Chapter 32 #2
"Isn't it? You were young once. You must have wanted things you couldn't have."
For a moment, her composure cracked, and I saw something raw and human beneath the royal facade. Then the mask slipped back into place.
"What I wanted was irrelevant. What mattered was my duty to the crown, to my people. Just as it matters for Evangeline now."
She moved back to her desk, pulling out a folder I hadn't noticed before. "Your severance package," she said, sliding it across to me. "Quite generous, I think you'll find. Enough to start over somewhere new. Somewhere far from Bellavista."
I didn't touch the folder. "You want me gone."
"I want what's best for my daughter. And that isn't a relationship that will destroy everything she's worked for, everything she believes in."
The conversation was over. I could see it in the set of her shoulders, the finality in her voice. The Queen had spoken, and there was no appeal from her judgment.
But the real cruelty was that she was right.
Everything she'd said, every doubt she'd planted—they were all things I'd thought myself in the dark hours when sleep eluded me.
I wasn't good enough for Evangeline. I would destroy her life.
Eventually, inevitably, she would choose duty over love, just as she'd been raised to do.
The only question was whether I let that destruction play out over months or years, or whether I ended it now with surgical precision.
"I'll need time to... explain things to her," I said finally.
Sophia nodded, with something that might have been relief flickering across her face. "Of course. But James... make it clean. Don't give her false hope."
I stood, leaving the severance package untouched on her desk. "I know how to complete a mission, Your Majesty."
"I'll leave you two alone," Sophia said, moving toward the door. "Take all the time you need."
She paused at the threshold. "For what it's worth, James, I believe you love her. That's what makes this so difficult."
The door closed behind her with a soft click, and I stood in the sudden silence, tasting ash in my mouth and knowing for certain that I was about to destroy the only good thing in my miserable life.
A moment later, the door opened again, and Evangeline stepped back into the room, her face flushed with anger and concern.
"Well?" she demanded, looking around the empty study. "Where's my mother? What did you discuss that was so bloody important it couldn't include me?"
I looked at her—really looked at her—memorising every detail. Her hair caught the light from the tall windows. The fierce intelligence that lived in her blue eyes. How her jaw set stubbornly, showing she was ready to fight.
In a few minutes, I was going to break her heart. I was going to say things designed to hurt her so badly she'd never want to see me again. It was the only way to make this clean, to ensure she didn't spend months or years trying to change my mind.
I could see her clinging to hope, desperate for me to break, to admit this was all a lie. If I gave her even a flicker of truth, she'd fight for us. She'd never let go. This had to be surgical—brutal enough that she'd never want to see me again, cruel enough that she'd believe every word.
"We discussed the terms of my departure," I said, my voice carefully flat.
Her face went pale. "What do you mean, departure?"
"I mean I'm resigning from your protection detail, effective immediately." I forced steel into my voice, the same tone I'd used to give orders in combat zones. "It's over, Evangeline."
She stared at me as if I'd struck her. "What are you talking about? We discussed this. We knew there would be consequences, but we were going to face them together."
"That was before I came to my senses."
The words hung in the air like a blade. I watched her face crumple, then harden as she processed what I was really saying.
"I don't understand," she whispered.
This was it. The moment I became the villain in her story, when I said the things that would make her hate me enough to let me go.
"It was fun while it lasted," I said, injecting just the right amount of casual cruelty into my tone. "But let's be honest about what this was, Evangeline. A bit of excitement for a bored princess. A rebellion against Mummy's rules."
"That's not—" she started, but I cut her off.
"I knew your reputation going in," I continued, each word carefully chosen to inflict maximum damage.
"Your history with palace staff, starting with Charles Pemberton five years ago.
Your tendency to fall for the help." I let my gaze travel over her with calculated dismissal.
"I just didn't expect it to be so easy."
The colour drained from her face completely. "James, don't—"
"Don't what? Don't tell the truth?" I shrugged as if this conversation was boring me.
"Look, you're decent in bed, I'll give you that.
And the whole forbidden love thing was exciting for a while.
But I'm not stupid enough to throw my entire career away for a princess who'll drop me the moment something better comes along. "
She made a sound like a wounded animal, her hand pressed to her chest as if I'd physically struck her.
