Chapter 1: "Who's gonna tell us the stories, that our textbooks don't...?"
Chapter Text
The presidential mansion hadn't been built to be a home, and Carlos always felt it in the walls.
The place was too enormous, too silent, too white. Every corridor was polished and immaculate, reflecting his own pale and exhausted face in glass and marble surfaces. Nothing there smelled of home. It smelled of politics. Of responsibility. Of expectations.
Madrid bustled outside - cars, sirens, tourists, Madrileños rushing through narrow streets - but inside that modern fortress, everything seemed suspended in time. Contained. Swallowed up by protocols.
Carlos lay face down on the king-size bed, his laptop propped up on the pile of pillows he had arranged with absurd precision to prevent the device from slipping and hitting his face. The cursor blinked in front of him, irritating, stubborn, as if mocking his inability to complete the next paragraph.
“Strategies to win back young voters in Madrid – By Carlos Sainz Jr.”, read the provisional title of the article he had promised to deliver that afternoon.
President Reyes Sainz's communications team - his mother - trusted him more than they trusted any other hired journalist. He knew how to write. He knew how to talk to Madrileños. He knew how the heart of the city beat, because he had been born there, grown up there, ridden his bike through the narrow streets as a teenager and could still go out without a bodyguard following him.
But things were different now.
Everything was different since the election of that woman he loved and irritated at the same time. Since she became president, half the city had fallen in love with her and the other half had decided to hate her for sport. And the latter were growing. With each poll. Each week. With each little scandal planted by opponents.
Carlos had to help. Even if no one had asked. Even if his mother never said it aloud, he knew she needed it.
And that's why he was there, at eight-thirty in the morning, still in his t-shirt and pajama shorts, with a growing headache and the suffocating feeling that the words had evaporated from his mind.
He ran his hand through his dark, messy, and slightly oily hair from constant touching, and sighed deeply.
The air conditioning was too cold. The sun filtered through the automatic curtains, illuminating his room with a golden, almost arrogant light. The whole world continued on, while he remained trapped in that miserable opening paragraph.
“Madrid doesn’t just need promises… it needs-...”
He stopped. He pressed the keys. He erased everything.
"Mierda…" he murmured.
The door opened before he could return to the torment of the blank screen.
"Carlos Sainz, please tell me you're dressed."
The voice was familiar. A soft, light French accent, with that lazy intonation that only appeared when its owner was about to provoke someone.
Carlos turned his head on the pillow, just enough to see the slender figure leaning against the door frame.
Charles Leclerc.
His best friend forever. Son of one of Reyes's biggest campaign sponsors. Probably the only person in the mansion - besides Reyes - who could walk in without knocking. And, of course, completely incapable of making a normal, quiet entrance.
Charles was balancing a box of donuts in one hand and holding three folded magazines in the other. He was wearing light jeans, a cream sweatshirt, and that "I know exactly how to ruin your morning" smile plastered on his face.
"I'm dressed," Carlos replied, lifting the blanket slightly over his waist. "Technically."
Charles entered without asking permission, as always, kicking the door shut with his heel as he crossed the room with the ease of someone who did this every day - because he did.
"Great!" he said, dropping the box of donuts at the foot of the bed and tossing the magazines next to Carlos's laptop. "Because I urgently need your opinion."
"About what?" Carlos asked, pinching his nose between his fingers. He already knew he would regret the question.
Charles opened the box, revealing absurdly colorful donuts with shiny icing, giant sprinkles, and even one that looked like it had edible gold on top. Carlos blinked.
"Why does this look like a peace offering?" he asked suspiciously.
"It's not a peace offering..." Charles replied, shrugging. "It's a bribe. I want your attention."
Carlos lifted himself half an inch from the bed.
"What did you do?"
"Nothing!" Charles replied, but his smile betrayed him. "I just want to know what you're going to wear to the wedding of the Crown Prince of Australia."
Carlos froze.
Slowly, he closed the laptop.
Slowly, he breathed through his nose.
Slowly, he looked at Charles with the expression of someone about to commit a federal crime.
"I still haven't decided if I'm going," he replied, each word drawn out, laden with irritation. "And you know why."
Charles opened his hands theatrically.
"That's the thing! Because of the stupidest feud in the history of modern international relations?"
Carlos rolled his eyes.
"I don't have any feud with... that guy."
"No?" Charles raised an eyebrow, picked up one of the magazines, and opened it to the front page. "Then why has every gossip column been calling you 'diplomatic rivals' since you were kids?"
Carlos covered his face with his hands.
"That was an accident."
"Carlos..." Charles sat on the edge of the bed, crossing his legs. "You pushed Oscar Piastri into the lake..."
"He tripped!"
"You pushed him!"
"The floor was uneven. It wasn't my fault."
Charles smiled, satisfied.
"The press thought, and still thinks, otherwise."
"Whatever. I'm not going to Australia just to see that stuck-up prince look at me like I'm a ticking time bomb about to ruin his monarchy." Carlos snorted, turning to face his best friend.
"He only looks at you like that because you almost ruined his monarchy..." Charles reminded him, biting into a donut casually.
"Charles."
"Yes?"
"Shut up."
Charles laughed, his light laughter filling the huge, cold room as if warming the air around him.
"You're going to the wedding!" he concluded, still chewing. "And before you say no, I've already told my mother you're going. She said your mother already confirmed her attendance. Which means... you're going."
Carlos narrowed his eyes.
"You told your mother...?"
"Obviously!" Charles replied, without any shame. "She said you can't turn your back on a giant diplomatic event just because you don't like the youngest prince of Australia. Especially when the invitation came directly from the royal family."
"I don't hate Oscar. I just..." Carlos searched for the right word. "He's annoyingly perfect."
"He literally is a prince," Charles retorted. "It's part of the job description."
Carlos threw a pillow at him.
Charles dodged, laughing.
"But before we continue..." he said, wiping the frosting from his fingers on his trousers, to Carlos's horror. "We need to decide on the ideal outfit. Because, my dear, you're not going to cross halfway around the world and show up at the royal wedding looking like a poorly paid presidential aide."
Carlos sighed, burying his face in the bed.
He still had an article to finish.
He still had thousands of political worries.
He still had his mother counting on him. And, for some reason, now he also had a royal wedding to face.
A wedding where Prince Oscar Piastri would be present.
Perfect, flawless, irritating...
Charles pulled the box of donuts closer, as if preparing for a ritualistic session. He chose one with shiny chocolate frosting and, with the automatic gesture of a food critic, took an exaggeratedly deliberate bite - eyes half-closed, an evaluating expression - before licking his frosting-covered finger.
