Chapter 1
Max
The thing about being the last-born in a family full to the brim of famous royals is that you may start out as everyone's favorite adorable toddler, but somehow you end up as the country's most documented cautionary tale about what happens when privilege meets poor decision-making.
I’m that person. Me, Prince Maximilien, fourth-born child of King Frederic and Queen Astrid of Ledonia, and about ninth in line to the throne these days, lasttime I checked.
I’m “the problem” that needs to be fixed, allegedly. The wild child. The party boy.
Theman-child.
I have journalist Fabiana Fontaine to thank for that little gem. But don’t even get me started on her.
As far as I can see it, I’m just living life within my gilded cage as best I can. Not that anyone ever asks for my opinion. As far as they’re concerned, I’ve got an image problem that needs to be fixed, STAT.
The palace PR team has devised three possible solutions:
Being forced to smile through a televised cake-tasting segment onLedonia’s Best Bake-Offto show I am, and I quote, “one of the people”
Taking part in a documentary series about my life to show the country that I’m a regular guy who just happened to make a poor decision (or twenty)
Enter an arranged engagement with some pre-approved aristocrat to show I’m a new man with serious life goals and a penchant for tweed
I told them I’d rather fight a bear.
Bare handed.
And blindfolded.
I mean, what kind of options are those? None of them appeals in the slightest. A few little slip-ups that somehow managed to make it into the press thanks to that Fontaine woman, and suddenly I have an image problem?
Please.
My antics barely rate on my brother’s scandal-o-meter. Alex was the one who had an image problem before he fell in love with the woman he’s now married to and cleanedup his act. He had women coming out of his ears. Not literally, of course, but you get the picture.
I’m a freaking monk in comparison.
And really, all I did was lose a bet with a couple of my friends after a martini or two at a boring garden party. Now, Fabiana Fontaine has got the entire country calling me a man-child.
Isn’t name-calling the height of immaturity? It’s like we’re back in the school playground and she’s sneering at me by the swings, throwing insults my way to impress her gaggle of friends.
And sure, in hindsight I can see diving on the children’s slip ’n slide in my linen suit while balancing a martini in one hand wasn’t the smartest decision of the day. But to be fair to me, overshooting and landing in an 18thCentury decorative fishpond, sending carp flying into the air as they flapped their fins in desperation was never part of the plan. I thought I’d come to a stop at the bottom of the slide, just like the children had, not get launched like a torpedo as some nearby child yelled, “Cannonball!”
It's now become a trending TikTok sound, along with Fabiana Fontaine’s video, of course.
How did she even get the footage? It’s not like she was an invited guest.