"You're lying," Evangeline said, but her voice was shaking. "I know you, James. I know what we had—"
"What we had was good sex and proximity," I said with brutal finality. "Nothing more."
She stood perfectly still for a long moment, and I could see her fighting not to break down in front of me. When she finally spoke, her voice was steady and controlled, reflecting her princess training.
"Look at me," she hissed. "Look at me and say it again."
The command in her voice was unmistakable, the same authority her mother wielded but tempered with something more devastating—absolute heartbreak barely held in check.
"Say what?" I asked, though I knew exactly what she meant.
"That this meant nothing to you. That I meant nothing to you." Her blue eyes were bright with unshed tears, but her chin was raised, with steadfast defiance. "Look me in the eye and tell me that what happened between us was just a job to you."
This was it. The final blow. I could see her clinging to hope, desperate for me to break, to admit this was all a lie. If I gave her even a flicker of truth, she'd fight for us. She'd never let go.
I stepped closer, close enough to see the gold flecks in her eyes, close enough to smell the jasmine perfume that would haunt my dreams. Close enough to see her lips part slightly as her breath caught.
"You meant nothing," I said, my voice low, clear and unequivocally convincing. "This whole thing—Sicily, the romance, everything—it was just entertainment. A way to pass the time with a willing woman."
The words hit her like physical blows. I watched the hope die in her eyes, watched her face go completely blank as she absorbed what I was telling her.
Then my vision blurred, and a tear escaped as the muscles in my neck spasmed, sending a sharp pain through me. A flash of crimson consumed my sight, rage ignited, Evangeline's hand a blur before the shattering impact.
My cheek burned with a slow, desolate ache, each pulse a cruel reminder of what I'd lost.
"And the barn?" Her voice was a harsh rasp, anger burning as she spat out the question. "When you made love to me in the barn?"
The question cut deeper than anything she could have screamed. Because she wasn't asking about sex—she was asking about when I'd looked into her eyes and seen my entire future.
"You wanted rough fucking in the dark, I fucked you inside a sunset farm barn.
Satisfying the sex-starved princess nymph that you are.
Don't get me wrong, you are good in bed, a little na?ve but hey, we live and learn, right princess?
But I fucked you. I did not make love to you.
You do not know what love looks like, clearly… . if we go by your history."
"Good sex, like I said. But that's all it was."
She flinched as if I'd slapped her, but she didn't look away. Didn't cry. Didn't scream. She just stood there, taking every cruel word and filing it away behind those beautiful eyes that would never look at me with love again.
"I see," she said finally, and her voice was completely empty now. "Thank you for clarifying."
She turned toward the door, her posture rigidly controlled. She didn't look at me, didn't acknowledge my presence at all. I had become nothing to her in the space of five minutes, and somehow that was worse than her hatred would have been.
She paused at the door, her hand on the handle, and for a moment I thought she might turn back. Might give me one last chance to take it all back.
Instead, she said without turning around: "James loving you was like slow dancing on a landmine….. I would always take the risk." Evangeline's head tilted down for a split second before rising back up. Evangeline said her farewell.
"I hope you got everything you wanted, Mr. Banks. Safe travels."
The door closed behind her with a soft click, and I was left standing in the sudden silence, alone with the weight of what I'd done.
As I left the palace, my phone buzzed with another message from Harrison: 'Hard choice, but the right one. Some battles can't be won.' How did he know what had just happened? The timing was too perfect, the knowledge too specific. But I was too destroyed to care about Harrison's mysterious sources.
I left the palace that night with nothing but a single bag and the weight of what I'd done. As the taxi pulled away from the gates, I glimpsed Evangeline's window, and I wondered if she was crying. If she were angry. If she was already starting to forget me.
It didn't matter. Knowing in a few months , maybe , she'd understand that I'd done the right thing. She'd find someone worthy of her, someone who could give her the life she deserved. Someone who wouldn't destroy everything she touched.
And I'd live with the knowledge that I'd loved her enough to break both our hearts to save her from a future that would have destroyed us both.
It was the right thing to do.
It had to be.
Because if it wasn't, I'd just thrown away the only happiness I'd ever known for nothing.