"Hmm. Good. Very good... You should try this one," he murmured, pushing the box toward Carlos without really looking at him.
Carlos ignored the donut.
The laptop still stared at him like an enemy to be defeated, but his attention inevitably slipped to his Monegasque friend who was now flipping through the magazines with the efficiency of someone accustomed to looking for trouble - or avoiding his own.
"What are you looking for there?" Carlos asked, adjusting himself on the bed and pulling the blanket up to better cover his legs.
"Myself, of course," Charles replied with the utmost naturalness, as if stating a scientific fact. "And you. And Oscar. And the whole circus that's going to be this week."
He opened the first magazine, a particularly thick edition, crammed with pages perfumed with that chemical smell of fresh ink mixed with the cheap perfume from a free sample stuck inside. Charles flipped through the pages with agility, making the paper crackle with each movement, while murmuring judgmental comments about what he saw.
"No. No. Terrible dress... Awful. Who let this man wear this suit?" he said, more to himself than to Carlos.
The enormous room seemed smaller with Charles's presence, but in a comfortable, familiar way. As if his friend's chaos filled the emptiness of that overly serious house.
Then Charles stopped.
He froze, actually.
His green eyes widened, bright.
"Aha! Look at this. Look..." Charles turned the magazine towards Carlos, but didn't immediately offer the page. He was savoring the moment. "The press lives off you, you know?"
Carlos raised an eyebrow and snatched the magazine from Charles's hand, but Charles held on tight, laughing.
"Calm down, impatient one! I'm still reading."
He turned the magazine back to himself and began to read aloud, in an affected voice, the caricatured intonation of a gossip columnist.
“Sources close to Viridian Palace confirm that the Australian royal family intends an impeccably traditional ceremony for the wedding of Crown Prince Liam. However, rumors are circulating about possible tensions among international guests, including the notoriously troubled relationship between the youngest prince, Oscar Piastri…” Charles paused theatrically. “…and the son of the President of Spain, Carlos Sainz Jr.”
He looked up, completely satisfied.
Carlos snorted.
"They invent this stuff because it sells," he grumbled, putting the magazine down. "You know that."
"Yes, of course," Charles replied, looking at the magazine again. "And because you get annoyed. They love it when you get annoyed. It's like spiritual food for tabloids."
Carlos picked up a donut just to have the pleasure of biting into it violently.
Charles continued flipping through the pages.
But now he seemed to be searching for something specific. There was a different concentration on his face, his eyes attentive as he examined photo after photo.
"What are you trying to find so badly?" Carlos asked, wiping the chocolate from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. "Some gossip about you hitting on ambassadors again?"
"That was once," Charles replied. "And I didn't hit on him. I was being friendly!"
"Charles, you winked at the man three times in less than a minute. That's not friendliness. That's-..."
"Shh!" Charles cut him off, raising an elegant, impatient hand. "I found it."
He opened the magazine to a double-page spread.
The photo was dark, nocturnal, with those cool tones of cameras used at a distance, as if the photographer had hidden behind a tree.
And there he was…
Oscar Piastri.
Or, at least, what appeared to be Oscar Piastri.
"Wow…" Carlos murmured, despite himself.
It wasn't the image of a smiling young prince at charity events or handing out gifts to children in hospitals - as he had appeared four years ago, before almost completely disappearing from the media.
The photo showed a different boy.
A man, now.
A flawless British military uniform, tinged by the yellowish light of a London lamppost. His body aligned, his posture straight, almost rigid. His face partially turned to the side, his profile marked - a stronger chin, a more defined jawline than Carlos remembered. His hair was shorter, almost shaved at the sides, a true military style. Nothing of that delicate and shy princely air from before.
But his eyes…
Even out of focus, even captured from a distance… they held a contained melancholy. Something hard. Something that seemed heavy - the kind of thing that hadn't existed before.
Charles gave a low whistle.
"Military school did him good."
"He looks…" Carlos began, not quite knowing the word.
"A prince?" Charles suggested.
"More than that," Carlos retorted, leaning in for a better look. "He looks… like someone the world looks at and can't imagine laughing now."
Charles turned another page, revealing two more photos - both recent, according to the caption, taken in the last few weeks in London.
In none of them was Oscar smiling.
In none of them did he seem to be talking to anyone.
In all of them, he was alone.
And yet, something about him caught my attention - perhaps his sobriety, perhaps his impeccable posture, perhaps the way he seemed to carry the air around him as part of an internal protocol. As if he were made of discipline and silence.
"You know," Charles commented, running his finger along the edge of the page. "He's more… grown-up. And you still have that face of someone who argues with doormen over a forgotten document."
"I don't argue with doormen," Carlos complained.
"You do," Charles replied, taking another donut. "And you're going to see this Prince Charming again in a few days. Isn't that amazing?"
Carlos abruptly closed the magazine.
Oscar's photo disappeared, but it remained etched behind his eyelids - that more defined chin, that distant brown gaze, that manner completely foreign to the boy he remembered.
"I'm not going to get upset over someone just because they grew up handsome," Carlos said, as if convincing himself.
"You're upset," Charles teased. "Sooooo upset…"
"Charles, for God's sake."
"A little upset."
"I'm going to kick you out of my room."
"Out of the presidential mansion?" Charles raised an eyebrow. "I want to see you try. It's practically my second home."
Carlos threw another pillow at him.
Charles dodged - again - with the grace of a damned cat.
"But seriously," Charles said, returning to his light tone, but with sincerity underneath. "Maybe it's a good idea. You meet, exchange a few words, pretend you've gotten over what happened when you were kids, pose for photos… and that's it! The press forgets. Your mother scores points with diplomacy. And you don't push anyone into a lake, preferably."
Carlos looked at the ceiling.
The weight he had been carrying - politics, expectations, a divided Madrid, the gigantic shadow of his mother's re-election - now mingled with the silent face of Oscar Piastri, who appeared in those pages like a ghost that had grown in silence.
A ghost he would have to confront.
One that seemed too different.
One who no longer smiled.
"I don't know if I'm ready for this," Carlos murmured.
Charles smiled softly, despite the earlier provocation.
"Of course you are. You always are. And if you're not…" he raised a donut as if it were a goblet. "…I brought enough sugar to force you to get ready."
Carlos laughed, despite himself.
But the image of Oscar remained there, motionless, silent, like a premonition of something about to explode in his life.
Something inevitable.
Something that would begin… next week.
──── ♛ ────
The following week passed with the disjointed speed of someone trying to focus on work, but whose mind is trapped by an image that refuses to disappear.
