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06 Let the Crown Crumble
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2025-09-05 12:05:53Cassandra’s POV
Ivana never broke her promises.
The next morning, she summoned my parents.
They arrived at the palace with stiff backs and tighter expressions, every step echoing their shame. My father didn’t meet my eyes. My mother, pale and dignified, looked like a ghost of herself.
Whatever they thought of Ivana now, it didn’t matter. They had made their bargain long ago. Now they were swallowing the cost.
“You’ll have to be strong,” my mother whispered to me in the corridor, her fingers brushing mine. “Rachel may have given him children, but she’ll never be you. Play your part. When you’re queen, you can make them pay.”
I stared at her, cold. “I don’t want revenge, Mother. I want peace.”
But she didn’t hear me. Or maybe she didn’t care. To her, this was the price of power.
The king was informed of the press conference. He didn’t approve. But he didn’t stop it, either.
And that silence said everything.
By evening, the royal hall had been transformed into a stage. Journalists filled the rows. Cameras glared like hungry eyes. Representatives from every noble house crowded in, eager for a spectacle.
Ivana stood at the center, dressed in a flawless royal-blue gown, smiling like a conqueror. Richard flanked her, his expression rehearsed into calm regret.
Rachel hovered to the side, eyes lowered, her children clinging to her skirts.
And me.
I stood in the shadows, my pulse steady.
If Ivana thought I would bow, she had miscalculated.
Ivana spoke first, her voice honeyed, commanding.
She praised the children. She called them blessings. She thanked Rachel for her “noble sacrifice.” Then, with a smile sweet enough to rot teeth, she invited me to speak.
I walked up slowly, ignoring the teleprompter flashing a pre-approved speech. Ignoring Richard’s desperate eyes. Ignoring my mother’s frantic nod from the crowd.
I wasn’t here to play along.
I took a breath, gripped the podium, and let the truth burn through me.
“It is with a heavy heart that I stand before you today,” I began. My voice wasn’t loud, but it was sharp enough to slice through the noise. The room stilled. Ivana’s smile wavered. Richard’s jaw clenched.
“I only learned of these children yesterday. I was told, not asked, to accept them. To smile for the cameras. To protect the illusion of a perfect royal family.”
Gasps rippled. Whispers swelled.
“I was told silence was the price of staying with the Crown Prince.”
Ivana shifted, panic flashing across her eyes. Richard took a step forward, but I raised my hand without turning.
“Let me make myself clear,” I said, my voice rising. “This arrangement was made without my knowledge. Without my consent. For four years, I have tried, we have tried, to conceive. What I didn’t know was that I was trying alone. My husband had already moved on. Already secured his heirs.”
The hall erupted. Gasps, murmurs, cameras clicking furiously.
Ivana stood abruptly. “How dare you, ”
I cut her off with a single look.
“I refuse to accept these children into my household. I will not mother them. I will not pretend. They are the result of deceit, cowardice, and manipulation. Their mother is a concubine, and I say that not out of cruelty, but clarity. That is her title, and I will not dress it up.”
Rachel flinched. Richard paled. The nobles leaned forward, devouring every word.
Ivana hissed, “Cassandra, enough, ”
“This kingdom deserves transparency,” I said firmly. “And if our future king cannot be honest in his own marriage, imagine what kind of ruler he will become. A king who lies. Who hides. Who betrays.”
The room shook with gasps. Some clapped. Others shouted. The journalists’ pens scratched furiously across paper.
I let the tears fall then, not weakness, but proof. Proof of what betrayal looked like.
“And so,” I said, my voice steady, final, “I make my own announcement.”
I looked directly at Richard. At the cameras. At the world.
“I want a divorce.”
Silence.
Stunned. Heavy. Explosive.
Ivana’s eyes bulged, her face draining of colour. Richard stumbled forward, his lips parting soundlessly.
The press lost control, questions flew, flashes blinded, chaos erupted.
And then… I saw him.
Arden.
He had slipped in quietly, unnoticed by most, sitting in the far back with his arms folded, one leg crossed. His face unreadable, carved from stone.
But his eyes, those piercing cerulean eyes, were locked on mine.
He didn’t smirk. He didn’t look away.
He just held me there, steady, strong, like an anchor in a storm.
And I realised, in that exact moment, that I wasn’t alone.
I turned from the podium, ignoring the chaos, ignoring Richard’s frantic cries.
I walked out.
Through the flashes. Through the whispers. Through the storm.
I didn’t wait for applause or condemnation. I didn’t need either.
Because the truth was mine.
And I had detonated their perfect illusion.
Back at the palace, I strode straight to my wing.
“Diana,” I said, my voice sharp, sure. “Pack our things. We’re leaving.”
Her eyes widened, but only for a moment. Then she nodded. “Yes, madam.”
“No, you’re not!” Richard’s voice thundered behind me as he stormed in, his face pale, his hands shaking.
But Diana didn’t flinch. She moved faster efficiently, and loyal.
“Stop this madness!” Richard grabbed my arm. “What do you think you’re doing?”
I yanked free and laughed, sharp as glass. “I’m leaving, Richard. What does it look like?”
“You’re being irrational,” he snapped. “Where would you even go? You’ve never worked a day in your life. Your father won’t take you in.”
I turned to him slowly, smiling sweetly, pityingly.
“You really do think so little of me,” I whispered. “All these years, I tried to be the perfect wife. The perfect princess. But now? I’ll try something new. I’ll be the perfect me.”
Something shifted in his face. Panic. Fear. Desperation.
He lunged closer. “I won’t divorce you.”
“Suit yourself,” I said coldly, just as Diana appeared with the first of my bags.
“I’ll bring the rest, madam,” she said briskly.
“Ask a guard to help you,” I replied.
But Richard barked, “No one touches her bags.”
The guards froze, caught between orders.
Richard’s hands trembled as he pulled out his phone. “You’re not walking away from me,” he hissed, already dialing. “I’ll call reinforcements if I have to.”
And in that moment, watching him, I knew.
He wasn’t begging for love.
He was begging for control.
And control was the one thing I would never give him again.
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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