30. Nick
NICK
Iwake to bells.
Cathedral bells—deep, resonant, impossible to ignore. They roll through the palace windows every morning at seven, announcing Ardenia to itself. Duty o’clock.
I lie still beneath heavy linen sheets and stare at the ceiling fresco I’ve known since childhood: painted cherubs and gold-leaf clouds watching me like witnesses.
For a moment, before memory catches up, I expect to smell coffee brewing downstairs at Millie’s house. Expect to feel Hank’s furry forearm across my stomach.
Instead, there’s silence.
I sit up slowly. My phone rests on the bedside table, dark and stubbornly empty. No new messages. Not that I deserve any.
I told myself not to text Hank after I snuck out. He deserved a clean break, so he can go find a guy who he can be around without paparazzi swarming. That doesn’t stop me from missing him so badly it feels physical.
Royal mornings move fast. Too fast to think. Even on Christmas Eve, the train keeps moving.
By eight, I’m dressed in a tailored navy suit while Agnes reviews the day’s schedule beside me.
“Council briefing at nine. Trade delegation at ten-thirty. Press photographs at noon.”
Her voice is efficient, calm, mercifully normal. Yet the look she gives me over the top of her reading glasses is maternal.
“We can cancel if you still need time…jet lag and all.”
“No, no. I’m good.”
My attention drifts to the window overlooking the capital. Winter dusts the rooftops in silver. Christmas markets fill the squares below—wooden stalls, strings of lights, families bundled together.
Everyone looks warm. Everyone looks like they belong somewhere. They have their people.
“Huh.” Agnes’s eyebrows jump at something on her tablet.
“What is it?”
“A meeting was just put on your calendar, Denizen and Associates.”
“Who are they?”
She is just as confused. Meeting invitations rarely surprise her. Agnes taps around on her tablet. I go to stand behind her to get more information.
A Google search brings us to the website of Denizen and Associates.
Restore your reputation with lightning fast response, top level strategizing, and high impact messaging, reads the masthead.
“What the hell is this?” I ask her.
She looks up at me. “A public relations firm that specializes in crises.”
I have an idea of who set this meeting. It’s a Christmas gift from dear old dad.
I’ve gone from royal highness to a royal crisis.
A tall, blonde woman named Renata greets us with firm handshakes in one of the private studies in the palace. She wears a crisp blazer and heels so high they could be lethal weapons.
“Your Highness. Great to meet you,” she says in her American accent. Agnes sizes her up before shaking her hand.
After a brief introduction explaining what she does as a crisis PR manager, Renata sits in one of the chairs and tosses her hair over her shoulder.
“My team and I have assessed your current issue. Our goal is to get the press off your back, have the social media response die down, and let you go back to living your life. Because that’s what this is all about.
You will be taking over for your father soon—I’m sending him and you my strongest prayers, by the way—and you don’t want this scandal to cloud the transition. ”
“I’ve been keeping the prince out of the spotlight, minimizing his schedule to small, private meetings. Eventually, the news cycle will move on,” Agnes says, her back straight, refusing to be cowed by this woman.
“That’s a nice start, but it’s not a real strategy.
” Renata tosses her hair and shoots Agnes a big, condescending smile.
“Sure, you think the news cycle will move on, but as soon as Prince Nicholas returns to public engagements, it’s all the media will ask him about.
This story is too juicy to sit on. It will continue to hound him unless we take offensive action.
” She makes a chopping motion with her hand to emphasize each word.
“Did the king hire you?” I ask.
“His staff did.”
Perhaps I need a dose of forthright Americanness to get me through this debacle.
“Well, what’s your plan?” I sit down across from her.
Renata slides two folders across the table for Agnes and me.
A concise document, no more than ten pages, sits inside. Could one document cover my entire life?
“The best course of action is to change the narrative.” Renata stands and begins to pace, getting into presentation mode.
“We can’t let this story define you. You have to define the story.
For the time being, we’re going to keep having you lay low.
No public events. Stay in the palace as much as possible. ”
“You’re locking me away in a tower,” I mutter. “All I need is Rapunzel’s braid.”
“We’re doing this to salvage your reputation.”
“The palace’s reputation.”
“Same difference,” she shoots back. “While you stay hidden, we’re going to change the narrative. Step one: In the next forty-eight hours, we’re going to draft up a public statement explaining that the prince is being treated for substance abuse.”
“Substance abuse? That’s your solution?” Agnes says, her guffawing expression matching mine.
“You were very drunk in that video, Prince Nicholas. You were acting like a complete fool.”
“I was at a bar crawl!”
“Royalty does not go to bar crawls,” Renata says, again with the chopping motion. She might as well be castrating me.
“I don’t have a drinking problem.”
“It’s not about truth. It’s about perception,” Renata explains.
“Saying that you have a problem with alcohol will keep the ‘party boy’ labels away from you. It will deflect from what you were doing in that video. The press can’t mock you for being drunk when they know it’s a condition you have.
Most importantly, it will garner sympathy for you. Nobody likes a drunk, partying royal.”
