I called Paula before my brain could sprint into worst-case scenarios.She answered on the first ring.
“Bryce?Have you checked the news yet?”Her voice was clipped.
My mind leapt to the war.“Oh God,” I groaned, pressing my palm to my forehead.“What did Russia do now?Tell me they didn’t escalate in Albania overnight—”
“It’s not Russia,” she said.“It’s you.”
For a second, I didn’t understand.Then my blood ran hot.“Me?”I asked, careful, like the word might explode.“What the hell does that mean?”
I mouthed to Arthur,Get your phone.He set his teacup down and reached for his mobile.The lock screen bloomed awake with a wall of alerts.He gasped, and my pulse ticked up.
“Paula,” I managed, “what’s happening?”
“Look at the news and call me right back,” she said, voice gone to iron.Then the line went dead.
I stared at my phone for a moment, then opened the BBC app.
The headline punched me in the sternum.
U.S.Ambassador Bryce Lewis Caught in Intimate Embrace with Prince Arthur Phillip!
Beneath it, a photograph.Strobe-lit.Crowded with moving bodies and neon haze.Me and Arthur on the dance floor, his arms looped around my neck, my mouth near his cheek, laughter caught reckless on my face.The moment looked tender and private—and like evidence.The caption might as well have been a charge sheet.
My lungs forgot how to work.Next to me, Arthur swiped, and the phone buzzed like an angry hive in his hands.
“God,” he whispered, colour draining.“Bryce—listen.”His voice shook as he read, each sentence another blow:
“Breaking: Prince Arthur Phillip was seen last night in a tightly embraced dance with U.S.Ambassador Bryce Lewis at an exclusive London venue.Onlookers describe the pair as ‘indisputably intimate,’ sharing whispered exchanges and lingering touches.Palace sources declined to comment on whether the encounter contravenes expectations of royal conduct for a senior member of the family.Diplomatic experts warn the optics could complicate Lewis’s nascent tenure and raise questions about royal impartiality.”
He looked up at me with eyes too bright.“They said senior member.I’m not a fucking senior member of anything!”
I swore—fast, vicious, useless.The word hung and fell; nothing changed.I swiped, and another headline slid into place.
The Firm Under Fire?Palace Braces as Prince Arthur’s Late-Night Dance Sparks Constitutional Hand-Wringing
The first paragraph used that careful British tone that reads like a scolding.
While the Duke of Clarence has cultivated a modern public image—business-savvy in British fashion—this new association with America’s top diplomat invites scrutiny of the Crown’s commitment to political neutrality.Officials declined comment on whether guidance had been offered in advance regarding private socialising in public venues.
Guidance.As if Arthur needed chaperoning.As if we hadn’t already lived our lives under a microscope.
“I never saw a photographer,” Arthur said, voice pitching upward.“Bryce, I didn’t see a single lens.”
“Neither did I.”I couldn’t stop staring at the picture.In the picture my hand was circling his waist, and how stupidly, gloriously happy we looked.“We were so absorbed in each other that we didn’t notice.”
His phone chimed again: another alert, another wound.
He scrolled, throat bobbing.“Here,” he said hoarsely.“This one’s… worse.”He swallowed and read aloud from a tabloid, the words oily and sure of themselves:
ROYAL RUMBA OR DIPLOMATIC DISASTER?
Exclusive images obtained by the Daily Crown show Prince Arthur Phillip pressed close to U.S.Ambassador Bryce Lewis on a pulsing dance floor in the early hours.Witnesses say the pair were ‘all over each other’ and ‘didn’t care who saw.’According to a club insider, security was ‘stretched’ as the men ‘moved like lovers.’With the Prince’s mother, Princess Anne, known for her strict sense of duty, palace watchers are already asking what consequences may follow.Sources suggest the Palace is in ‘lockdown mode.’As for Ambassador Lewis, questions swirl stateside: can he credibly front America’s foreign policy while stirring an international scandal of the heart?
Arthur’s mouth trembled.He put a hand to his chest like he was checking his heart was still there.“They’re dragging my mother into it already.”He sounded both incredulous and resigned; he’d grown up with this—he understood exactly how fast the machine spins once it’s fed.
A new tremor took me.Not just at the thought of the Palace, but of the State Department.Of Washington at its righteous worst.Committees.Calls from “friends.”Comments about “judgement,” “optics,” “traditional expectations of conduct.”Language built to conceal the knife.
“I need to—” I started, then stopped, because I didn’t know whether to call Paula or crawl under the bed and scream.
