Chapter Twenty-One
“Seriously, Allegra. With a porno guy. I mean, what the fuck?”
She sank deeper into the leather chair opposite his desk, the one designed to make people feel small and contrite, and clasped her hands in her lap. The chair was very good at its job.
“It’s not like I planned it,” Allegra muttered, which was technically true. She hadn’t orchestrated the collision in that dimly lit bar. Hadn’t scheduled the kiss. And she certainly hadn’t penciled in a crack in her carefully forged armor—or the way it felt to let a little light slip through.
Heinrich’s nostrils flared. “You ran off to Geneva.”
“I went to Geneva,” Allegra corrected. Semantics mattered when you were defending your dignity. “I took a trip. It was temporary.”
Her father stabbed a finger at the reading glasses sitting on his desk. “You tried to pass yourself off as a tourist. Not just a tourist—a fucking Austrian.” He squeezed the bridge of his nose, face twisting as if he’d smelled something rotten.
Mathilde leaned in, her voice pitching an octave higher. “And then you did it with a porno guy.”
“I did not ‘do it.’” Allegra’s molars ground together. “And can we please stop calling him that?”
“That’s literally what he is,” Heinrich said.
“Was. Anyway, he’s also a person. With a name.” Her throat tightened around the next part, the syllables sticking like burrs. “Nate Donovan.” Just saying it out loud was like pressing a bruise. It hurt, and some deeply unhelpful part of her wanted to press again.
“Whatever,” Heinrich said. “He’s plastered all over the internet.”
Allegra wanted to scream. Or melt into the carpet. Both. “Are we done here?”
Heinrich shook his head. “Not even close.” He adjusted his cufflinks, his lips set in a thin line. “The man who spotted you on the street with the porn guy? His phone had a very unfortunate encounter with the pavement. The video is gone.” He paused, tone leaving no room for doubt. “Permanently.”
Her father opened a drawer, pulled out a manila folder, and nudged it across the desk. “But it doesn’t end there. Your genius scheme wasn’t. Some paparazzo from Blitz tracked you down.”
Allegra’s stomach lurched. “What’s this?”
He tapped the folder. “Look for yourself.”
Allegra’s fingers curled into fists, nails biting into her palms. She forced them open and snatched up the file.
The first photo hit like a slap: glossy paper, zoomed to cruelty.
Her face, her mouth on Nate’s. Disguise be damned; it was unmistakably them, lying on the grass on Mont Salève.
She flipped through a few more shots before shoving the lot back at her father.
“I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” she said faintly.
Her father exhaled through his nose. “Wrong isn’t the standard we’re dealing with. This is optics, and the optics are… unforgiving.” He leaned back, fingers tapping the desk. “They plan to publish tomorrow.”
Mathilde whimpered.
“Okay,” Allegra said, rubbing her temples as if she could massage the panic out of her skull. “So, what’s the damage control?”
“I can make it go away. For a price.”
“You’ll pay?”
“I’ll pay,” Heinrich confirmed. Then he added, almost casually, “But that’s not it. They’ll bury the story, but they want a new headline. Something to sell. An exclusive.” He let the words hang. “A rekindled relationship.”
The chair screeched as Allegra shot to her feet. “No. No! Absolutely not!”
Her father’s expression darkened. “Allegra, sit down.”
But she didn’t. Couldn’t. The thought of going back to Julien, of playing the happy couple for the cameras, made her insides turn to ice. “Julien and I are over,” she said, her voice shaking. “Done. Finished.”
Her father didn’t even flinch. “I’ve already spoken with his agent, and he’s—”
“For fuck’s sake, Dad,” she cut in. “Whose idea was this?”
“It’s mutually beneficial, darling,” her mother chimed in.
“Mutually beneficial?” Allegra scoffed. “Sure. Why not trade me for a couple of warhorses and a sack of salt while we’re at it?”
“Allegra. Enough,” her father said, eyes boring into hers. “Time to grow up. Being a von Wildern isn’t all private jets and Pucci dresses. It’s duty.”
“As if I don’t get that!”
“So start acting like it. You’ve had your fun. Now you’ve got a country to think about.”
Allegra’s hands balled into fists. “Christ, Dad, it’s all I think about!”
Heinrich’s face softened a fraction. “Good,” he said quietly. “Then I trust you’ll do the right thing.”
He didn’t wait for her answer. He simply rose from his chair and strode out of the room. The door shut behind him with a decisive click that somehow echoed louder than a slammed fist.
She hovered there for a second, like her body hadn’t received the evacuation order her heart had. Then her knees gave up the fight, and she slumped into the chair. She dragged in a breath. Held it. Let it out slowly—the way people do when they are absolutely, under no circumstances, going to cry.
Her throat tightened anyway. Her vision blurred. She folded forward, pressing her forehead to the cool wood of the desk. Her breath hitched.
And then the tears came.
Not cinematic, single-track-down-the-cheek princess tears. Ugly ones. Hot and fast, splashing across the polished mahogany.
A hand settled on her shoulder. Allegra stiffened on instinct, as if caught doing something illegal. Crying probably counted.
“Oh, sweetheart.” Her mother’s voice had shed its steel. “It might not seem like it, but he loves you. In his own way. He’s doing what he thinks is best.”
Allegra let out a watery laugh that bordered on hysterical. “What would you know?”
The hand squeezed tighter. “You think I wanted this for you? That I wouldn’t give anything to undo it?”
Allegra swiped at her cheeks with the heel of her palm and lifted her head. Her mother’s face wasn’t composed the way it usually was. There were lines there. Deep ones.