Even though Carlos had responded to and revised reports, adjusted his article on the decline in Madrid's votes, attended meetings with advisors, and posed for photos with a diplomatic smile… Oscar Piastri remained there, quiet, motionless, incredibly present in his memory, in his military uniform with distant eyes.
When Saturday arrived, bringing with it the time to board, Carlos was already tired before even having begun the journey.
The Spanish presidential plane was gigantic, sophisticated, and far too cold for Carlos's taste.
This wasn't a millionaire's luxury jet - it was political equipment. And he knew it because every detail screamed responsibility: wide aisles, ergonomic seats that seemed designed more for ministers than for real comfort, white lights adjusted for "cognitive clarity," as the aircraft's ridiculous manual stated.
Charles, however, didn't care about any of that.
"Good heavens, Carlos, this plane is way too big for three people..." he commented, throwing his backpack onto one of the seats as if it were a hotel room. "It feels like we're about to discuss treaties and pass laws. There's not even background music."
"It doesn't need background music," Lando replied from across the aisle, curiously exploring the built-in lockers. "But it would have been nice if it came with a ping-pong table."
"That's all you think about," Carlos muttered, putting his coat in the overhead compartment.
"I think about a lot of things," Lando retorted, playfully offended. "Pizza, girls, cars, donuts… and ping-pong. That's balance, Carlos. It's about balance."
Charles laughed, fastening his seatbelt even before the plane began to taxi.
"Speaking of balance," Charles said, leaning into the aisle, "how's the emotional balance of our dear son of the president? Ready to meet again the prince who's been staring at you like he's wanted to kill you since you were eleven?"
Carlos turned slowly.
"Charles."
"Yes?"
"Shut up."
"Of course," Charles replied with a huge grin, clearly with no intention of shutting up.
Lando sat down next to Carlos, lightly kicking his shin.
"Honestly, I'm surprised your mother didn't come," he commented, more serious than usual. "I thought this kind of event was her style. Photos with royalty… speeches… flirting with diplomats…"
"Hey!" Carlos exclaimed, but Lando raised his hands.
"It's true! Everyone knows your mother is more charming than half the heads of state on the planet."
"I don't disagree," Carlos admitted with a heavy sigh.
Because it was strange. Very strange.
Reyes never refused diplomatic events. Never.
She loved cameras. She loved the stage. She loved demonstrating power with her impeccable smile, her queenly posture, and that natural talent for convincing everyone that she had everything under control - even when she didn't.
But that morning, when Carlos had gone to say a quick goodbye before the official car arrived, Reyes was… tired.
Truly tired.
Tired in a way that neither makeup, nor speeches, nor political smiles could disguise. The kind of exhaustion that only he, her son, noticed.
She cupped his face in her hands, a quick kiss on the forehead, the scent of roses and coffee - as familiar as it was tight in her chest.
"I need you to go in my place, Carlos." And then she took a deep breath, something tense beneath her voice. "And I need you to do everything possible to keep Spain's name intact. And mine too."
Carlos swallowed.
"I know, Mother."
"Apologize, if necessary. Madrid's votes are slipping and… every headline matters."
He nodded, even though he hated the feeling of being turned into a political tool.
And now, sitting on the presidential plane, her absence seemed to weigh more than the weight of the office itself.
The flight was long, endless, and Carlos hated the feeling of being so confined to a single space for so many hours.
Charles, however, was completely comfortable, sprawled haphazardly in his reclined seat, with enormous headphones and magazines scattered around him. Lando slept with his mouth open, looking like an exhausted teenager after high school.
Carlos tried to read a report on his tablet - trying - but his mind kept wandering to irritating assumptions.
Would Oscar be at his brother's wedding?
Did his shoulders look even broader in those photos? Was he really more serious, or was he just too practiced at smiling in public? Why the hell were these questions mattering so much?
He sighed.
Charles took off one of his earphones.
"Thinking about the prince?" he asked in a slurred voice, as if he had anticipated Carlos's every mental step.
"Thinking about the Madrid story," Carlos lied, badly and poorly.
Charles simply smiled.
"Gentlemen, we are beginning our descent to Melbourne. Please adjust your seats to the upright position." The pilot announced over the intercom.
Lando woke with such a sudden start that he almost dropped his empty soda cup.
"Are we there yet?" he asked, rubbing his face. "How long did I sleep?"
"For hours," Charles replied. "It was quite frightening. You made strange noises."
"Liar."
"I'm not kidding," Charles replied, amused. "It sounded like you were trying to talk to a duck."
Carlos laughed to himself.
But the laughter faded slowly as he looked out the window.
The Australian coastline appeared like a painted picture, a blend of golden and blue hues that seemed more intense than anywhere else. The water was so clear it reflected the layered sky, gentle waves lapping against the vast stretch of pale sand. The sunlight there was different - more direct, more vivid, warmer.
It was too beautiful.
Almost intimidating.
"Wow…" Carlos murmured.
"Welcome to the land of animals that want to kill you," Lando commented, now fully awake. "Tourists count too."
Carlos ignored him.
The city drew closer - gleaming skyscrapers, wide avenues, well-maintained green spaces, and architecture that harmoniously blended the modern and the historical.
Charles pressed his forehead against the glass beside him.
"Hey, Charles… look at that."
The palace.
Viridian Palace, residence of the Australian royal family, appeared on the horizon.
It was immense - but not in an oppressive way. It seemed… luminous. Built in shades of white marble and greenish tones, surrounded by absurdly well-maintained gardens and fountains that captured the sunlight like crystals. It was as if it had been placed there solely to be photographed.
Flags were waving, guards were lined up, a constant movement of preparation for the big event of the week.
"Impressive, isn't it?" Lando commented. "It looks like something out of a movie."
Carlos didn't answer. Because his throat tightened in an unexpected way. He swallowed hard.
Charles noticed.
"Hey," he said softly. "It's going to be alright."
"I'm not nervous," Carlos retorted.
"Of course not," Charles murmured. "You just look like you're going to faint."
Lando patted him on the shoulder.
"Relax, mate. The worst that can happen is he'll completely ignore you. Or punch you. But I think royal protocol doesn't allow princes to assault-..."
"Lando," Carlos interrupted, rubbing his nose. "S'il te plaît."
The plane touched down with a slight jolt.
And with that, the trip was over.
The Australian afternoon sun seemed brighter than it should have been, reflecting off the metal cladding of the escalator that awaited the Spanish presidential plane.
Carlos observed everything with that calculated gaze that Charles had already learned to recognize: he mapped, mentally judged, categorized risks and potential discomforts, even when trying to appear as just a twenty-something man facing a new scenario.
Lando, on the other hand, leaning against the aircraft door frame with his suit jacket still draped over his shoulder, was already grimacing at the hot wind rising from the tarmac of the runway.
