Lahat ng Kabanata ng Tempting the Wrong Prince: Kabanata 111 - Kabanata 120

Arden’s POVI should have left the palace the moment the press conference ended.Every instinct screamed at me to walk away, to disappear into the night and reclaim the solitude I’d carved for myself. I could have gone back to the anonymity of my hotel suite, where expectations couldn’t claw at me. I could have ridden straight to the border—a few hours of cold wind and open road—and never looked back.But Eldenwald was burning.The riots that had started as scattered protests had grown into something monstrous—fires spreading through overcrowded districts, people clashing with guards, crowds surging through the streets with desperation sharp enough to taste. It was no longer unrest.It was hunger with a voice.My security detail warned me that travelling now was dangerous. The roads were volatile, the gates unstable. Even I—who feared very little—was not foolish enough to get trapped outside the palace walls with no way to reach Cassandra if everything collapsed.So I let my father co

Richard’s POVThe palace was quiet by the time I returned, a strange, heavy quiet that did not soothe, did not soften anything. It was the kind of silence that comes after too much has been said, too much has been broken. A silence that settles not to bring peace, but to remind you of everything that has slipped beyond repair.My footsteps echoed through the marble corridors, each sound hollow against the vastness of the empty hallways. I used to find comfort in these passages, once upon a time when my life still felt tethered to meaning. When Cassandra still smiled at me. When my marriage still felt like a promise instead of a grave I kept digging with my own hands.Now every wall, every chandelier, every ornate pillar felt like they belonged to someone else. Like I was a ghost wandering through a life I had ruined.Home… Home had never been the palace. Home had once been a woman. Her soft voice. Her quiet laughter. Her warmth beside me. A presence I never appreciated unt

Arden’s POVI stared at Nala where she stood in that red lace like she expected the room itself to bow to her.She had positioned herself perfectly, the low light catching the curve of her shoulder, the colour chosen to provoke, the stillness rehearsed. She wasn’t just trying to entice me.She was trying to corner me.And that was the moment I laughed.Not loudly. Not cruelly. Just a low, quiet sound that escaped before I bothered to stop it , the kind of laugh you give when something stops being a threat and starts being a joke.Her eyes widened immediately.Shock flashed across her face before she smoothed it into something cool and amused.“Well,” she said lightly, tilting her head, “if it weren’t for the rumours about what’s going on between you and your brother’s wife, I’d think you didn’t even fancy women.”Her voice was playful.Her intention was not.I didn’t let the words touch me. Didn’t rise to them. Didn’t react.I just kept looking at her.Because that was the thing abou

Arden’s POVNala walked out of the corridor behind me wearing a pale sleeping robe, the fabric soft and flowing, cinched at the waist as though she’d woken and thrown it on in modest haste. Her hair was loose and artfully disordered, as if she’d spent the night in a bed she belonged in. Her face was bare enough to look innocent, but her lips held a tint of colour that hadn’t happened by accident.She moved like someone who belonged there.Like someone who had been invited.Like someone who owned the place.The performance was meticulous. The robe, the hair, the timing, appearing exactly when my father asked for her, as if summoned by the script.The palace liked scripts.Nala loved them.My father… my father depended on them.She walked straight up to us with a soft smile and looped her arm through mine before greeting the King and her uncle.My jaw tightened.I did not pull away immediately.Not because I accepted it, but because I was watching my father’s reaction.His shoulders rel

Arden’s POVThe moment the door shut, he hit me.Not hard enough to knock me down. Not wild with drunken rage or a loss of control. It was measured. An exact strike from a man who knew his strength and wanted the message to land without making a scene.My head snapped slightly to the side, more from shock than pain. For a second, I just stood there, staring past his shoulder at the wall, trying to place the sound in my mind. The dull thud of knuckles against bone. The quiet that followed. The way my heartbeat stumbled, like it hadn’t expected violence to be part of this conversation.He had never hit me before.Not as a child, when my tutors complained about my mouth. Not as a teenager, when I stopped attending his prayers for obedience. Not even the first time I disobeyed him publicly, when he dragged me into a study and tried to suffocate me with words until I apologised for wanting a life outside his script.That was always his weapon: language. Decrees. Lectures. Public silence th