Chapter 31
LOUIS
The guards haul me to my feet. There is copper on my tongue, and my lip is busted, but I don’t know when that happened. They pull my arms tight behind my back and march me toward the service entrance, knowing they’re not going to free me.
“I can walk on my own.” My voice comes out ragged. “Get your fucking hands off me.”
“You’re under arrest,” one of the guards says.
“Know I will have every fucking one of you fired,” I say between clenched teeth, looking over my shoulder at the men behind me. “Every one of you. Your day is coming.”
They don’t let go or respond to my promises.
The corridors blur past as staff members turn their heads, pretending like I don’t exist. One woman I’ve known since childhood looks away when I catch her eye.
The head butler stares at the floor as we pass.
If I speak, it will not be polite words, and this is no one’s fault.
Each time I close my eyes, I see Addison’s hysterical expression and can hear her gut-wrenching screams play in my mind.
The way she screamed for me as they drove her away makes my jaw lock tight.
They take me through the back hallways reserved for staff and deliveries, and the message is clear.
I’m being handled like a problem that needs to be contained.
My shoulders burn from them holding my arms behind my back so forcefully.
My wrists ache. When this is over, every guard who touched Addison or me today will answer for it with their jobs.
We stop outside my mother’s private study, and one of the guards knocks twice, waits, then moves me inside.
She’s standing behind her desk in a silk robe with her hair pinned. The morning light catches the gray at her temples, which she usually has colored, and she hasn’t slept. For one petty second, I’m glad.
“Leave us,” she says to the guards.
“We’ll be right outside, Your Majesty.”
“Thank you.”
The door clicks shut behind me, and the grandfather clock in the corner ticks.
My mother doesn’t sit. She crosses her arms over her chest, staring at me like a general surveying a battlefield. She’s planned this down to the positioning, but I refuse to play along.
I walk to the chair in front of her desk and sit, stretching my legs out and crossing my ankles like I have nowhere else to be. The posture is cocky, angry, and full of frustration. We both know it. A muscle twitches near her eye.
“What were you thinking?”
I glare at her.
“She is an American, Louis. You have no understanding of what it means to—”
“Shut. Up.” I lean forward, my hands gripping the armrests. “Where did you send her?”
“Back to New York, where she belongs,” she says.
I cross my ankles. “Great. I’m leaving.”
She bursts into laughter. “You’re going nowhere.”
“You can’t stop me.”
“I already have.”
She picks up a document from her desk and holds it out; my stomach drops before I even take it because I already know what it is. My signature is at the bottom, dated eighteen years ago, on the succession agreement I signed.
“This means nothing to you?” Her voice is almost gentle, which is worse than her venom. “You agreed that if you failed to fulfill the terms, you would forfeit your ability to choose. You agreed to the council’s authority in matters of marriage. You agreed—”
“Things change.” I toss the document back onto her desk. “My frontal lobe wasn’t developed when I signed that. That’s predatory, and you know it. It’s a trap you set years ago.”
She folds her hands in front of her, and she’s perfectly calm and composed. “If you leave this palace, if you go after that girl, you will lose everything, son. Your title, your inheritance, your place in this family.”
“And?”
“Your father isn’t well. This is the last thing he needs. Don’t be childish!”
Her words have me on my feet before I realize I’ve moved. My hands rest flat on her desk, my face inches from hers.
“Childish?” My voice echoes off the walls.
“I have done every-fucking-thing you’ve ever asked of me.
I gave up friends, relationships, and any chance at a normal life because you told me that was what the Crown required.
And I listened to you.” I’m shouting now.
“I smiled for all the fucking cameras when I wanted to scream. I dated women I felt nothing for because of you. I agreed to marry someone I couldn’t stand because you stressed Montclaire needed it.
I have been your perfect puppet for thirty-six years, Mother.
Whatever you’ve asked of me, I’ve done. Every single thing the Crown has demanded.
” My voice breaks, but I keep going because I need her to hear this.
“And even after all of that, this is how you treat me? You sent guards to drag Addison away like a damn criminal. They had me on the fucking ground. Look at me. Look at me!” I stop because if I keep going, I may say something I regret.