I turn to Agnes, but she shrugs her shoulders, like maybe this could work.
“Look, we’re not going for sainthood here. I’m just trying to help you get out of a jam,” Renata says. “Also by putting the focus on your drinking problem, we’re taking focus away from what you were doing in that video.”
“Kissing Hank?”
“We don’t want to name him. Keep him anonymous. It makes him more forgettable,” she says.
Anger floods my chest as the mere suggestion that Hank is forgettable.
Renata sits on the table, tosses her hair over her shoulder again. I’m tempted to have Agnes source a hair tie for her.
“In January, we’re going to release another statement that the prince is dealing with an undisclosed mental illness, something that he’s been self-medicating with alcohol for years.”
“What?” I leap from my chair.
“Ma’am, you can’t write that about the prince,” Agnes says, too horrified to be loud.
“Mental illness is hot right now. It’s socially acceptable. Nobody in the press can call you out if you have a mental illness.”
“But I don’t have a mental illness! Being gay is not a mental illness!” I stare daggers at Renata. It does not affect her in the slightest. “You’re disgusting.”
My insult bounces off her like she’s Teflon. She smiles, as if it’s cute, a child throwing a tantrum.
“Look, we don’t have much wiggle room. There is evidence of you making out with a man on camera. Not to mention what happened in college. How can you go from that to dating a woman and expect the people of Ardenia to trust you? How do you expect to have a royal wedding? It’ll be a joke.”
“I could say I’m bisexual.”
“The public doesn’t want an openly bisexual king, especially Ardenians over fifty who skew more conservative.
They want a king and queen who can be the face of the country.
They will accept a royal who went through a rough patch but came out of it on the other side healthy, strong, and in love.
This will have people rooting for you.” Excitement blazes in her eyes, not unlike Brody practicing lines as a maniacal dentist. “You announce you’re getting treatment.
We’ll get you a personal trainer and a tan.
We’ll find you a suitable woman to date.
In a few months, you’ll emerge and do some interviews looking hot with a beautiful lady on your arm.
Just like that, the video and your homosexuality become a distant memory. ”
I look to Agnes, but she has no retort. This is one area where she’s out of her depth.
Did the king really approve of this woman and her plan?
In his twisted way, this is him protecting me.
But I wonder if there’s a sliver of him that believes this crap.
That maybe I’m just a little mentally ill, a little bit of a drunk, and in a few months, he’ll get the son he always wanted.
I wish Hank were here. I wish I had friends I could talk to. I feel so utterly lost and alone.
“Maybe I abdicate,” I say meekly.
“That’s also a possibility,” Renata says. “You need to make a decision very soon. If this story keeps spiraling out, then soon we won’t be able to help you right the ship, and your reputation will be beyond repair.”
Renata holds her hand out for a shake. But I can’t. I’m too angry.
Angry at her.
Angry at a society that would rather a man be mentally ill than gay.
Angry at myself for fucking up beyond repair.
But angriest at my father.
“Let’s go, Agnes.” I storm out of the room. She scurries behind me, following me down a long hall. “Agnes, where is my father right now?”
“Your Highness, maybe we should take a moment to—”
I swivel around, pointing my fiery rage her way. “Where. Is. He.”
“Let’s see, Your Highness.” She scrolls her tablet with jittery fingers. “He’s in a boardroom in a meeting. It’ll be over in twenty minutes.”
“Which room?”
Five minutes later, I burst through the double doors of one of the palace’s meeting rooms. Tall ceilings and a roaring fireplace set the intimate mood.
The king is sitting around a table with four other men, some kind of dignitaries it seems like.
The men jump up when they see me and offer greetings.
“Nicholas, what are you doing?” the king yells. This time, his stern tone doesn’t intimidate me. I’m so angry I could rip the columns out of the wall.
“You want me to say that I’m a drunk with an undisclosed mental illness? You want so badly for me to be the king, when all I want is to be your son.” My voice cracks, but I won’t give him tears. He’ll see that as weakness, as proof in Renata’s plan.
“Nicholas, leave this room immediately. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
“I don’t care!” I scream. I stare him down with such daggers, he doesn’t dare try to stand up.
“I went to America, and I fell in love. I fell so hopelessly, wondrously in love. And now I’m here, being a good prince and a good son, while my heart is completely broken.”
Fuck it. Here come the tears. The last few days come crashing down on me, and it’s too much to button up inside.
“All I want is a father that I can talk about this with, who will listen and say, ‘I’m sorry you’re going through this’ and give me a hug. For the past twenty years, I’ve had to do that for myself. And I hate it. I’ve done everything you’ve ever wanted of me, but you won’t even do that.”
“Nicholas,” the king says, softening his tone. “you need to calm down. Please, lie down and rest. We can talk later.”
I wipe the stream of tears from my eyes. “I’m going to abdicate.”
“Nicholas…”
“I can’t live like this. I can’t be in a fake marriage for the rest of my life when I’ve gotten a taste at what being in love feels like.” I clear my throat and maintain that princely posture I was forced to work on ever since I could walk. “Goodbye, Father.”