All Chapters of Tempting the Wrong Prince: Chapter 101 - Chapter 110

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

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

Richard’s POVThe walk back down the corridor felt like moving through molasses, every step heavy, every breath thick, every sound warped around the pounding in my skull. The overhead lights seemed too bright, the floor too reflective, the air too sterile. My vision swam with each step, but I kept moving because stopping meant thinking, and thinking meant facing a truth I wasn’t ready for.I had just spoken to my father about famine, revolt, political collapse, about my brother being hunted, cornered, pressured into an engagement that could very well destroy him. I had spoken about riots, shortages, deceit, and a kingdom buckling under the weight of decades of mismanagement.But none of it, none of it, felt as suffocating as the single truth consuming me:My son might die if I was too late.That reality gnawed at me with a ferocity that threatened to rip me open from the inside.When I reached them, my mother, Rachel, Diana, and the doctor, they all looked up at once. Four faces, four

Arden’s POVThe king had been trying to reach me all day.His name flashed on my screen relentlessly, missed call after missed call, each one a knock against my patience, a reminder of the strings he thought he still owned. A lesser man might have answered out of duty, fear, obligation.But I didn’t answer. I let the phone ring out every single time.I wasn’t going to be summoned like a pawn on a chessboard. Not today. Not by a man who believed the title father still held authority after years of wielding his power like a weapon.If it weren’t for Cassandra…If it weren’t for the fact that she was trapped in that palace, isolated, ridiculed, cut open by whispers meant to bleed her slowly…If it weren’t for the reality that leaving Eldenwald now would mean abandoning her in the hands of those who hated her most……I would have left without hesitation.Without explanation. Without witnesses. Without looking back.My loyalty to Eldenwald had never been romantic or sentimental. It wa

Arden’s POVThe king stared at me as though he no longer recognised the son standing before him, as though the outrage, the defiance, the refusal simmering beneath my skin had carved me into a stranger he’d never imagined raising. His eyes moved over my face slowly, as if waiting for the illusion to crack, for the real, obedient Arden to return.But obedience had died months ago. And whatever version of me he thought he owned had died with it.Shock rippled across his expression in delayed, painful waves, disbelief giving way to confusion, confusion collapsing into something tight and wounded. He had expected resistance, yes, but not this, never this. He had always believed I was the son who would bend. Break. Yield for the greater good. Yield for the crown. Yield for him.But there I stood, entirely unbroken.For a moment he merely blinked at me, as though trying to steady himself, trying to gather the tatters of royal authority that were slipping through his fingers like water thro