"Is Australia this hot all year round?" Lando asked, squinting as if the sun had decided to personally pursue him.
"It's summer here, genius..." Carlos replied, descending the first step with the usual perfect posture he had when on a representative mission for the Spanish government. "And you're British, anything above seventeen degrees scares you."
"Yes, but this place feels like an oven!" Lando retorted, fanning himself with his shirt.
Charles chuckled to himself, passing them and descending the steps with a discreet, natural elegance that didn't match either the rush or the sleepless midnight before the flight. His eyes quickly scanned the activity below: a small convoy of black cars, guards in navy blue uniforms with gold details, cameras and microphones pointed towards the staircase.
And there, among reporters and security guards, was the first sign that the Crown Prince's wedding would not be a simple international event.
There were small Australian and Spanish flags waving in the wind - a calculated, yet charming, diplomatic gesture—and a banner stretched behind the reporters that read “Welcome, Spanish Delegation” in English and Spanish.
Charles inhaled slowly, as if he could hold the moment in his lungs.
He didn't usually admit it aloud, but he loved this kind of ceremony. Not for the glamour, but for that feeling of being inside a larger world, where everything mattered a little more than everyday life allowed.
As the trio completed their descent, the first cameras clicked.
One of the protocol chiefs immediately approached - a tall man, his hair perfectly combed back, holding a digital clipboard.
“Mr. Sainz, Mr. Leclerc, Mr. Norris,” he greeted, bowing with rehearsed precision. “Welcome to Australia. I am Matthew Greene, External Relations Coordinator for Viridian Palace. The Crown Prince and the entire Royal Family deeply appreciate your presence.”
Carlos, always quick-witted, returned the greeting with the impeccable formality of someone who had grown up being observed by half the world.
"Thank you very much for the reception. And we also appreciate your understanding regarding Reyes' inability to accompany the delegation this time," said Carlos, repeating what he would need to say at least ten times during that weekend. "She is extremely busy with internal matters, but sends her regards to the newlyweds."
"Of course, Mr. Sainz. Mrs. Reyes sent a communication to the Palace. There is no inconvenience whatsoever."
Lando nudged Charles lightly with his elbow.
"Look at that… They're already treating Carlos like the unofficial president."
"He loves it," Charles whispered back. "He pretends he doesn't, but he loves it."
Carlos rolled his eyes, but didn't answer. It was always like this: Charles and Lando, together, managed to make him a little more human.
Matthew turned to the side and gestured toward the line of black armored cars.
"This way, please. The reporters will only take a few formal photos, nothing intrusive. Out of respect for Palace rules, there will be no questions here on the tarmac."
Charles had the impression that this was a relief for Carlos - but for him, who had an almost seductive relationship with cameras, it was a little disappointing.
The three walked through the small area marked off by cones and security tape. The heat reflected off the asphalt and rose like waves. If this was the outside reception, Charles could hardly imagine what they would find inside Viridian Palace.
As they approached the lead car, the front-line guards took up positions around them. And that's when Charles saw him for the first time.
The man who looked like he had stepped straight out of a catalog of formal uniforms revised by an elite stylist.
Tall, broad-shouldered, with short blond hair, a serious expression and a firm gaze - but with something there, deep in those blue eyes, that seemed almost… amused. As if he knew too much about the world to take everything so seriously.
The name tag on his suit lapel read: Max Verstappen — Royal Security Unit.
Charles stopped.
Not openly, of course. But enough that Lando had to take a step back to avoid bumping into him.
"Charles?" Lando frowned. "What is it?"
"Nothing!" he replied too quickly.
Max stared at him at that moment - not as if greeting an important guest, but as if analyzing him, classifying him, silently deciding something.
Charles's spine straightened strangely.
Great. Fantastic. Wonderful.
He had barely set foot on the continent and had already encountered someone capable of unsettling him with a single glance.
Max raised his hand and opened the back door of the car.
"Gentlemen, this way. I will escort you to the Palace..." he said in English, his voice deep, accented, too professional to match that face which could easily devastate the common sense of anyone even slightly impressionable.
Carlos went in first, followed by Lando. Charles hesitated just long enough to meet the security guard's gaze again.
Max raised an eyebrow, as if noticing the delay.
"Any problem, Mr. Leclerc?"
Charles swallowed hard.
"None," he replied. "Just… the heat."
Max tilted his head, clearly disbelieving, but made a wider opening so he could enter.
The man had large hands, and Charles had the unfortunate idea of noticing them.
The door closed and the cars drove off. The cameras continued flashing until they were in the distance, swallowed by the vastness of the track.
The road to Viridian Palace was lined with tall, well-tended trees, and the horizon seemed larger, more open, as if everything there breathed too much freedom for someone accustomed to the political tensions of Europe.
Charles observed the landscape through the window, but his brain remained fixated on the image of Max. He tried to disguise it, but Lando was already glancing sideways at him with a malicious smile.
"No," Charles warned before Lando could say anything. "Don't even think about making any comments."
"I didn't say anything!" Lando said, falsely and theatrically offended.
Carlos, seated beside him, let out a sigh that sounded like, "For God's sake, behave yourselves."
When the entourage entered through the immense golden-iron gate of the Palace, Charles lost his breath for a moment. The building was larger than videos and photos could convey.
Perfectly symmetrical gardens stretched as far as the eye could see - dotted with fountains and statues, as if the Australian royalty had decided to compete with Versailles.
"Wow," Lando murmured. "This is… much bigger than what we saw from the plane window."
Carlos agreed, seriously. But only Charles seemed strangely moved. Something about that place seemed laden with history and responsibility, as if everything there had weight.
And perhaps… Perhaps because Prince Oscar Piastri had grown up there. And now, he would finally appear before the world after years of absence.
The entourage stopped before the main entrance, and Max - yes, him again - opened the door for the three to exit.
“Welcome to Viridian Palace. I will escort you to the suites reserved for the Spanish delegation,” he informed them, with that professional tone that seemed to conceal a trace of gentle irony.
Charles exited the car too slowly for someone who didn't want to appear impressed.
The main hall was even more majestic: polished black marble floors, double staircases embracing a gigantic crystal chandelier in the center, white columns ornamented with matte gold, and flower arrangements so large they could easily hide a teenager behind them.
“This way, gentlemen,” Max said.
They walked down the corridor, the sound of their footsteps echoing too elegantly. Lando observed everything with a mixture of enchantment and discomfort. Carlos maintained perfect posture, as if mentally noting every diplomatic detail of the space.
Charles watched Max.
