Chapter 26
Max
I’m in my office the following morning, catching up on communications. I checked in with Rocco first thing and was glad to hear that the kids had moved inside and camped on the living room floor before they headed home yesterday afternoon.
Now that the trains are running again, a recovered Pippa Chen is the sole occupier of the royal train, whizzing back south.
There’s a knock at my door, and I look up, calling out, “Come in.”
And then in walks the woman of my dreams, and my heart leaps at the sight of her. Fabiana Fontaine. My Fabiana.
Unlike her usual look, she’s got her hair loose around her shoulders, her glasses nowhere to be seen, and she’s wearing a white button-up shirt and a pair of jeans that hug her curves in a way that sends me wild.
I pick her up and spin her around, ecstatic to have her back in my arms. I press an urgent kiss to her soft lips, breathing in her scent. “I missed you. It’s been less than a day, and I missed you.”
“I like hearing that,” she says, her lips pulled into a smile.
“How’s your grandmother?”
“She’s doing great.”
“You must be relieved.”
“It’s certainly a weight off my mind.”
“Good.” I kiss her once more. “I get to kiss you whenever I like, don’t I?”
She giggles, and it’s the most wonderful sound. “Do it again.”
So, I do just that, kissing her lipstick right off her face. “I have something to ask you.”
“What is it?”
“Fabiana Fontaine, will you do me the honor of attending the Autumn Ball with me as my guest?”
“The Autumn Ball?” she asks, her eyes as big as two full moons on a clear night. “But then everyone will know about us.”
“Is that so terrible?”
She gazes at me, and I can’t imagine a more perfect moment with this beautiful woman in my arms. “It’s not terrible at all. It’s just—”
“I get it. It’s your job. I’ve thought about that. The ball isn’t for a couple of weeks, during which time you will have finished your series on me.”
“That’s true.”
“Then we can come out as a couple and people can’t say anything terrible about us.”
“They still will.”
“Let them.”
She bites her lip, and something passes over her features.
“What is it?”
“Max, there’s something I need to tell you,” she begins, her features tight, and I want to reach out and touch her, to soften the hard edges of her face, smooth the worry from her forehead.
Could this be what she’s withheld from me?
“You can tell me anything.”
She begins to pace the room, her hands clutched together. I wait, my heart hurting for her. Whatever this thing is she’s been so hesitant to tell me, it certainly weighs heavily on her.
“This isn’t easy for me,” she says, coming to a stop beside me.
I reach for her hand, lift it to my lips, and brush a kiss across her knuckles. “I find the best thing to do is to just come out and say it.”
She nods her head a few times, the look in her eyes intense.
“You’re right,” she says as she grips my hand so tight she’s in fear of cutting off the blood supply.
“You’re right.” She takes a deep breath and begins.
“Here goes. I’m not—” she begins, just as the door flies open with a bang and Amelia rushes in.
She’s got her phone in hand, her face pale.
When her eyes land on us, she comes to a sudden stop.
"There you are, Max!" Her gaze fixes on Fabiana, and her eyes widen.
For a moment, she just stares at her, her mouth opening as if to say something, before snapping shut again.
Something flashes across her features, then her expression hardens as she looks back at me.
“Amelia?” I question, not sure what to make of this odd entrance.
"Oh, please tell me you already know about this!" she exclaims.
“About what?” I ask, frustrated that Fabiana didn’t have the chance to finish what she’d begun to tell me. “Ami, we’re in the middle of something important here.”
“Is it true?” she asks Fabiana.
Fabiana looks equally confused. “Is what true?”
“This!” Amelia brandishes her phone in the air.
“Have you had too much caffeine today, Ami, because you’re seriously wired,” I say with a snicker.
Amelia marches over to me and grabs me by the arm, pulling me away from Fabiana.
“What the heck, Ami?” I protest.
“You need to read this now, Max,” she hisses as she thrusts her phone in front of me.
“What’s going on?” Fabiana asks, and I’m surprised to hear a tremor in her voice.
I shrug. “No clue, but Ami’s being a total drama queen. As usual.”
