Red- White Royal Blue -

That night, in the solitude of his London hotel suite, Alex received an encrypted text from an unknown number. It was a photograph: a close-up of a Lego tower—red, white, and blue bricks stacked precariously high. The caption read: “I think the girl was onto something about the glue.”

“Caught doing what?” Alex challenged, his heart hammering.

Now, that laugh was being parsed by geopolitics experts on CNN.

“It was a rather undignified way to be caught,” Henry admitted. Red- White Royal Blue

The girl grabbed a white brick and slammed it into the tower’s base. “You should build something together. That’s what my mom says. Broken things get stronger when you glue them right.”

Something in Henry’s expression cracked. He glanced at Alex—a real glance, not the camera-ready kind. And for a moment, Alex saw past the royal armor to the exhausted, lonely man underneath.

Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again. That night, in the solitude of his London

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

The photograph was a disaster of biblical proportions. It wasn't just that Alex Claremont-Diaz, the First Son of the United States, had his hand firmly planted on the backside of Prince Henry of Wales. It was that the flash had caught them mid-laugh, mid-stumble, and mid-catastrophe, their faces flushed a brilliant, undeniable scarlet. The pristine white of Henry’s dress shirt was smeared with the remnants of a large slice of Victoria sponge cake, and Alex’s own navy blazer was hanging off one shoulder like a flag at half-mast.

“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.” Now, that laugh was being parsed by geopolitics

“Your Royal Highness,” Alex said, his voice dripping with performative charm. “After you.”

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 picked up a blue one. “Tentative allies.”

The solution, when it came, was pure, agonizing farce. A joint “unity tour” across the UK and the East Coast. The First Son and the Prince, publicly patching up their “differences” for the cameras. Smiling. Shaking hands. Pretending the air between them wasn’t thick with a tension that had nothing to do with politics.