Red- White Royal Blue -

The headline the next morning, splashed across every tabloid on both sides of the Atlantic, read:

The truth, which Alex would never, ever admit out loud, was far more scandalous than a fistfight. There had been no punching. There had been a stolen moment, a whispered joke about the archbishop’s hat, and then Henry’s hand had found his waist, and Alex’s body had forgotten it belonged to the American political machine. He had laughed—a real, unguarded laugh—and leaned into the prince like he was the only solid thing in a spinning world.

Henry stopped. They were in another alcove, this one mercifully free of dessert. “I don’t know,” Henry whispered. “What were we doing, Alex?”

The backdrop was the Royal Wedding of the year. The crime scene: a forgotten linen closet off the main gallery. Red- White Royal Blue

“Exactly,” Zahra said, arching an eyebrow. “Laughing. Intimately. The British press thinks you’re lovers. The American press thinks you tried to start a second revolutionary war. We need to triangulate.”

Alex picked up a red Lego. “We’re… colleagues.”

Henry gave him a tight, polite smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “After you, Mr. Claremont-Diaz.” The headline the next morning, splashed across every

“A scuffle?” Alex’s voice cracked. “I had my hand on his—we were laughing.”

“It was a rather undignified way to be caught,” Henry admitted.

Then: “I don’t know. But for the first time in my life, I desperately want to find out.” He had laughed—a real, unguarded laugh—and leaned into

“It’s an act of diplomatic war,” his mother, President Ellen Claremont, said without looking up from the stack of damage reports. Her voice was steel wrapped in velvet. She was in her third year of a tight re-election campaign, and her opponent, Senator Richards, was already using the image as a fundraiser. “A royal rumble,” he’d crooned on Fox News. “Is this the respect the First Son shows our closest ally?”

“The cake is not the issue, Alex.” She finally looked up. Her eyes were tired. “The issue is that for six seconds, the world saw the First Son of the United States looking at a British prince like he was the last helicopter out of Saigon.”

Zahra, the White House Communications Director, typed furiously on her tablet. “The Palace is apoplectic. They’re demanding a joint statement clarifying the ‘spontaneous and regrettable physical altercation.’ They want to frame it as a harmless scuffle.”