The way he walked, firm yet graceful. The way the suit sat on his broad shoulders. The small silver earring in his left earlobe, too discreet to be forbidden by protocol, but enough to suggest that Max wasn't as serious as he seemed.
Max stopped before a double carved wooden door.
"These are the suites reserved for you. The wedding is scheduled for a few hours from now, so feel free to settle in, get ready, or ask for any assistance." He looked directly at Charles. "Anything you need, just call me."
It was completely unfair that anyone could look at him that way.
Charles felt his body temperature rise - and it wasn't the Australian weather's fault.
"Merci," he said, trying not to seem affected.
Max nodded, took a step back, and walked away down the hall, leaving a trail of chaos in Charles's head.
Lando immediately turned to him with a devilish grin.
"Okay. Can't pretend I didn't see. You're completely-..."
"Don't finish that sentence," Charles warned, quickly entering the room.
Carlos just sighed, closing the door behind him.
And so began their stay in Australia.
With a dazzling palace, strict protocols, a royal wedding about to take place, and Charles Leclerc dangerously interested in the most handsome bodyguard he had ever seen.
Chapter 2: "Tales of love that stay blurry, cause our courses won't ignore the way they're designed to erase the past..."
Chapter Text
The room they had reserved for Carlos was absurdly larger than any presidential suite he had ever seen on diplomatic trips. As he closed the door behind him, the silence fell with an almost welcoming softness, as if the walls had been designed to isolate sounds and allow high-ranking visitors to breathe undisturbed.
Carlos remained still for a few seconds, simply absorbing everything.
And there was a lot to absorb.
The room had giant floor-to-ceiling windows, covered by thick cream-colored curtains with gold trim. The Australian afternoon light streamed in, creating warm streaks on the wooden floor.
In the center, an enormous bed - larger than any in a five-star hotel - covered with impeccably white sheets, pillows meticulously aligned, and a blue-gray blanket with the royal coat of arms discreetly embroidered at the edge.
To the right, a dark wooden desk, polished to reflect the light. There was an arrangement of white flowers in the corner - lilies, perhaps - and a luxurious pen resting on a notepad bearing the Viridian Palace seal.
Beside the notepad, a small card lay, as if waiting to be read.
Carlos took it.
“On behalf of the Piastri family, we wish you an excellent stay. Should you wish to use the Palace library, we are at your disposal to guide you.” — R. T., Secretary of Protocol.
He raised an eyebrow.
Library…
That immediately caught his attention - not because of the glamour, but because Carlos Sainz, son of the President of Spain, grew up surrounded by headlines, political crises, but also surrounded by books. His mind was trained to devour information as if it were oxygen.
But first, he needed to check his things.
He put the card aside and walked to the suitcase on the padded bench at the foot of the bed. He had taken everything out minutes before, but it was impossible to control the habit - almost compulsive, Charles would say - of checking everything one more time.
After all, it wasn't "just any" wedding.
It was the wedding of the Crown Prince of Australia.
And Charles would be in the spotlight of international cameras, alongside the Spanish delegation.
Sighing deeply, he began to review each item:
The charcoal gray suit with subtle navy blue details - a gift from Reyes, who insisted he wear something that conveyed modern elegance without being too flashy.
The freshly pressed white shirt. The blue tie… - according to Reyes, “the color of diplomacy, to attract good luck and good international relations.”
The pocket square folded with almost mathematical precision. The shoes polished until they reflected the ceiling light. The black leather belt - which he always forgot. The small silver box containing cufflinks - simple, yet refined. An old gift from his father.
He breathed, mentally ordering everything.
Checked three times. Everything was there. Nothing was missing.
Even the small bottle of perfume that Charles had insisted he bring was in its exact place. Carlos grimaced at the sight of the bottle. Charles had said that perfume “smelled like the leading lady of an elegant drama,” and that “if he met some charismatic prince, at least he would be presentable.”
Carlos felt an urgent need to avoid any hint of drama.
But anyway...
He zipped up his suitcase, adjusted the collar of his t-shirt, and looked around the room one more time. There was something about that space… an ancient, yet vibrant aura. He felt the Palace carried too many stories, too many layers, too many memories.
And he wanted to see it all.
With an almost journalistic impulse - and a little political, yes; after all, getting to know the place was part of the job - Carlos turned the doorknob and discreetly stepped out into the hallway.
The corridor was silent, wide enough for two small cars to pass side by side. The floor was covered with a soft, wine- and gold-toned carpet, absorbing their footsteps. The walls were painted in a soft cream, decorated with frames, pictures, and occasionally small tables with porcelain vases or sculptures.
Carlos began to walk slowly, observing everything with an almost sharp attention.
First came the paintings.
Portraits of Australian kings and queens over several decades. Some more formal, others painted with modern touches. There was one in particular - a young man, perhaps in his twenties, holding the golden scepter with a firm expression. It was Liam Piastri, the crown prince who was to marry that day.
Carlos approached.
The artist had captured something newspapers never managed to show. A quiet confidence. A self-imposed responsibility. A prince who could never fail.
"Interesting…" he murmured to himself.
He continued on.
Smaller paintings depicted events in the history of the Australian monarchy. The coronation of a king in 1902; a visit to India in 1948; Queen Helen's wedding in the 1980s; the birth of Prince Liam; the birth of Prince Oscar - the latter, with a simple silver frame, almost hidden among the others.
Carlos stopped before the picture.
Oscar Piastri as a baby, wrapped in a white cloth, held by his mother. A curious smile, bright eyes.
It was strange to think that this little baby would grow up to become the world's hidden prince, the one who would be sent to an English military school, the one who disappeared from public life at seventeen and never fully returned.
Carlos felt a slight shiver.
There was something about this mystery that stirred his journalistic instincts.
Surely Charles will try to find a photo of him until he turns on the news in the middle of the night.
Next to it was a narrow, dark wooden table. On it, a series of framed photographs. Carlos leaned over to look.
The first showed the Piastri family at a public event in 2006. The second, little Liam pushing Oscar in a toy car. The third, their mother holding a lantern during a winter festival. The fourth, the two boys in identical school uniforms, smiling.
And the last… The last photo drew attention because of its absence. It was a larger frame, but the glass was empty.
"Prince Oscar Piastri — Graduation from Hughes Academy (United Kingdom)" the tag read.
But the frame was empty.
Carlos frowned.
"Why leave a picture empty? That's strange…"
The answer wouldn't come down that hallway.
He kept walking.
The furniture ranged from antique pieces - tables with carved legs, Victorian-style sideboards, chairs with floral upholstery - to modern, functional pieces, blending eras as if the Palace lived in two timelines simultaneously.
Small details caught the eye.
