He arrogantly ditched his pregnant wife for his secretary, mocking her as a penniless burden—but his world collapsed when he watched her board a royal private jet to Paris, realizing she was the secret heiress to a throne he had desperately tried to impress his entire life.

By morning, the nightmare had only deepened.

Nathaniel and Harper were evicted from the lobby of the George V by French municipal police after failing to settle a minor bill for room service they had ordered the night before in a desperate bid to feel important. Their passports were flagged by local authorities due to an outstanding corporate audit inquiry initiated by Apex Logistics' liquidators back in Chicago.

They found themselves standing on the wet cobblestones of Avenue George V in the gray Parisian drizzle, surrounded by three suitcases containing all their worldly belongings.

"This is your fault!" Harper shrieked, slamming her Louis Vuitton handbag against Nathaniel’s chest. "You said you were rich! You said you were a vice president! You’re a nobody! A fraud! I’m calling an Uber to the American embassy, and I never want to see your pathetic face again!"

"Harper, wait! My corporate cards will clear once the New York office opens—"

"Shut up! Shut up!" she screamed, hailing a passing cab that didn't even slow down for them.

Within two hours, Harper had abandoned him entirely, using her last hundred euros to book a seat on a budget flight back to Chicago, leaving Nathaniel standing alone outside a closed café with a dead phone battery and no shelter.

The realization hit him with the weight of an avalanche.

He had traded a queen who loved him for a parasite who used him, and in doing so, he had destroyed every single pillar of his existence. He had no job, no money, no home, and no future.

Desperation driving him like a whip, Nathaniel spent his last coins on a public payphone outside a Metro station, dialing the only number he could remember by heart—the private liaison line of the Valois-Orléans estate in Geneva.

He didn't care about pride anymore. Pride didn't keep you warm in the rain.

After six rings, a crisp, neutral voice answered.

"Valois-Orléans Chancellery. State your business."

"It’s Nathaniel Brooks!" he sobbed into the receiver, water dripping from his nose onto the metal coin return. "Put me through to Princess Vivian! Please! I’m begging you! Tell her I want to talk about our child! Tell her I have rights!"

There was a long, suffocating silence on the other end of the line.

Then Arthur Pendelton’s dry, ancient voice came through the speaker.

"Mr. Brooks," Arthur said quietly. "Her Serene Highness is currently reviewing the adoption and paternity waivers drafted by our legal team."

Nathaniel’s heart stopped. "Paternity waivers? What do you mean?!"

"Under the sovereign laws of the Principality of Valois-Orléans," Arthur replied with clinical precision, "any child born to a reigning royal heir is entered exclusively into the royal lineage. Furthermore, Article Twelve of our civil code stipulates that a father who commits abandonment, fraud, and moral turpitude against a royal heir automatically forfeits all parental and custodial rights."

"You can't do that!" Nathaniel screamed, banging his fist against the glass of the phone booth. "I’m the father! That’s my baby!"