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103 The Burden of Blood and Duty
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2025-12-22 12:06:31
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Tempting the Wrong Prince 104 The Burden of Blood and Duty 2
Richard’s POVI stepped slightly aside, away from the prying curiosity in my mother’s eyes and the suffocating tension that clung to the hospital walls like dust. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, the scent of antiseptic sharp in the air, the weight of fear heavier than any crown. I lifted the phone to my ear.“Father.”His response was brisk, clipped, already strained by the unraveling chaos of a kingdom at its breaking point.“Richard, where are you? You need to get back to the palace immediately. We’re preparing a press release. The people are panicking, the riots are escalating.”I closed my eyes briefly, inhaling through the tightness in my chest. Of course. One crisis was never enough. Eldenwald had a talent for bleeding in every direction at once.I paced a few slow steps down the hall. “Is the food reserve being released? What am I supposed to tell them if there’s nothing tangible to offer?”“Not yet,” he answered, irritation hardening into frustration. “I’m still assemb
Tempting the Wrong Prince 103 The Burden of Blood and Duty
Richard’s POV The doctor’s footsteps echoed down the corridor long before he reached us, slow, steady, unforgiving. In the suffocating quiet of the hospital wing, each soft tap against the polished floor struck my nerves like a hammer. Nothing in this place moved quickly except fear, and fear had already wrapped around all of us like a noose.When the doctor finally appeared, his shoulders were squared with practiced calm, but there was a heaviness behind his eyes that made my stomach clench. He bowed lightly.“Your Highness. Your Majesty.”My mother straightened instantly, slipping into her queenly posture as naturally as breathing. Regal, composed, unreadable. I could barely mimic a nod. My spine felt rigid, my lungs tight, as if one wrong inhale would shatter the fragile space holding me together.“How is he?” I asked, though the words scraped out of me like broken glass. “My son.”The doctor didn’t answer immediately. He clasped the clipboard to his chest, his fingers tightening
Tempting the Wrong Prince 102 What It Costs to Face Myself 2
Richard’s POV“So tell me,” I continued, stepping closer, close enough that the harsh fluorescent lights carved brutal honesty across both our faces, “since when did spending time with a nanny become an obligation, Mum?”Her lips parted, ready to defend herself, ready to twist the entire situation into something convenient, but I didn’t allow her the room. Not anymore.“You created this mess,” I said quietly. Too quietly. The kind of quiet that shook even me. “And I will stick to the terms we agreed on. Once the children are healthy, Rachel returns to Erinville. Permanently. My life is already in ruins because of all the ways I let you meddle.”Rachel’s crying intensified at those words, her sobs ricocheting through the sterile hospital corridor like shards of broken glass, slicing through the tension, the guilt, the regret. But as her face crumpled and her shoulders shook, something terrifying dawned on me.I felt nothing.Or maybe not nothing, just a hollowed-out numbness so deep it
Tempting the Wrong Prince 101 What It Costs to Face Myself
Richard’s POVRachel threw herself into my arms the second she saw me, sobbing, shaking, clinging like a woman drowning. Her body trembled violently against mine, fingers clutching at my coat as if she feared I might vanish if she let go.For a brief, disorienting moment, I didn’t know what to do with my hands.My mind rejected the embrace. My chest constricted.Not out of cruelty. Not out of blame.But because her touch, her presence, felt like a physical reminder of every wrong turn I had taken. Every compromise. Every lie I allowed to grow legs and walk through my marriage until it destroyed everything in its path.James was the one who needed me. Not her. Not this suffocating display of emotion.But Rachel cried harder, fists bunching the fabric at my shoulders, until my mother swept in, dramatic as ever, and wrapped a comforting arm around her.Typical.Ivanna’s voice trembled with anxiety, but the performance was still polished. “Rachel, how did this happen? Wasn’t James fin
Tempting the Wrong Prince 100 The Weight of What I Destroyed 2
Richard’s POV“If she goes to him,” I said, each word low and deliberate, “it will be because you pushed her there. Not because she chose him over me, but because she could breathe around him. Because he shielded her from the storms you created. Because he made her feel seen. Valued. Safe.”My throat tightened.“Things I should have done,” I whispered. “Things you made impossible. Things I let you destroy.”“You are hurting me,” she breathed, hand trembling near her throat like a wounded actress.“I don’t care.”And I meant it.For the first time in my life, I truly didn’t care.“I am ashamed,” I said softly, the confession scraping through my chest. “Ashamed to call you my mother. And do not ever speak Cassandra’s name again. Do not meddle in her life. Do not speak of her in court. Do not approach her. If you do… you will lose me forever.”Her breath hitched sharply, the sound slicing the air between us.But before she could speak, before she could twist herself into another performa
Tempting the Wrong Prince 99 The Weight of What I Destroyed
Richard’s POVThe moment Sandra’s words registered, that James was in the hospital, that he had aplastic anaemia, that he needed me, something inside me violently tore loose.I didn’t feel my feet move. I didn’t feel the air. I didn’t feel the ground beneath me.I only moved.People parted for me like a tide breaking around a single rock. I heard nothing, none of the murmurs erupting in the hallway, none of the reporters barking questions, not even my mother calling after me in that shrill, commanding tone she thought the world owed obedience to.Nothing reached me.I sprinted through the corridor, taking the stairs two, three at a time. Out of the courthouse. Into the blinding, merciless daylight.The driver had already been alerted somehow, perhaps through the palace network, perhaps from the chaos building behind me. The car screeched up to the front steps, and before the tyres fully stilled, my mother slipped in beside me, still adjusting her shawl, still trembling in that drama
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