The royal coat of arms engraved in gold on the hardware. The flowers always freshly placed. The impeccable carpets. The tall doors with acacia leaf-shaped handles.
Carlos walked with his hands behind his back, his gaze attentive, listening only to the soft sound of the air conditioning and the rhythm of his own footsteps.
The further he went, the more impressed he became with the place. It wasn't just beautiful - it was symbolic.
Then, in a side corridor, he found a double door of dark wood, larger than the others, with meticulous carvings on the edges.
The symbol above the door - a golden feather crossed with an open book - revealed the secret before he even read the small plaque.
"Royal Library of Viridian - Authorized Access."
Carlos felt an almost childlike impulse.
He pushed the doors open slowly.
The library swallowed him whole.
A smell of old paper, waxed wood, and faded paint filled his lungs. The walls were covered from floor to ceiling with dark wood bookshelves, filled with books of all sizes, shapes, and colors. Sliding ladders ran along the higher shelves. There were also large tables, comfortable sofas, teal armchairs, and bronze lamps hanging from the vaulted ceiling.
It was simply immense.
Almost infinite.
Carlos took a few steps inside, feeling small before the absurd amount of knowledge stored there.
"Dios mío…" he whispered, unable to contain himself.
He had seen large libraries before, but nothing like this. And for a moment - a single, precious moment - Carlos forgot politics, protocols, cameras, royal weddings. There, it was just him and enough books to fill a lifetime.
He walked between the tables, running his fingertips along the spines. Some were classic works; others, exclusive collections; still others bore labels with numbers and categories in elegant calligraphy.
And then he saw the shelf of Modern Australian History. And an entire row dedicated to the Piastri Family.
"Of course there's a whole row just for them…" he murmured.
As he reached for the first volume, a voice behind him almost made him jump.
"You have good taste. This section is excellent."
The voice was male.
Low.
Calm.
With an Australian accent as soft as it was dangerous.
Carlos turned slowly - and his heart skipped a beat.
Because, standing there with an impeccably calm posture, holding a closed book in his hand, was someone he hadn't expected to find at that moment.
Oscar took another step forward, emerging from the shadow cast by the tall bookshelves, and the soft yellow light of one of the lamps revealed a face that very few had seen in recent years.
A face that Carlos only knew from old magazine photographs from his childhood.
A face that the whole world believed belonged to the missing prince of Australia.
And with each step that man took, Carlos's heart seemed to beat faster, as if to warn him that he was standing before someone who, for some reason, always managed to affect him - ever since childhood, when exchanges of barbs at diplomatic events were inevitable.
Carlos Sainz was, without a doubt, looking at Oscar Piastri.
Oscar stopped right next to the shelf Carlos was examining, still holding the closed book in his right hand.
He looked different from the old photos, and even from the picture he and Charles had seen of him in the magazine - his posture was much firmer. He was no longer the skinny teenager Carlos had pushed into the lake when they were little. Now he was… a man.
A man with presence.
His skin had that soft pallor characteristic of someone who grew up outdoors, but his eyes were what drew the most attention. Large, hazel-brown, deep, and gleaming in a way that seemed both arrogant and weary. They didn't leave Carlos's face for a single second.
Carlos swallowed hard.
He wasn't easily intimidated - he was used to presidents, CEOs, journalists, and even his own mother during the toughest phases of the campaign - but Oscar had something different. Something that didn't seem to be taught in any military school.
Something natural.
Instinctive.
Almost feline.
Oscar lifted the book slightly, as if analyzing its weight.
"Do you really like this section?" Oscar asked, his voice low and polished. His English, with that soft Australian accent that seemed to caress the words, sounded dangerously irritating. "Or are you just feigning interest while trying to escape the VIP guest area before the wedding starts?"
The sarcasm.
Refined. Honed by years of living with British tutors, perhaps.
Perfectly fitting the conversation.
Carlos blinked twice.
"I… I'm not running away." His voice came out louder than he intended. He cleared his throat. "I was just browsing. I like libraries."
Oscar tilted his head, as if assessing the truth in it.
He took two slow steps toward the shelf, getting so close that Carlos could smell a faint aroma emanating from it - something fresh, but with a woody undertone. It wasn't an overpowering perfume; it was subtle, yet striking. As if Oscar had chosen something impossible to ignore, even if it seemed discreet.
The prince ran his finger along the spine of one of the books, reading the title, before murmuring.
"Ah, yes. Of course." The dramatic pause came with surgical precision. "Libraries. Classic refuge of… amateur political journalists."
Irritation rose up Carlos's neck.
It was exactly this kind of polite sarcasm - which seemed like a compliment, but was a disguised provocation - that drove him crazy as a child. Oscar had an almost natural talent for leaving him unsure whether to argue, walk away, or laugh at the audacity.
Carlos crossed his arms, trying to maintain his composure.
"I'm not a journalist. Yet..." he emphasized, raising his chin. "But I appreciate your concern."
Oscar smiled. It wasn't a broad smile, but a small, precise twitch of the corner of his mouth, laden with irony.
"Ah, so that was it." Oscar placed the book back on the shelf, aligning it perfectly. "You've grown up, but you still try to convince people that you have everything under control."
Carlos froze.
"I have everything under control."
Oscar looked at him very slowly, as if analyzing every microexpression that passed across the Spaniard's face. His gaze was so penetrating that Carlos had the uncomfortable feeling of being observed by a human X-ray.
"I understand..." said Oscar, with feigned gentleness. "That's why you're hiding in a library just hours before the most important wedding in Australia in the last decade."
Carlos opened his mouth, ready to retort, but the prince raised his hand slightly, as if dictating the pace of the conversation.
"But don't worry," he continued, almost amusedly. "The palace is large. There's plenty of space for people who like to stay out of the spotlight."
Carlos took a deep breath.
He tried to compose himself.
"You disappeared from the media for years," he said firmly, but carefully. "And now you show up like this… in a library, as if you've been here the whole time."
Oscar raised an eyebrow, as if he had been expecting exactly that provocation.
He took a step closer. Now they were less than a meter apart.
Carlos felt the air grow… heavy.
"I reappear whenever I want," Oscar replied slowly.
It was so simple.
So cold.
So perfectly calculated.
Carlos was speechless for a moment.
Oscar then tilted his head to the side, analyzing his expression as if reading an open book.
"The surprise on your face is intriguing, by the way," he murmured, a slight sarcasm embellishing the end of the sentence. "I thought people like you knew how to hide their emotions better."
That hit Carlos's ego hard.
"People like me?"
Oscar gave another of those dangerously subtle smiles.
"Yes." He turned to another shelf, running his hand along the spines as if rearranging his thoughts. "Presidents' children... They always think nobody notices when they're uncomfortable."
