Chapter 39
Career Suicide Looks Good on You
The buzzing of her phone was relentless.
Emilia had been ignoring it for the past hour, watching with growing horror as notifications flooded her screen—texts from colleagues, emails from journalists requesting “just a quick comment,” and worst of all, links to articles with headlines like “THE PRINCE AND THE HISTORIAN: A ROYAL ROMANCE?” and “WHO IS EMILIA CARTER: THE WOMAN WHO CAPTIVATED THE CROWN PRINCE.”
She’d thrown her phone onto the couch and retreated to the kitchen to make another cup of tea, as if caffeine might somehow fix the fact that her face was plastered across every news outlet in the country. The kettle had just begun to whistle when the phone started ringing again.
This time, the screen displayed her mother’s face.
Emilia closed her eyes briefly, exhaling slowly.
Of course. Of course her parents had seen it.
They probably had a dozen newspapers spread across their breakfast table already, analyzing every pixel of those photographs with the same scholarly precision they applied to Renaissance art and existential philosophy.
With a grimace, she answered.
“Maman, I can explain—”
“Ma chérie!” Her mother’s voice was bright with barely contained delight. “We were just admiring your waltz technique in the morning papers. Your father says your posture is ‘remarkably confident for someone committing career suicide,’ but I think you looked magnifique!”
Emilia groaned, abandoning the kettle to sink onto a kitchen stool. “So you’ve seen them.”
“Seen them? Darling, we’ve purchased copies of every newspaper that managed to capture the moment.
I’m creating a visual analysis of the composition and framing of each photograph.
The way the light falls across your faces in the central image is quite Renaissance, you know—there’s an echo of Botticelli in how it captures the moment of connection. ”
In the background, she could hear her father’s voice.
“The ideological implications of this relationship are fascinating, Emilia. The conservative papers are running theoretical pieces on the disruption to the social contract, while the progressives are framing it as the inevitable evolution of the monarchy.”
“Papa,” Emilia said weakly, “please don’t turn this into a research project.”
Her mother laughed, the sound warm and familiar. “Too late, ma fille. He’s already drafting an abstract on the philosophical ramifications of royal love across class boundaries.”
“This isn’t funny,” Emilia insisted, though she couldn’t help the slight smile tugging at her lips. Trust her parents to approach a potential personal disaster as an academic opportunity. “My face is everywhere. The palace must be in chaos. And Alexander—” She stopped herself.
“Alexander?” her mother repeated, her voice taking on that particular tone Emilia knew all too well—the one that meant she’d caught something significant. “Not ‘Prince Alexander’ or ‘His Highness’? Just Alexander?”
Emilia winced, realizing her mistake. “Slip of the tongue.”
“Mmhmm,” her mother hummed skeptically. “A very telling slip, non? Perhaps like that slip across the dance floor where your professional colleague looked at you like you had invented the stars?”
“Maman,” Emilia warned.
“The photograph in Le Monde is particularly telling,” her mother continued, undeterred. “The way his hand rests at your waist—very intimate, very possessive. The composition reveals volumes about your relationship. Not at all how one holds a mere colleague.”
“We were dancing,” Emilia said defensively. “That’s how people dance.”
“Not in royal circles, ma chérie. Even I know that. Royal dances are like mathematical equations—precise, formal, distant. What you were doing? That was something else entirely.”
In the background, her father’s voice cut in. “Ask her if she’s considered the Hegelian dialectic at play—how this tension between royal duty and personal desire might synthesize into a new paradigm of monarchy.”
“Papa!” Emilia exclaimed. “It was a dance!”
Her mother clicked her tongue. “A dance that has the entire country talking. The headlines this morning—‘The Prince Chooses History Over Tradition’—they’re rather poetic, don’t you think?”
Emilia pressed a hand to her forehead. “This is a nightmare.”
“Is it?” Her mother’s voice softened slightly. “Because from where we’re sitting, it looks like something else. Something… significant.”
Emilia was quiet for a moment. “It’s complicated.”
“The best things usually are,” her mother replied.
“Your father and I met at a graduate mixer where he spent twenty minutes explaining Heidegger to me with such unbearable pretentiousness that I finally interrupted him to point out a fundamental misreading in his interpretation. Meanwhile, he’d dismissed my entire field as ‘just looking at pretty pictures’ until I made him attend my lecture on political propaganda in Renaissance art. He proposed six months later.”
Despite everything, Emilia smiled. She’d heard the story a hundred times, but it never failed to make her feel better, this reminder that her parents—with all their brilliance and quirks—had found their way to each other despite the odds.
“This is different,” she said quietly. “He’s not just anyone, Maman. He’s the Crown Prince of Caledonia.”
“Yes, and you’re Emilia Carter,” her mother replied with unexpected firmness. “Brilliant, stubborn, and too honest for your own good—just like your father. If this prince has finally recognized that, well, perhaps he’s smarter than the average royal.”
Her father’s voice came through more clearly, suggesting he’d moved closer to the phone.
“Emilia, I must ask—have you considered the existential implications? A prince choosing authentic connection over prescribed duty represents a fundamental shift in how we understand the nature of power and choice.”
“We’re not—” Emilia started, then sighed. “Nothing has been decided.”
“But something has happened,” her mother observed shrewdly, her art historian’s eye for detail evident even in her voice. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t sound so conflicted.”
Emilia was silent, which was answer enough.
“Ma chérie,” her mother said gently, “You’ve never been afraid to challenge what others accept without question. Don’t start now.”
“Even if it means challenging an entire monarchy?” Emilia asked, half-joking.
“Especially then,” her father interjected. “Institutions only evolve when forced to confront their contradictions. It’s the fundamental principle of social progress.”
“Your father’s philosophical melodrama aside,” her mother said with affectionate exasperation, “what he means is that we support you. However complicated this becomes.”
Something tight in Emilia’s chest eased slightly. “Thank you,” she said softly.
“Besides,” her mother added with renewed mischief, “I’m enjoying the thought of becoming the mother-in-law to a future king. Think of all the royal art collections I could finally access!”
“Maman!” Emilia exclaimed, but she was laughing now—a genuine, relieved sound that cut through the tension of the morning.
“Just imagine—I could finally correct the lighting on that dreadful coronation portrait in the main hall.”
“I’m hanging up now,” Emilia said, still chuckling.
“We love you, ma fille,” her mother said warmly. “Courage.”
As Emilia ended the call, she felt oddly lighter. The newspapers still existed, the photographs were still circulating, and the consequences of that dance were still unfolding—but somehow, her parents’ peculiar blend of academic analysis and unwavering support had made it all seem more manageable.
Her phone buzzed again—another notification, another headline—but this time, she didn’t immediately ignore it.
Instead, she found herself wondering what Alexander was facing at the palace this morning, and hoping that somewhere in that gilded cage, he had someone offering him the same kind of steadfast support her parents had just shown her.