Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
James
The return flight to Bellavista was a fucking nightmare of silence, and tension suffocated the surrounding air.
Evangeline sat beside me in the private jet, her fingers intertwined with mine, occasionally squeezing as if she could transfer some of her courage to me through touch alone.
She did not know that with every mile that brought us closer to home; I was drowning in the certainty that I was about to lose everything that mattered.
As the wheels touched down on the runway tarmac. With our hands still intertwined, I could feel her pulse vibrating against my wrist. My lips curved into a smile as I softly spoke her name.
"Evangeline," I said, my heart filled with affection.
"Yes, James, are you okay?" Twisting slightly under my seat belt.
Filled with a sense of wonder, my hand gently cradled her face, basking in the warmth of her presence.
Her gaze was pleading, desperate and lost, mirroring the fear of our uncertain future in the face of the unknown.
With desperate urgency, my lips met hers, a frantic plea for solace in a sea of despair.
Evangeline placed her hand at the back of my head, her fingers resting at the nape of my neck. My tongue met hers as they created a dance of their own. A chill snaked down my spine; my breath hitched; I just wanted to feel her, taste her before we were separated.
"Thank you for making my heart beat again." I whispered softly in her ear.
The media circus at the airport was a brutal reminder of what we were walking into.
Even with the royal protection team creating a corridor through the photographers, I could hear them shouting questions, could see the predatory gleam in their eyes as they captured every moment of our supposed downfall.
"James Banks! Is it true you've been dismissed?"
"Princess Evangeline! Will you give up your title for love?"
"Are you engaged? When's the wedding?"
Evangeline kept her head high, every inch the queen she was born to be, but I could feel the tremor in her hand, see the slight tightness around her eyes that spoke of barely controlled emotion.
She was magnificent and terrified in equal measure, and the knowledge that I was about to make everything infinitely worse sat like acid in my stomach.
The drive to the palace was mercifully short.
Twenty minutes through Bellavista's ancient streets, past the Gothic cathedral where Evangeline would one day be crowned, past the government buildings where decisions about our future were being made without our input.
The weight of tradition, of centuries of royal protocol, pressed down on me with suffocating intensity.
This wasn't Sicily. This wasn't our private villa where we could pretend that love conquered all. This was reality, harsh and unforgiving, where princesses married dukes and bodyguards knew their fucking place.
"Whatever happens in there," Evangeline said as we approached the palace gates, "We face it together."
I squeezed her hand, knowing it was likely the last time I'd touch her with anything resembling affection. "Together," I lied.
The palace corridors felt like a gauntlet. Staff members who'd always been professional but friendly now avoided eye contact, their embarrassment of the situation palpable. We were a scandal walking through the halls, a constitutional crisis made flesh.
Queen Sophia—I reminded myself bitterly, since we were apparently past formalities now—was waiting in her private study. The same room where she'd first offered me this assignment, where she'd trusted me to protect her daughter. The irony did not escape me.
"Evangeline," she said, rising from behind her desk. Her voice held all the warmth of winter steel. "James."
"Your Majesty," I replied, my military training kicking in automatically. Even now, even knowing what was coming, I couldn't shake the ingrained respect for the crown.
"Sit, please." It wasn't a request.
We took the chairs across from her desk, and for a moment, the three of us sat in silence heavy enough to suffocate. Then Sophia's gaze fixed on me with laser intensity.
"Mr. Banks, I think we need to have a private conversation."
Evangeline stiffened beside me. "Anything you need to say to James, you can say in front of me."
"I'm afraid not, darling." Sophia's tone brooked no argument. "There are some matters that require... discretion."
"No!" Evangeline's voice was sharp. "I will not be excluded from decisions about my life," she declared.
"Evangeline." I kept my voice carefully neutral, already beginning to distance myself. "It's fine. Let me speak with your mother."
She turned to look at me, confusion and hurt flickering in her eyes. "James—"
"Please." The word came out harsher than I'd intended. "Just... wait outside."