He hadn't changed at all.
Carlos crossed his arms again, but this time purely out of defensive reflex.
"And the youngest princes?" he retorted, trying to keep his voice steady. "What do they think?"
Oscar stopped. He let his hand rest on a book. And the silence that followed seemed to cut through the air. He turned his face toward Carlos, without smiling this time.
"Youngest princes don't think anything. They observe..." The reply came softly. Almost inaudibly.
Carlos swallowed hard. He could sense - with some primitive part of his brain - that Oscar was measuring not only what he said, but also what he kept silent about.
Oscar then took one last step toward the shelf.
"And they don't forget anything, Carlos." His eyes met the Spaniard's. "Or anyone."
Carlos stood completely still.
Oscar, realizing exactly the effect he was having, retreated with the same almost feline grace with which he had approached. He took a few steps back, walking towards the library door.
"The wedding starts in a few hours. Don't get lost in the corridors. They're old. They have habits," he said before leaving, without looking back.
He stopped at the door. He turned only half his face, enough for Carlos to see his profile, his defined chin, the slight smile at the corner of his mouth.
"See you later."
And then he disappeared down the hallway.
Carlos stood there, his heart pounding too fast, and an absurd - irritating - mixture of confusion, fascination, and frustration burning inside him.
Oscar Piastri was back.
And he had just declared war.
──── ♛ ────
The room reserved for Charles was smaller than Carlos's - which made sense, considering Carlos was there as a political representative of a sitting president - but somehow it seemed more comfortable than any luxurious suite Charles had ever stayed in on his trips with friends.
He always said he had an innate ability to feel at home in places with large windows, and this room had not one, but two, both framing a view that looked like it came straight out of a postcard. The translucent blue of the Australian sea breaking gently against the shore and, in the background, the distant buildings of Viridian City, modern and proud.
Charles had been standing in front of the mirror for about fifteen minutes, even though he was already completely ready.
The navy blue bow tie - chosen by him, immediately approved by Lando, criticized by Carlos - was aligned with surgical precision. The slim-fit suit fell perfectly on his shoulders. His carefully combed hair looked as if it had survived three wars and remained impeccable, a result of his perfectionism and almost irritating vanity.
He gave one last tug on the hem of his jacket, took a deep breath and exhaled through his mouth, trying to control the small explosion of nervousness that was beginning to form.
"It's not even my wedding..." he murmured to himself, chuckling softly. "And yet I'm nervous. Brilliant, Charles. Absolutely brilliant."
It was early. Very early. There were still almost three hours until Crown Prince Liam's wedding. The music hadn't started, the guests were still arriving gradually, the movement through the corridors was at a slow pace that suited the time of day. But Charles had never been good at staying quiet, especially when his curiosity was at full throttle.
He took two steps toward the door.
He thought about texting Lando. Then he thought Lando might be sleeping before the ceremony, or annoyed, or silently fiddling with his phone like a creature of the night. Then he thought of Carlos, but dismissing that idea was automatic - Carlos would surely be wandering around, pretending not to be nervous, when in reality he was about to ask every person he met if they needed help arranging the napkins for the ceremony.
Charles placed his hand on the doorknob and turned it.
The door opened and he jumped back slightly.
Because there, standing right next to the door, in a posture so perfectly professional it looked like something out of a billion-dollar action movie, was Max Verstappen.
The Dutch bodyguard looked like a statue placed precisely there to intimidate anyone who tried to pass through the corridor. Broad shoulders filled out the black suit as if it had been molded directly onto his body; his posture was impeccable, hands clasped behind his back, chin raised, blue eyes analyzing the surroundings with the precision of a laser.
But when he looked directly at Charles, his posture didn't change - only his lips moved slightly to form an almost-smile.
A near smile.
"Mr. Leclerc," the voice was deep and calm, with a soft, almost imperceptible Dutch accent, but still present enough to make Charles swallow hard. "I was just about to knock on your door."
"Oh… Hi," Charles said, blinking a few times, trying to understand why his heart had decided, at that moment, to mimic the engine of a Formula 1 car. "Any problem?"
"None." Max nodded very subtly. "I'm here to inform you that I will be by your side throughout your stay at the Palace. As a security measure."
"Ah." Charles blinked again, now faster, then slower. "Throughout… the entire stay?"
"Yes." Max didn't blink. Didn't raise an eyebrow. Didn't take a deeper breath. It was as if everything about him had been calculated to appear absolutely unshakeable. "Direct orders from the Royal Household. And from your mother's security team… sorry, from Carlos Sainz's mother." She requested that the three of them be accompanied individually while you were here.
Charles's almost automatic tendency to make jokes came immediately.
"So Carlos is so unbearable that even his mother decided he needed personalized security?"
The corner of Max's mouth lifted a millimeter, just enough for Charles to realize that this man was indeed capable of smiling - which made him strangely proud.
"Each of you has been assigned a guard," Max replied. "Mr. Norris has been escorted to the east wing and is under the responsibility of Agent Lewis Hamilton."
Charles' eyes widened in surprise.
"So now Lando has a bodyguard... Great. He's going to freak out."
"And Mr. Sainz..." Max continued. "He's under the surveillance of Agent Sergio Pérez."
Charles took a deep breath.
"Okay... so just so I understand," he said, raising an eyebrow theatrically, "you're telling me I'm going to spend the next few hours... and maybe the rest of the night... with you following my every move?"
Max took a firm step - just one - closer. He didn't invade Charles's personal space, but he got close enough for the scent of his cologne to reach Charles's nose.
"Not following," Max corrected, his voice low. "Accompanying."
Charles was sure his knees went weak a little. He coughed.
"Right. Yes! Accompanying. Perfectly normal. I love being accompanied! I'm very easy to accompany." He closed his eyes for two seconds, mentally rephrased the sentence, and when he spoke again, he seemed even more lost. "I mean… that's not what I meant…"
Max tilted his head to the side, observing him with a silent curiosity that seemed to cut through the air.
"Is everything alright, Mr. Leclerc?"
"Yes!" Charles replied too quickly. "It's just… strange. In a good way. A good kind of strange. Strangely good. You understand."
Max didn't understand. He couldn't even pretend to understand.
But he said nothing. He merely turned slightly to the side, making room for Charles to pass.
"Whenever you wish, I can escort you to the main hall," he said. "Or, if you prefer, you can wait in your room until closer to the ceremony. I'll be here either way."
Charles walked past him, feeling the warmth of the security guard's body at a distance too small to ignore. And, glancing back, he noticed something that made him gasp for air: Max was looking directly at him.
