I picked up my phone with fingers that trembled more than I wanted to admit.Scrolling past official numbers, past secretaries and aides, I found the one that mattered.Bryce’s private line.
I pressed it, bracing myself for his voicemail.But then—his voice, tired and warm, alive in my ear.“Hello?”
My breath caught.“Bryce… it’s me.”
A beat of silence, then I forced the words out.“We need to speak.In person.Now.”
* * *
Eddie’s flat was too quiet, the kind of silence that scraped at the nerves.Pacing from the narrow window to the sofa and back, my chest tightened as I tried to stay steady.I’d rehearsed every sentence a hundred times over the past two weeks.I knew what I wanted to say—knew the shape of it, the rhythm.But I also knew the moment he stood in front of me, all that careful language would unravel into something messy.
The knock came, sharp and decisive.My stomach lurched.
I pulled the door open, and there he was.Bryce.His eyes looked exhausted, rimmed with the kind of red that came from nights of little sleep.
Relief rushed through me.I leaned forward to kiss him, desperate for the familiar anchor of his mouth.But he turned his head, offering his cheek instead.
The refusal landed like a blow.
He stepped inside, setting his bag down with neat precision, and I shut the door behind him.We hovered in the space between the hallway and sitting room, strangers in a place that had once felt like a cocoon.
We sat opposite each other on the sofa, the cushion’s gulf between us more like a chasm.I stared at his hands folded tightly in his lap, veins standing out pale against his skin.
“You—” I started.
“I—” he blurted at the same moment.
We both stopped, startled.Bryce gave a quick, nervous laugh.“You first.”
My throat burned, and I swallowed hard.
“Bryce, I can’t take this anymore.The distance, and the incessant waiting.The silence on the phone as if we’re both afraid to breathe too loud.It’s tearing me apart.”My voice trembled, betraying me.I forced myself to keep going.“We need to move forward together, not hide like fugitives.I love you.Do you hear me?I love you.And I’m willing to give up everything—Clarence, my partnership with Chris, the name that comes with my birth, all of it.What’s the use of being a Windsor, or a designer, or anything at all if I can’t have you?”
The words spilled out faster, recklessly.“I don’t want dinners with my cousins, or another bloody balcony wave, or a business that thrives because I was photographed in your arms on a dance floor.None of it matters without you, Bryce.I want you.”
The room throbbed with my confession, every second stretching unbearably long.I waited for him to reach across the sofa, to take my hand, to say my love wasn’t one-sided.
But Bryce didn’t move.
His eyes glistened.I saw it—one tear breaking loose, sliding down the curve of his cheek.My stomach clenched so tight it felt like it might fold in on itself.He brushed the tear away quickly, as if embarrassed.
“Arthur… perhaps we need to cool things off.Just for a while.My entire career is hanging by a thread, and I was nearly recalled to Washington over this.Do you understand what that means?Decades of service, of sacrifice, undone because I couldn’t control a headline.I can’t risk more of that right now.”
I stared at him, the words not sinking in, not making sense.“Cool things off?”I repeated, incredulous.
His jaw tensed.“When things settle down, when the noise dies, maybe then… but right now I have to focus on my job.On what I’ve worked for my entire life.”
The breath whooshed out of me like I’d been struck.“Cool things off?”I said again, louder this time, disbelief turning to fury.“I bare my soul to you, tell you I’ll give up everything, and you sit there and talk about cooling off?”
“Arthur, please—”
“No!”The dam burst.“Do you know what this costs me?To even speak like this?I’ve risked my family’s wrath, my mother’s disappointment, the ridicule of the entire bloody world.I’ve put my name—my cursed surname—on the line for you.And now you’re telling me I’m an inconvenience?That my love is something you can put on hold until it fits better into your schedule?”
Bryce’s face twisted, pained.“That’s not what I’m saying—”
“Then what are you saying?”I demanded, my voice breaking.“That I’m too much trouble?That I was a pleasant distraction until the Secretary of State got pissed off?That you regret it all?”
“Don’t,” he whispered, anguish etched into every line of his face.“Don’t twist it like that.You know I care—”