“Read it,” my sister insists, thrusting her phone at me once more, so close it almost hits my nose.
“Since you asked so nicely.” I take it from her and immediately my belly tightens with apprehension as I read the headline.
Royal RomCom or RomCon?
I look back at my sister. “What is this?”
“Keep reading,” she instructs again, sounding more like bossy Sofia than my fun-loving sister.
I scroll down to see that the article is accompanied by a grainy photo of Fabiana and me kissing in the palace carpark. My heart leaps into my mouth. “Oh, no.” I turn to Fabiana. “They know.”
“Know what?” she asks, her voice low and steady.
“About us. Have you seen this?” As I hold the phone up for her, I feel a hand on my arm. I look back at Ami.
“Read the full article,” Amelia instructs.
“Why? What does it say?” Fabiana asks. She’s clasping her hands together so tightly her knuckles have turned white.
I understand. She’s a journalist, here to do a job. The last thing she needs is for the country to learn we’re romantically involved.
I scroll past the photo and begin to read.
Fabiana Fontaine’s exposé on Prince Max is starting to look more like an exposé of passion than anything professional, the couple being caught in a clinch in the palace grounds yesterday. Is this part of your ploy, Ms. Fontaine? Or just a perk of the job?
“How the heck did they photograph us?” I ask, indignant. “We were in the staff carpark.” I glance at Fabiana. Her face is blanched white, her eyebrows knitted together so tightly they could crush walnuts. I reach for her hand, but she wraps her arms around herself.
“Keep reading,” my sister instructs.
But things get even more delicious when you delve a little deeper, which is exactly what we at The Post have done.
A very reliable source has assured us that Fabiana Fontaine, the woman currently enjoying Prince Max’s smiles, among other things, is not who she purports to be.
She is, in fact, someone else entirely.
The words jump out at me, and something twists in my gut.
Masquerading as Fabiana…been doing it for years…Valentina Romano… daughter of the disgraced lord, Vittorio Romano… Does the prince know?
Does the prince know.
“This is ludicrous. Made up rubbish,” I say as I shove the phone back at Amelia. I turn to Fabiana. “They’re saying you’re not who you are. That you’re in fact Valentina Romano, daughter of Lord Vittorio Romano. That’s preposterous, right? Who writes these things?”
But the look on Fabiana’s face tells me it might not be quite as preposterous after all.
My heart stutters. “Fabiana?” I question.
Fabiana’s hand flies to her mouth, her eyes wild. “Max, please let me explain.”
Wait. What?
One half of me is amused, and the other half has begun to wonder whether I should in fact be freaking out.
“What do you mean ‘explain’?” I ask tentatively, watching her carefully.
“I was just about to tell you, I swear. That's what I was trying to do when your sister turned up just now,” she says.
“How convenient, Fabiana,” Amelia remarks, her arms crossed as she glares at her. “Or should that be Valentina Romano, the girl who used to come here with her father all those years ago?”
Carefully, with my limbs like jelly, I look back up at Fabiana. “You’re Valentina Romano?”
Slowly, with her eyes trained on me, Fabiana’s hand drops from her mouth. “I am,” she says simply.
She’s not who she said she is.
She’s someone else instead.
“Oh, my!” Amelia exclaims, her eyes wide. “It’s true. Father will have kittens!”
“What?” I ask, not believing my ears. “You’re making a joke, right? Something I don’t get.” My brain begins to feel like someone just scrambled the TV channels.
Fabiana shakes her head slowly. “It’s not a joke, Max.
I am Valentina Romano. That’s what I was trying to tell you.
That’s what I’ve been holding back from you.
” Tears prick her eyes, and her lip begins to tremble.
“We used to play together. At garden parties, at royal events. I was Valentina then, and you... you were just Max, before everything became so complicated.”
We used to play together. I remember her. I remember Valentina, the little girl with dark hair and those bright green eyes, who would always try to one-up me in our games.
Panic tastes like metal in my mouth, and I swallow, the tightness in my throat amplifying with each thud of my heart. “You’re not Fabiana Fontaine?”
