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04 The Wrong Brother
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2025-09-05 12:04:27Cassandra's POV
I slipped through the inner corridor that connected Richard’s wing to the rest of the palace.
The marble floors gleamed under soft lighting, every surface polished to perfection, every hallway whispering wealth and legacy. But today, it felt like a prison. Every step echoed with Ivana’s voice, with Richard’s betrayal, with Rachel’s wide, careful eyes.
I needed air. Freedom. Anything that didn’t smell of lies.
I turned a corner too quickly and stopped dead.
Arden.
He stood like a wall in the middle of the hall, broad shoulders blocking the path as though the palace itself had conspired to throw him in my way.
For a heartbeat, the world stilled.
He was older now. Broader. Stronger. His coat hung open over a charcoal shirt, collar slightly askew, like he didn’t care for court’s suffocating polish. His jaw was sharper than I remembered, his face harder, carved by years of silence and distance.
And those eyes, icy cerulean, his mother’s eyes. They caught mine like they always had, and just like that, I was seventeen again, heart hammering at a banquet table as I dared to look too long at a prince I could never have.
“Cassy,” he said, voice smooth, calm, far too steady while mine trembled inside me.
The sound of my childhood nickname on his lips sent a ripple down my spine.
I pulled myself together, forced a smile that wasn’t shy or flirtatious. Just… familiar. “I thought you left after the court session.”
“I did. Came back this morning. Father’s request.” His gaze moved over me, calm, assessing, controlled.
I felt naked under it. Not physically. Worse. Emotionally.
“How have you been?” he asked.
“Fine.” Too quick, too defensive.
One brow arched. He didn’t believe me. He never had. Arden had always noticed more than he should.
“I didn’t think you’d end up with Richard,” he said, voice flat. No judgment, no mockery. Just fact. “But the two of you were always close.”
I swallowed. What could I say? That Richard had noticed me first? That Arden had been my dream, but Richard had been the one who stayed?
“It made sense,” I said softly. “No one expected me to want anyone else.”
His gaze held mine, piercing. “You were young.”
“And you were distant.” The words slipped out before I could stop them.
A chuckle rumbled from his chest. Deep, warm, unguarded. It wrapped around me like a memory, pulling me back to garden walks and quiet banquets where I’d wished, just once, that he’d reach for me.
“I had no business getting involved with a Montclair princess,” he said. “The court would’ve torn us apart.”
He wasn’t wrong. But the truth still stung.
“Are you angry about what happened in court?” I asked, searching his face. “About my father?”
He shrugged. “Not at all. I was hoping the crown would go to someone else. Sebastien didn’t want it either.”
That surprised me. “But it was your birthright.”
“Freedom is my birthright,” he said without hesitation. “Being king is a gilded cage. I’ve climbed the mountains of Takar. Dove from the cliffs of Myreth. You think I’d trade that for ceremonial robes and false smiles?”
The certainty in his voice left me breathless. He wasn’t lying. He would choose freedom over power. Always.
“I knew what was coming the moment they matched you with Richard,” he added, a faint, almost bitter smile on his lips. “Ivana’s always been ten steps ahead.”
“I was just another pawn,” I muttered.
His smile faded. For a flicker of a moment, something gentler crossed his eyes.
“You were never a pawn.”
The words lodged in my chest, heavier than they should’ve been. I wanted to laugh them off, brush them aside, but I couldn’t. Not with him looking at me like that.
Silence stretched, thick and dangerous.
Then, mercifully, he broke it. “You still terrible with horses?”
The question caught me off guard. “I’m not terrible.”
His lips twitched. “Still need help, then?”
Despite everything, a small laugh escaped me, fragile but real.
Eight years ago, he’d steadied me in the stables, his hand firm at my waist, his voice calm in my ear. I had never forgotten.
“No,” I said quickly. Firmer.
“Come on,” he said, already turning toward the exit. “You look like you need it.”
He didn’t know. He couldn’t. That my marriage had been reduced to ash. That Richard had paraded his mistress and children in front of me. That Ivana had demanded my silence like it was my duty.
He didn’t ask about any of it.
And maybe that was the only reason I followed him.
Because sometimes kindness was more dangerous than cruelty.
The stables were quiet, lanterns casting long shadows across stone. The air smelled of hay and leather, the faint whinny of restless horses echoing through the rafters.
Arden moved with the confidence of a man who had never been denied. Even the stable hands watched him with respect as he ordered two horses to be saddled.
He didn’t look at me as he mounted. “Ready?”
I wasn’t. Not for him. Not for this. But I nodded anyway.