The betrayal on her face was a knife to the chest, but I forced myself to remain impassive. This was how it had to begin—with small cruelties that would build to something unforgivable.
After Evangeline left, closing the door behind her with barely controlled anger, Sophia and I stared at each other across the expanse of her desk. She looked older than I remembered, the strain of the past few days etched in the lines around her eyes.
"You love her," she said finally.
It wasn't a question, but I answered anyway. "Yes."
"And you think that's enough."
I said nothing, sensing a trap in whatever direction I chose.
Sophia leaned back in her chair, studying me with the calculating gaze that had made her one of Europe's most respected monarchs. "Tell me, James, what do you know about Charles Pemberton?"
The name made my stomach drop like a stone. Charles Pemberton—I'd seen references to him in the security files, but only as a footnote. A minor incident from years ago that the palace had quickly contained.
"I know enough," I said carefully.
"Do you? Do you know that there was once another man who thought he could elevate his station through my daughter's affections?
A palace employee who saw an opportunity where there should have been only duty?
" Sophia's voice was deceptively calm. "Charles lasted three weeks before security discovered his true intentions—photographing private areas of the palace, documenting Evangeline's routines, selling information to tabloids while posing as a devoted servant. "
Her painted images were meant to wound. Another palace employee. Another man who'd used his position to get close to her.
"The similarities are striking, don't you think?" Sophia continued, as if reading my thoughts. "Another palace employee. Another man from a different world, with access to my daughter that others don't have."
"It's not the same thing," I said, but the words felt hollow.
"Isn't it? You've spent weeks isolated with her, away from reality, telling her what she wants to hear.
Making her believe that love is enough to overcome every obstacle.
" Sophia stood, moving to the window that overlooked the palace gardens.
"Charles did the same thing. Made her promises he couldn't keep, painted pictures of a future that could never exist."
"I'm not Pemberton."
"No?" She turned back to me, and there was something almost pitiful in her expression.
"Then tell me, James—what's your plan? How exactly do you propose to make this work?
You'll give up your career, of course. No security firm will employ a man who's compromised himself so thoroughly with a client.
And Evangeline... Well, she'll face a choice between the crown and you. What do you think she'll choose?"
The question hung in the air like poison. Because I knew Evangeline, knew the core of duty and responsibility that drove her every decision. And I knew that eventually, inevitably, she'd choose the crown. It was who she was.
The folder on her desk contained more than just my severance.
I glimpsed official documents—constitutional law briefs, succession planning, diplomatic schedules.
The machinery of state was already moving, preparing for Evangeline's new role whether she wanted it or not.
Every day I kept her from that destiny was a day stolen from her people, from her duty.
"She chose duty when it mattered before," Sophia said softly.
"Right up until the moment reality crashed down around her.
Then she came running back to the palace, to duty, to the life she was born for.
Because that's what she does, James. When push comes to shove, Evangeline chooses responsibility over romance. She always has."
The words landed like blows, each one finding its mark in the insecurities I'd been fighting since the moment I'd first kissed her. Every doubt I'd buried, every fear I'd pushed down, came roaring back to the surface.
"She'll break your heart," Sophia continued, her voice almost gentle now. "Maybe not today, maybe not next month. But eventually, when the reality of what you're asking her to sacrifice becomes clear, she'll choose the crown. She'll choose duty. And you'll be left with nothing."
I stared at the floor, my hands clenched into fists to hide their trembling. Because she was right. Deep down, in the parts of myself I didn't want to examine, I'd always known she was right.
"Or," Sophia said, her tone shifting to something more businesslike, "you could save yourself—and her—that pain. You could end this now, cleanly. Let her move on with her life, find someone suitable. Someone who can give her everything she deserves."
"And what do I get out of that?" The question came out bitter, defeated.
"Your dignity. Your career. And the knowledge that you loved her enough to let her go."
I looked up at her then, this woman who'd shaped empires with her will alone. "Is that what you told yourself when you made your own choices?"
Something flickered in her eyes—surprise, perhaps, or recognition. "This isn't about me, James."