“She’s a made-up person. Someone I’ve hidden behind for years.” She places her hand over her heart, sucking in a ragged breath. “I wanted to tell you, Max, but it was so hard for me.” Her voice is catching.
I clench my jaw, my chest buzzing. “It was too hard for you to be honest with me? To tell me the truth after what we’ve grown to mean to one another?”
“You don’t understand. I had to change my identity.
My father’s disgrace had clung to me throughout my teenage years.
I was forced to leave my school, to move to Villadorata to live with my grandmother, but everyone knew who I was.
Everyone knew what he’d done. Becoming Fabiana made me free of that, free to carve out a new life, to forget that my father destroyed my family legacy. ”
Her words rumble over me, my mind reeling. This woman I thought I knew, this woman I thought I was falling in love with, isn’t who she said she is.
It’s all been a lie.
A horrible joke.
And I’m the punchline.
“Your necklace. That’s what the V is for. Valentina.”
She looks down, giving a brief nod of her head.
"Romano. Your father was the one who—” Amelia’s voice trails off as the full magnitude hits her. "He ran away after embezzling Crown funds.”
“I remember that,” I say, my eyes riveted to Fabiana.
Fabiana—Valentina—has the good sense to look ashamed.
“It might have been a story to you, but to me it was my life, and it changed in a day.” She holds her hands out, palms up.
“Max, please see it from my point of view. I was going to come here and do the project and leave, and no one would be the wiser. I never intended to fall in love with you, and when I realized I was falling for you, I was terrified that you would see me the way everyone else did, as if I was tainted by my father’s crimes. ”
My breath comes short and fast, but there's one word that I cling to, even though it's hopeless.
Love.
“You love me?” I ask, my voice shaking.
She looks up at me, her eyes filled with tears. “Yes,” she whispers, her breath caught in her throat.
“How do I know you're not lying now?”
“Because I've got everything to lose if I do.”
"You can destroy me with what you’ve learned about me. Was that your plan all along? Is this all just revenge for what happened to your father?"
Aghast, she exclaims, “No! I came here in good faith to do a job. I might not be the royal family’s biggest fan because of what happened, but I agreed to represent you as I saw you, and that’s what I’ve been doing.”
“It’s all falling into place,” Amelia says. “The way you always seem to know what's going on in our lives. You had the inside track. You've spent time here. You probably have a cast of spies everywhere.”
“Is that true?” I ask.
“I did come here before it all happened.”
I blink at her in total astonishment. “So, when I showed you around the palace that time, you could have been my tour guide?” I spit.
“I couldn't let on that I’d been here before. What would a journalist have been doing here as a child?” she replies.
I throw my hands in the air. “More lies.”
“I didn’t want you to find out like this.” Fabiana reaches for me, touching her hand to my forearm.
Instantly, I tense. “Why did you do it?” I ask, forcing steadiness in my voice, my gaze boring into hers, searching for the answers I need so desperately to hear.
“I told you. I had to do it. I had no other choice. Max, my life was destroyed back then by what happened. I needed to become someone else.”
My heart is thrashing in my ears, my throat tight as I struggle to breathe.
I feel utterly betrayed. Betrayed, humiliated, angry. Hurt.
“I told you things that I’ve never told anyone before.”
She hangs her head. “Yes.”
“I trusted you, and now I find out from some journalist that you’ve been lying this whole time? Every conversation we had, every moment you saw me vulnerable. Was any of it real? Or were you just gathering material for your story?"
“No! It was never like that, Max. I promise you.” Her throat works. “I'm so sorry.”
I stare at her in utter disbelief.
With my jaw set, I grind out, “I think it's time you left.” My voice surprises me with how calm it sounds.
“Max, please.”
I pull my lips into a line and shake my head from side to side. “There is nothing you can say that will change the way I feel.”
Her chest rises and falls with each breath she takes as a tear makes a track down her cheek. “I understand,” she says softly, and then she collects her things, and heads to the door. When she reaches the hallway, she looks back at me one last time.
I turn away, a sharp ache tearing through my chest. The woman I thought I was falling for just broke my heart—and the worst part is, she never even existed.