Latest chapter
Tempting the Wrong Prince 160 The Brother Who Broke First 3
Arden’s POVRichard exhaled slowly, eyes closing briefly as if even listening to this was exhausting.Then his phone rang.The sound cut through the room sharply, and Richard flinched as if the ringtone was a slap.He pulled the phone out, glanced at the screen, and his face tightened instantly.“My mother,” he muttered.I watched him carefully.His thumb hovered over the screen for half a second.Then he pressed decline.The phone went silent.Richard stared at it like it might bite him, then tossed it onto the table.He looked at me, eyes burning with a bitter kind of envy.“I envy you,” he said quietly.The words surprised me enough that I blinked.Richard let out a harsh breath. “You didn’t have a mother like mine. A mother that would ruin your life for nothing.”My jaw tightened.“You had a mother,” I said evenly. “You also had choices.”Richard flinched, then nodded faintly, shame flickering.I stepped closer and patted his back once,firm, grounding.“Breathe,” I told him. “You’
Tempting the Wrong Prince 159 The Brother Who Broke First 2
Arden’s POVI saw it then,the way his face held too much pain for one day, one week, even one year. The way his shoulders sagged like the body had finally admitted it couldn’t carry the crown and the shame and the guilt all at once.I exhaled slowly, forcing my own fury to sharpen into something useful rather than explosive.“Listen,” I said, lowering my voice. “You don’t have to carry it alone.”Richard’s lips trembled.“I was… I was a fool,” he whispered.“You were manipulated,” I corrected. “And you let it happen. Both can be true. But you don’t get to drown in it now.”He swallowed. “Cassandra…”The name slipped out of him like pain.I felt my chest tighten, but I didn’t react. Not outwardly. Not in a way he could read.Richard’s eyes flicked up, searching my face like he was afraid of what he might see there.I kept my expression neutral.“This changes everything,” he said, voice breaking. “Everything I did… I did it for,”“Stop,” I said, not unkindly, but firmly. “Right now, you
Tempting the Wrong Prince 158 The Brother Who Broke First
Arden’s POVBy the time Richard arrived, the sun had already started sliding down the sky like it was tired of watching this country suffer.The light outside my villa was that pale gold that made everything look softer than it truly was. Even the street beyond my gates seemed calmer than Eldenwald deserved right now. Cars moved with ordinary patience. A delivery bike cut through traffic. Somewhere in the distance, a siren rose and fell, the kind of noise you stopped noticing if you lived in a city long enough.Inside my house, nothing felt soft.The silence had teeth.I’d been sitting in the living room with my phone on the table and my mind stuck in the same loop: Cassandra’s name, Nala’s face, Belmont’s headline, the King’s pressure, the mob’s hunger, the lie they sold as truth.I had security on standby, but I didn’t want them in my space. I didn’t want anyone hovering. I didn’t want the sound of radios and footsteps and strategy talk. I wanted one thing only.To see Cassandra.To
Tempting the Wrong Prince 157 The Night They Sold as Truth 3
Arden’s POVSebastien spoke again, pulling me out of my thoughts.“Richard called me,” I said suddenly, the information rising because it mattered.Sebastien paused. “He did?”“Yes,” I said. “He sounded frantic.”Sebastien went quiet, then asked, “Do you think he wants to beg for Cassandra?”I let out a slow breath.“No,” I said. “I doubt it has anything to do with Cassandra.”Not because Richard didn’t love Cassandra in his own twisted way.But because the tone in Richard’s voice, the fracture, the desperation, had sounded like something else.Something that snapped a man at the root.Something bigger than pride.Sebastien murmured, “Then what?”“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But something has gone wrong.”Sebastien sighed. “Richard is going through a lot.”The words were careful, almost protective.I could hear it in his voice, Sebastien always balanced us. Always smoothed edges before blood spilled.“I’m going through a lot too,” I said, my voice flat.Sebastien didn’t argue. He simp
Tempting the Wrong Prince 156 The Night They Sold as Truth 2
Arden’s POVSebastien was quiet for half a beat, then said, “The President also sent the warning to Father’s office directly. Officially. Publicly. It’s a threat.”“I read it,” I said, jaw tight.“What do you want to do?” Sebastien asked.The question hung.And I hated that I didn’t have a clean answer.Because the truth was, my options were all poison.If I did nothing, Belmont tightened the grip and Eldenwald starved faster. Cassandra became the face of the blame. The mob grows. The palace uses her as a shield.If I publicly reject Nala, Belmont uses it as “proof” I humiliated their daughter. They escalate. They paint me as a predator who used her and discarded her. They push the narrative harder.If I “accept” Nala, even as a political performance, Cassandra becomes collateral again. And I become complicit in the cage they’re building around her.I stared at the floor, feeling the familiar cold rage beneath my skin.“I don’t know,” I said finally.Sebastien went quiet. Then his ton
Tempting the Wrong Prince 155 The Night They Sold as Truth
Arden’s POVThe internet had a talent for turning shadows into facts.One camera flash, one angle, one headline that sounded confident enough, and suddenly the world acted like it had been in the room with you. Like it had watched what your hands did. Like it had heard what your mouth said. Like it had counted every second between you and another person and decided that closeness automatically meant sin.They said I spent the night with Nala.They said it the way people said the sun rose in the east, without hesitation, without doubt, without any need for proof beyond the lie repeating itself enough times until it sounded like history.And in Eldenwald, right now, a lie didn’t just trend.It fed people.It drove policy.It started wars.I sat in the quiet of my villa with my phone face down on the table, like the screen itself was poisonous. The curtains were half-drawn, letting in a pale strip of daylight that cut across the floor and stopped near my shoes. Outside, I could hear the
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