She waits until I’ve composed myself. “Are you finished?”
“No, I’m not.” I straighten my stance and take a step back from her desk. “I want to speak to Father.”
She sucks in a deep breath. “Unfortunately, no.”
“I require it.”
“His Majesty is not available to you at the moment, and you will not be making any demands as of now.” Her voice lowers.
“You’ve proven yourself incapable of acting like the crown prince, Louis.
What you did last night had me question everything.
This is a PR nightmare, one that you will absolutely dig yourself out of.
” She shakes her head. “You will no longer be treated like a prince until you remember how to behave like one.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
She moves toward the door and opens it, and two guards step inside while others wait. They’re not the same guys who brought me here. These are bigger and older, with faces like stone.
“Please escort His Highness to his chambers. He’s not to leave under any circumstances. No phone calls, no communication with anyone outside the palace.”
“You’re imprisoning me?” I can’t believe she’s actually doing this.
“Yes, you’re grounded. I’m giving you time to think about what you’ve done and what you’re actually willing to lose.”
“You’ll regret this,” I warn.
“Yeah? What will you do, son? Renounce your title? Do you think that hurts me? Delphine will be ready to fulfill the duty, if and when necessary. Giving up everything for a woman will be the biggest mistake of your life.”
“Of yours,” I say back to her. “I’ll make sure history remembers exactly what you did.”
She gives me a cold smile. “Get him out of my face. Walk him through the main corridor before going to the east wing. Make an example out of his disloyalty.”
“I want to speak to my father,” I tell her.
She shoos me away, and the guards grab my arms, pulling me away like a disorderly child.
I don’t fight because there’s no point. They perp-walk me through the corridors, up the main staircase, in full view of every staff member.
I keep my head high, allowing my embarrassment to fuel my rage.
Even when we enter the east wing, they don’t loosen the grip on my arms. By tomorrow, the tabloids will have the story of me being under house arrest.
They stop outside of my loft, and I unlock the door, moving inside. I hear shuffling outside, realizing the four of them plan to stay to make sure I don’t leave.
I stand in the middle of my living room and look around at the space I’ve called my own for ten years.
Everything is exactly where I left it yesterday morning, when I woke up, excited for our new beginning.
I still believed my mother had human decency and wouldn’t go to these lengths to keep Addison and me apart.
I thought last night would change everything, and I guess it did, just not the way I’d expected.
Morning light streams through the windows, and I want to put my fist through the glass, but I don’t.
Instead, I walk to the window and stare out the pane, seeing my reflection in the glass.
I look like shit. The palace grounds stretch out below me, and somewhere beyond the gardens and the gates and the cliffs, Addison is on a plane, flying away from me.
I look around for my phone, realizing someone must’ve taken it from me between the study and here. My laptop is nowhere to be found. It’s official; I’m trapped.
Instead of wasting the day, I grab a bottle of bourbon that I planned to save for a special occasion.
I pour myself a glass to the rim and sit on my couch, staring at the unlit fireplace.
My mind wanders, and I realize I have an old phone in the drawer in my study.
I stand, already feeling the effects of the booze. It’s barely eight in the morning.
The first drawer I open has me shuffling through old letters from Delphine when she was in boarding school and a broken watch I could never get rid of.
The second one is full of notebooks of diplomatic meetings.
At the bottom sits an iPhone from the early 2010s.
I try to turn it on, but it’s dead as fuck.
At the bottom, under some papers, is the charger.
“And Delphine told me to get rid of you,” I say, kissing the screen. “If you come on after all this time, I will buy Apple for the rest of my life.”
While I wait, I decide I need music. I flip through my records, stopping at Nirvana. It was the album I listened to on repeat during my angsty teenage years, when I thought my life was hard because I had too many tutors and not enough friends. I didn’t know shit about hard.
I slide the vinyl out of the sleeve, careful not to touch the grooves, and set it on the turntable.
The needle drops, and the speakers crackle for a second before the opening guitar riff of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” fills the space.
So, I make it even louder. When Kurt Cobain’s voice bleeds through the room, I feel a calm wash over me.
It’s angry and tired and perfect for this moment.