forward.

“It was the beginning of your retreat. From your role. From your duty. From your family.”

The room fell quiet again, suffocatingly so.

And Gabin stood there, each breath a struggle, each word a wound, wondering how much more of himself he’d have to lose before she saw him as anything but a failure.

“You always found a way to slip through the cracks, Gabin. To vanish without noise. Quiet enough to avoid confrontation, but never quiet enough to go unnoticed.”

She circled him like a judge in court.

“You’d disappear from events, rehearsals, diplomatic briefings. And then reappear as if nothing had happened. As if the world paused for you.”

Gabin stood still, motionless, but he could feel his pulse pounding through every inch of his skin. His mouth was dry. His hands clenched at his sides.

“I let you,” she said, more softly now. “God help me, I let you. I told myself it was a phase. That you’d come back when you were ready. That you were simply… sensitive. More delicate than the others. More thoughtful.”

Her eyes darkened, lashes lowering in disdain.

“But now I see the truth.”

Her voice curled into disgust.

“It was never about time. It was never about growth. It was about rebellion. It was about her.”

She spat the word like it burned her tongue.

“That nanny’s daughter. That girl who walks like she owns nothing, and looks at you like you mean everything.”

Gabin’s stomach twisted violently.

“What did she offer you?” the Queen pressed. “Honesty? Chaos? A breath of air that wasn’t prepackaged by the monarchy? Is that all it takes to seduce a prince?”

Her lip curled.

“This isn’t love, Gabin. You are not in love. And she - ” her voice broke with a sudden, bitter venom, “ - she does not love you.”

She stepped closer, her hand fluttering once near his shoulder, but never touching.

“This scandal - this circus - isn’t new. Don’t you see that? This is the crescendo of a very long silence. The final act of a rebellion you’ve been building quietly for years.”

Her breath trembled. But her words did not.

“And I want you to understand something.”

She met his eyes, and her gaze had never been colder. There was no love there. Only fury wearing the mask of dignity.

“This is not about romance. Or youth. Or heartbreak. This is about recklessness. About your total disregard for what you were born into.”

She paced again, every step echoing through the chamber.

“You were trusted. Protected. Elevated above nearly every other seventeen-year-old on this earth. Do you even realize what that means? What that costs?”

Her voice broke for a moment - not from sadness, but from disbelief.

“And you threw it away. For one moment. One girl. One pathetic fantasy of being ordinary.”

She stopped then - right in front of him. Inches away. The scent of her perfume, sharp and cold like white jasmine, filled his lungs.

“But you are not ordinary,” she hissed. “You don’t get to be.”

Her hand rose - this time not to strike, but to point, straight into his chest.

“You are mine. My blood. You belong to this crown. To this country.”

Her voice cracked like thunder.

“And you have made me a fool.”

The silence that followed was unbearable. Not because of the volume - but because it felt final.

“You don’t get to live like other people, Gabin. You aren’t other people,” she whispered now, almost like it pained her. “You were born with a role. With a legacy. And you don’t get to chase what the world calls freedom just because it looks romantic.”

Her jaw clenched, and her eyes flashed - fury, and something that almost looked like heartbreak.

“Being a prince,” she said, “is not a punishment. It’s a privilege.”

Gabin wanted to speak.

To defend her. To protect her. To tell the Queen - to tell his mother - that Padma was the only real thing in his life. That he loved her. That she loved him. And no, of course she wouldn’t understand. Because what did she know about love, anyway? Real love - not power plays or social maneuvering or the pathetic sycophants licking the polished floor at her heels. Actual love. The kind that bloomed in shadows. The kind you’d throw everything away for.

But he didn’t say any of it.

Not because he didn’t want to.

Because he was scared.

Because it wouldn’t matter.

The Queen’s stilettos clicked once against the marble floor and stopped. Her posture stiffened. When she turned back to face him, her voice had shifted - low and precise, honed like the point of a dagger.

“How long has this been going on?”

Gabin’s throat tightened. His mouth was dry. There was no saliva left - just sand and silence. He swallowed, barely.

“…Three years,” he whispered.

The words felt scraped from his ribs.

The Queen lifted her chin. “Three years,” she repeated, slowly, like she was savoring the taste of something bitter. “So for three years, you let this girl leech off you. Live in your shadow. Feed off your title. For three years, you risked the crown and this family’s name - for this?” She scoffed, arching a brow in mockery. “As expected of you.”

A small sound escaped him - something between a gasp and a sob. His lips parted, but the tears beat him to it, pooling in his eyes, trembling there, hot and helpless.

“It’s not like that!” he cried, voice cracking around the words. “Padma didn’t do anything wrong, mom. It wasn’t even her who made the first move - it was me. And we weren’t sneaking around. She knows what it means to be with me. She understands.” His voice was shaking now, raw and urgent. “We never even left the palace before. Not until last night. It was her birthday. I just - I just wanted her to feel alive. To have one memory that wasn’t behind locked doors or whispering walls.”

The Queen laughed.

Not kindly. Not even cruelly.

It was something else - deeper, darker. Like a sound scraped from deep within her chest. It raked down his spine.

“Well,” she said, curling her lips into a smile that didn’t touch her eyes. “You certainly gave her a memory, didn’t you? One the whole world will remember.”

Then silence fell. Cold and cavernous.

Gabin lowered his head, swallowing back another sob. The ache in his chest throbbed with every breath.

He hesitated, but then - softly, almost afraid to ask - he whispered, “Can I see her?”

The Queen blinked, her expression flickering into something like disbelief.

“See her?” she repeated, like it was the most ludicrous request she’d ever heard. “What are you even talking about, Gabin?”

He stepped forward, barely - desperate. “Please, just let me see her. Just tell me she’s okay.”

“There is no Padma anymore,” the Queen said flatly.