“Goddamned Treaty of Feldkirch,” Mathilde muttered. “Bunch of men in powdered wigs decided Valenstadt only gets to exist if we keep producing heirs, like we’re some kind of royal broodmare factory. And here we are, still paying for their brilliance.”
Allegra blinked. Her mother didn’t blaspheme about treaties. She didn’t blaspheme about anything.
“Do you know,” Mathilde went on, her voice tight, “the first thing your grandfather asked when we got back from our honeymoon? Not, ‘How was the weather?’ Not, ‘Did you enjoy yourselves?’” Her mouth twisted. “Are you pregnant yet? I hadn’t even unpacked.”
Allegra swallowed, her throat raw. “So I’m supposed to—what? Marry Julien, pop out a baby, and call it patriotism?”
“I’m not saying it’s fair, Allegra. I’m saying the treaty doesn’t care about feelings.” She leaned in, lowering her voice. “Worst case, this porno thing gets out. The press will use it to say you’re unfit. That the line is unstable. And if that happens…” She let the thought hang.
Allegra leaned back in the chair. “So we burn the stupid treaty.”
Her mother’s mouth curved into something that tried to be a smile but was too weary to make it. “Austria would call it administrative tidying. We’d be absorbed before lunch and forgotten by dinner. You know that as well as I do.”
Allegra huffed, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Okay, great. But why Julien? Why him?”
“Because the man’s a celebrity. And your father’s completely fallen for his charm offensive. He’s convinced that with the right photogenic prince, we can turn Valenstadt into something more than a tax residence for Formula One drivers. A royal tourist destination.”
“Oh. Fantastic. I’ve always wanted to be a commemorative mug.”
Mathilde shot her a look. “Don’t be flippant.”
“I’m not. I’m coping.”
Her mother sighed, but there was no bite to it. “No one’s asking you to pick out a christening gown. Just meet with him. Talk it through. Give him another chance.”
“A chance?” Allegra’s voice sharpened. “You want me to give the man who treated me like arm candy another go?”
“Exactly.” Her mother didn’t waver. “He’s had time to reflect. People change. Your father grew on me eventually, didn’t he?”
Allegra let out a dry laugh. “Right. Because this is totally about personal growth.”
Mathilde didn’t push again. She didn’t have to. Allegra’s mind had already sprinted ahead. Somewhere out there, a man with a telephoto lens was sitting on photographs that could detonate her life.
Not just hers. Nate’s.
The thought of him caught in the crossfire made her chest constrict, like a vise tightening around her ribs.
Reporters would swarm his home, hound his mom, microphones thrust in her face, cameras flashing, hungry for her shock and pain.
They’d turn him into a joke. No, worse—a monster.
The gold-digging porn star who’d preyed on a na?ve princess.
And she’d walked him right into it, laughing, lying, pretending she was no one.
Allegra sucked in a breath through her nose, held it, counted to four, then let it out slowly. She turned toward her mother and lifted her chin. “Fine. I’ll meet with Jules. But I’m not promising anything.”
“That’s all we’re asking,” her mother said. She brushed her thumb over Allegra’s temple before pressing a soft kiss to her forehead. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. Then she was gone.
Allegra slumped in the chair, all structure gone. She dug her knuckles into her sternum and focused on the rhythm. In. Out. It’s just Julien. Just a meeting. Just a man with expensive hair and a superiority complex.
No big deal.
Her pulse disagreed.
Her gaze drifted, unfocused, until something snagged her attention. Beneath the joyless portrait of Albrecht the Resolute IV, where the paneling met the floor, a thin seam cut through the wood. A shadow slid across the crack. Someone was standing too close on the other side.
She knew that passage. The hidden servants’ corridor her father claimed was “sealed for safety reasons.” And she knew the one person in the palace shameless enough to eavesdrop from it.
Allegra rose silently and crossed the room on tiptoe.
Her fingers found the concealed catch. She pulled.
The door swung open, and Clara tumbled out with a startled gasp, catching herself on the frame just before she hit the floor.
For a long, still second, they stared at each other: Allegra with her cheeks burned pink and eyes rimmed red; Clara with her guilty, almost apologetic grin.
“So,” Allegra said flatly. “You heard all that?”
Clara nodded. “Everything from ‘porno guy.’”
Allegra crossed her arms, teeth pressed together. “Great.”
Clara’s smirk faltered when she noticed the snot bubbling from her sister’s nostril. “Oh,” she said, stepping closer, her voice softening. “Oh shit. You okay?”
Allegra opened her mouth. Closed it. The simple answer—I’m fine—was trapped in her throat.
“I’m so pissed at Nate. And I feel so stupid.
He made me look like a fool.” The words were clipped, safer that way.
Then her voice wobbled despite her best efforts.
“But it also feels like… like someone reached in and ripped my heart straight out of my chest. Which is ridiculous because I barely—” She shook her head, cutting herself off. “God, listen to me.”
Clara tilted her head, silent for a beat, then said carefully, “Well, that just means he meant something, right?”
Allegra huffed a humorless breath. “I hate that.”
“Yeah. Feelings are a pain in the ass.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’s a fucking mess, Maus. Mine.” Her voice cracked, as if she hadn’t realized how heavy it all felt. “And now I’m responsible for tidying it up.”
“By what? Playing happy couple with Julien? Come on.”
Pressure piled up against her ribs, making it hard to breathe. It didn’t matter what she wanted. She was a princess. And a princess couldn’t be with a one-time adult video actor, even if she wanted to. Not now. Not ever.
“It’s not like I have a choice.”
“You always have a choice,” Clara said firmly.