Prologue

PROLOGUE

PAOLO

I jump to my feet when my parents arrive. Neither of them looks happy to see me, but why would they? I’m behind bars, and they’ve come to bail me out.

At least, I hope they have.

Usually, they just get me out quietly, not wanting to draw attention to the fact that the king’s third grandson has been arrested. Again.

I say again . It’s only happened, like, maybe four times. And at least one of those times wasn’t my fault.

This time, though, there’s no way I can spin it to be better.

“Paolo,” my father says darkly. I take a sharp breath.

“Hey, Dad,” I mumble. “How are you?”

He shakes his head, his eyes hard. “Explain yourself. You have one chance.”

I hesitate. “I… uh….”

All my father does is hang his head in shame. “Yes. That’s what I thought.”

“No, wait, I can explain,” I try, desperately wanting to summon the words that will make this all better. “It was a mistake, yeah? I panicked. I got scared and I panicked.”

“And ended up in a bar, in the arms of some nobody woman?” says my mother, the words cutting me to shreds.

“That wasn’t… I mean, yeah, I guess, but that wasn’t the plan.”

The looks thrown at me are thunderous and dark. I’ve really screwed up this time.

“Do you know,” says my father slowly, “just how many women in this country would do anything to be with you? The respect you and your name carry? And all you do is flush it away?”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, the lump in my throat making it hard to breathe.

But my father shakes his head again. “No, Paolo. This time you have gone too far. It was bad enough when it was just partying and petty crimes. But this? This cannot be forgiven.”

I stare at him in shock. This is cold even by his standards. Somehow I don’t think the punchline to this is going to be me getting off lightly.

A police officer comes forward and unlocks the holding cell, gesturing for me to leave. I blink, confused. “Wait — you bailed me out?”

“Not exactly,” says my mother, folding her arms. Her face is tight with emotion that she’s repressing, her lips thin to stop them trembling. “Paolo, we have given you so many chances. We have told you a hundred times that this behavior needs to stop. When we asked you about this, you agreed to it. We are not unreasonable people — we asked you if you would accept an arranged marriage and you told us you would.”

“You’ve had hundreds of chances to marry someone you liked,” adds my father. “We’ve never wanted to force anything upon you.”

I groan. “Yeah, yeah, you just thought that marrying me off would calm me down a little. Give me a nice girl and I’d stop letting you down. Well, sorry for being a disappointment again.”

“This isn’t about disappointment,” says my mother, gesturing for me to follow them out of the police station. “This is about shame.”

“How do you think it looks to our people for a prince to not show up to his own wedding? This was televised, for God’s sake! The people were excited for this!”

I open my mouth and close it again. I don’t have a good defense for that. My mother shoots my father the kind of look that says keep cool, don’t get angry , and the guilt in my stomach grows.

My father takes a steadying breath. “Get in the car,” he says quietly.

I hesitate, staring at the car. “Where are we going?” I ask.

“The airport,” says my mother.

My face falls in confusion and my father continues. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be, Paolo. We’ve made arrangements for you to be deported.”

“Wait — deported?” I gasp. “You’re exiling me?”

“That’s an old-fashioned word,” says my mother. “We prefer to call it expulsion.”

“Or banishment,” adds my father.

“How is that better?!” I swallow thickly, my eyes pricking with tears. “Will I ever be allowed to come home?”

My father looks at me gravely, his shoulders sagging as though the weight of all this is sinking him. “We are willing to review your citizenship after five years if you are able to prove to us that you’ve changed.”

“I’m being banished,” I whisper.

“You’re being given a chance to start over,” says my mother. “It is for your own good.”

I don’t know what else to say to that, so I say nothing. There are no hugs, no goodbyes. Just my parents staring at me with more disappointment than I’ve ever seen.

Then I get into the car, and the driver starts the engine, and as I’m being escorted to the airport, I stare out the window, watching as my country goes past, thinking about how I’m never going to set eyes on it again.