Chapter 22 #2
After he leaves, I lift the silver cover and stare at the perfectly arranged meal. My stomach churns with emptiness, but I can't bring myself to eat. The food grows cold, untouched, like yesterday's meal and the day before.
I wander the restricted sections of the palace during off-hours when fewer eyes might catch me.
The grand ballroom, usually alive with light and sound, stands empty and cavernous.
My footsteps echo across the polished floor where dignitaries and royalty once danced.
Now there's only me, moving like a ghost through memories.
The library offers some escape. I run my fingers along leather-bound spines, pulling books at random.
The words swim before my eyes, meaningless.
I've read the same page sixteen times. The ancient texts that once transported me to different worlds now fail to pull me from my own suffocating reality.
Father's collection of historical biographies—kings and conquerors who never seemed to doubt themselves as I do—mock me from their shelves.
I sink deeper into the wingback chair by the window, where afternoon light streams through centuries-old glass, illuminating dust motes that seem more purposeful in their drifting than I feel in my existence.
Even here, surrounded by the accumulated wisdom of generations, I cannot find answers to questions that plague me.
The silence, usually comforting, presses against my temples like an unwanted crown.
Sometimes I find myself in the portrait gallery, staring up at generations of faces with my same blood. Stern kings and solemn queens look down from gilded frames, their eyes following me with silent reproach. Did any of them ever feel this hollow? This trapped?
At night, I lie awake remembering Daniel's eyes when the truth hit him.
The hurt. The betrayal. I've replayed the moment a thousand times, imagining different words, different outcomes.
The memory haunts me like a persistent ghost, refusing to grant me peace.
His gaze—once warm and trusting—had turned cold with disbelief, each blink of his eyes like another door closing between us.
If only I'd found the courage to tell him who I really was before he discovered it himself.
If only I'd trusted him with Crown Prince Harald instead of the fabricated wealthy Dane he thought he knew.
Now I stare at the ornate ceiling, counting the elaborate mouldings as if they were sheep, while my mind tortures me with alternative scenarios where honesty had prevailed and perhaps, just perhaps, he had stayed.
My phone sits dark and silent on my nightstand, its sleek surface reflecting the dim light of my bedchamber like a cruel mirror to my own emptiness.
Daniel doesn't respond to any of my dozens of messages, all begging him to respond—desperate pleas typed with trembling fingers, each one more pathetic than the last. "Please talk to me.
" "Let me explain." "I never meant to hurt you.
" The words blur together after a while, an endless stream of regret sailing into a void.
I ignore my father's orders to "compose myself befitting a future monarch" and his cold instruction to "cease this undignified pursuit immediately," delivered through Erik's uncomfortable, pitying glance.
I can't stop trying, though every unanswered text carves another sliver from my already fractured heart.
The royal seal on my signet ring catches the light as I reach for my phone again, a heavy reminder of the crown that stands between us.
I catch glimpses of myself in mirrors and windows—a paler, thinner version of the man who flew to New York. Large black bags under my eyes that seem flat and dull. The Crown Prince of Denmark dissolving into nothing before the kingdom's eyes.
I fumble for my phone on the nightstand, squinting at its harsh glow in the darkness.
Three in the morning in Copenhagen—what time is it in New York?
I calculate quickly—Daniel might be getting home from work now.
My thumb hovers over our message thread, the last dozen texts all blue bubbles from me, each one unanswered.
The sight makes my chest ache with a physical pain I can't push away.
A soft knock at my door startles me. I slip the phone under my pillow like a guilty teenager.
"Your Highness?" Erik's voice, hushed but concerned.
"Come in," I say, not bothering to sit up.
Erik enters, his silhouette framed by the dim hallway light. Even at this hour, his posture remains perfect, though his eyes betray his exhaustion. "I heard you were awake and wanted to check in. You need to rest."
"I can't sleep."
"Shall I call Dr. Nielsen for a sleeping aid?"
I shake my head. "I don't want to be medicated. I want—" My voice catches. What do I want? Daniel back? My life before this mess? Some alternate universe where I wasn't born into this gilded cage?
Erik's gaze falls to where my hand still clutches the edge of my pillow, my phone hidden beneath like some pathetic teenage secret.
The slight shift in his posture tells me he knows exactly what I've been doing—staring at Daniel's number, drafting messages I'll never send.
His expression softens with understanding, the rigid formality he maintains crumbling just enough to reveal the genuine concern beneath.
The moonlight filtering through my curtains catches the tired lines around his eyes.
"Perhaps... perhaps a clean break would be kinder to you both, Your Highness," he suggests, his voice gentle in a way that makes my chest ache.
There's something unspoken in those words—the wisdom of someone who understands sacrifice all too well, who has perhaps made similar choices himself in service to the crown I never asked to inherit.
I feel a flash of anger—not at Erik, but at the circumstances that force him to give such advice. "I can't just let him go without trying one more time."
Erik hesitates, then nods, his shoulders slumping almost imperceptibly.
"I'll leave you, then." He pauses at the door, fingers lingering on the handle as though weighing something heavy in his mind.
The moonlight catches the soft concern in his expression as he turns back to me.
"For what it's worth, I thought he was..
." His voice trails off, and I see him swallow hard before continuing.
"I thought he was good for you. I haven't seen you smile that way in years, Harald. Not since we were boys at least."
After he's gone, I pull out my phone again and stare at our message thread. My fingers tremble slightly as I begin to type.
Daniel, I know you probably won't read this.
I've lost the right to expect anything from you.
But I need to say that meeting you was the first time I felt real—not the Crown Prince, not the heir, just Harald.
A person, not a title. I never meant to lie, but I've lived so long behind masks that I was terrified to remove the last one.
I understand your anger. I deserve it. But please know that everything else was real.
Every laugh. Every touch. Every kiss. It was all me—the real me I've never been brave enough to show anyone else.
I pause, swallowing hard before finishing:
I don't expect forgiveness, but I wanted you to know: Jeg elsker dig. I love you. Always, Harald.
I press send, watching the message deliver into silence, my chest hollow with a fragile, desperate hope that somewhere across the ocean, he might still care enough to read my words.