The Royal Heir - Dancing with my eyes closed

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A few days after the Red Apple Gala, I wake up to my phone ringing. And ringing. And ringing. Jeez. It must be stupidly early if Bella's not awake yet. I yawn, stretch, and reach across the bed to answer it, not opening my eyes yet. "Uh-huh?"

"Maxwell."

Oh, shit. It's Madeleine. This isn't good.

"I'm assuming you've not seen the front of this morning's Daily Apple yet?"

"Wha... no, it's, what, six am?"

"Five forty-six." She sounds furious. "If anyone calls you, your response is no comment."

I open my eyes and sit bolt upright in bed. "My response to what exactly?"

She lets out a long sigh. "I'll email it across to you and call you back in fifteen minutes. I need to know what's truth and what's lies before I prepare a response."

"Madelei..."

But she's already hung up. Oh, no. I see the email come through, subject line 'MB sex scandal'. I already know this is Anna's work.

I brace myself for the worst before I click on the attachment. The tabloid headline has a big picture of me, with a small picture of Anna in the bottom corner. It screams "MY SEX AND DRUGS BINGE WITH DUKE MAXWELL".

So this is what she meant when she said I'd regret not paying for that last hotel room bill. Fuck. What they paid her for this would probably have been enough for her to stay in that suite for a whole year.

It's not easy to read the detail on this attachment, I can only zoom in so much on my phone. I've also got an image of the double page spread with the story. There's some interesting pictures of Anna in there, along with a terrible picture of me, completely wasted against a window, that I don't even remember being taken. I can also see some of the little highlighted quotes designed to draw people in. "WE DID IT ON MY KITCHEN TABLE" "DIRTY THREESOME WITH MY BOYFRIEND" and "HE HAS A SEXY SQUID TATTOO... ON HIS BACKSIDE."

Oh, crap. Bertrand's gonna flip. He still doesn't know about that one.

Bella's baby monitor starts to crackle, she's awake now. I sigh, and call Verity. She's probably still asleep too; since I've come back to Valtoria I've dealt with all the early morning stints. It's only fair with me being such a morning person.

She answers straight away, so I'm guessing she was already awake. "Your Grace."

I wish she'd call me Maxwell, but she's clearly graduated from the same school of etiquette as Chris and Mara have. "Verity, I'm really sorry, but can you see to Bella this morning?" I ask her. "I've got a... situation I need to deal with."

"Yeah," she says, seemingly not surprised. "I know. I woke up early and put CBC News on."

Fantastic.

"Don't worry, I'll be straight there. Is she already awake?"

"Yeah. Just woken up."

"Okay. Leave it with me."

She hangs up. Now I don't have a TV in here, the nearest one is two doors down in the Interflix and Chill room, and I really don't want to come face to face with Verity just after she learned exactly what her boss got up to when he was in Ramsford. Instead, I open up my social media to see what's being said about me on there.

Immediately, I wish I hadn't. The article's on there, and even at this time in the morning there's already thirty comments from anonymous strangers I'll hopefully never meet.

THIS MAN IS NOT FIT TO BE A FATHER, ESPECIALLY NOT TO THE HEIR TO THE THRONE!

WHO WAS LOOKING AFTER HIS BABY WHEN HE WAS HAVING THESE THREESOMES?