Not in an invasive way, not inappropriately - but in a way that Charles couldn't decipher and that, somehow, left him even more bewildered.
He thought about saying something. Anything. But his mind, true to itself, completely betrayed him with the only sentence he managed to formulate.
"Do you always look at people like that, or have I gained some kind of special, genuine attention?"
Max kept his gaze steady.
"I'm just doing my job, Mr. Leclerc," he said, with a calmness that sent a wave of warmth up Charles's spine.
But the way he said it… didn't help at all.
Charles walked cautiously, as if fully aware he was being watched - and, at the same time, trying to pretend he wasn't.
The corridor was so silent that his shoes emitted small, rhythmic notes against it, each step echoing as if carefully staged to resemble part of a historical film. The air had a subtle scent of lavender and something reminiscent of cedar, emanating from the ancient wood that made up much of the Viridian Palace's structure.
Right behind him - at a professional distance, but still perceptible - came Max.
Max made no sound. None... It was astonishing. Charles concluded that either the man weighed four grams or the ground was made of some kind of magical fiber that absorbed even the force of gravity.
Every now and then, Charles risked a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure Max hadn't evaporated or teleported - because the fact that he made no real noise fueled an extremely dangerous theory that perhaps Max was some kind of secret agent with superhuman abilities.
Max was always there.
Standing tall. Impeccable. His gaze attentive, scanning the corridor with almost military precision. He kept his hands clasped behind his back, his shoulders relaxed but firm, his entire body in a posture that conveyed both calm and absolute alertness.
How could someone be two such opposite things at the same time? Charles didn't know. And he also didn't know why that, specifically that, was affecting him so much.
But it was. Very much so.
Charles cleared his throat, more to break his own nervousness than to say anything.
"So…" he began, trying to sound casual. "I imagine you must know this palace very well."
"I do," Max replied, without any hurry. His deep voice echoed softly off the walls. "I worked at the Royal Household for the last seven years. I participated in the renovation of a good part of the internal security."
Seven years.
Charles did a quick calculation in his head. Seven years was… long before he became Carlos's friend and assistant, or his mother became friends with Reyes. Before he was even involved in this kind of indirect political life.
It was strange to think that this man - this human wall - had spent so much time in that palace, while Charles barely knew where the second staircase was.
"Seven years is a long time to stay in one place," Charles commented, more as a conversational attempt than a genuine opinion.
Max responded with silence. But his silence was different. It wasn't uncomfortable, nor cold. It was deliberate. It almost made it seem like he was actually processing the words, as if he thought twice before expending his breath.
And this, curiously, made Charles even more aware of everything he said.
They turned left - Max had discreetly signaled beforehand, as if guiding Charles through the palace itself - and then they came to a set of double doors that seemed to gleam under the golden light of the chandeliers.
Charles stopped.
The doors were enormous, made of dark wood with delicate carvings depicting scenes from Australian history, from the colonial period to important figures of the monarchy. The doorknobs were finished in gold - real gold, judging by the warm sheen and gently irregular texture.
"May I?" Charles asked, not quite sure why he was asking permission.
Before he could place his hand on the doorknob, Max had already stepped forward. Precise, almost silent movements.
He slowly opened the doors. And the sight that revealed itself before them made Charles catch his breath.
A gigantic hall, illuminated by dozens of crystal chandeliers that hung from the vaulted ceiling like artificial constellations. The walls were decorated with hand-embroidered tapestries depicting scenes of the royal family at important national events. The floor was of light marble, and in the center, a long aisle of white flowers had been set up to guide the guests from the ceremony to the ball - a trail of petals so delicate it seemed about to fly away with any breeze.
Charles couldn't resist the impulse; he entered as if stepping into a dream.
Max followed him silently, closing the doors behind them.
The hall was in absolute silence, with only a few members of the organizing team walking back and forth, making delicate adjustments to the flower arrangements, the positioning of the tables, and the centerpieces.
On the right side of the room, Charles saw it.
And he was completely speechless.
"That's…" he tried to say.
Max approached and stood beside him, as if that were the natural position to explain the world.
"The cake," Max finished, simply.
The wedding cake stood on a high marble pedestal, surrounded by a transparent protective structure to ensure that nothing - absolutely nothing - got near it before the appointed time.
It was tall. Very tall… So tall that it easily surpassed two meters, with layers sculpted like works of art. There were hand-painted gold details, sugar flowers that looked real, small sculptures representing symbols of the royal family, everything absolutely impeccable.
“You’re kidding me…” Charles whispered, moving closer. “This must have cost, I don’t know… half the GDP of a small country.”
“Not quite,” Max corrected, with a serious expression. “But they say it cost more than some of the palace’s interior renovations.”
“Oh, great,” Charles said ironically. “It’s always exciting to discover that a cake is worth more than an entire historic building.”
Max's eyes fell on the cake, assessing it as if it were part of a strategic national security report.
"It's been under constant surveillance since it arrived," he said. "The Crown Prince insisted. It was a special order."
"Special in what way?" Charles asked, blinking slowly to absorb the information.
"It was made by a French chef who currently lives in Monaco," Max explained. "They called him specifically for this. He flew here with his team and spent seven days working only on this cake."
Charles raised his eyebrows, genuinely impressed.
"Seven days?" He looked at the cake again. "Okay, maybe I understand. This thing looks more stable and well-built than the Spanish parliament."
"I can't comment on that," Max replied, with the perfect neutrality of someone who knows they should never talk about politics with guests.
Charles chuckled softly.
For a brief moment, Max looked away from the cake to stare directly at him.
Charles felt it. Literally, he felt it. It was as if that look carried a weight and an intention he couldn't identify.
"Do you know all this well?" Charles asked, quieter now, looking around. "The hall, the ceremony… what's going to happen?"
"I know," Max replied, with a slight nod. "It's part of my job to know. I can explain each area if you wish."
"I wish!" Charles replied too quickly. He realized this soon after, but didn't correct himself. "I mean… of course. Why not? Knowledge is never a bad thing."
Max walked over to him and discreetly pointed to the left side of the hall.
“That’s the area reserved for honored guests.” He indicated the semicircle of chairs with a line of blue and silver ornamentation. “Generally, only dignitaries, high-ranking international representatives, and close family members sit there.”
Charles nodded, absorbing everything like a child before a new toy.
Max continued, moving his arm with elegance and precision.
“To the right will be the orchestra. They rehearsed this morning and adjusted the acoustics to match the hall’s layout. The youngest prince, Oscar, oversaw this.”
Charles froze for a split second.
"Prince Oscar?"
"Yes," Max replied without hesitation. "He takes care of a large part of the internal cultural and logistical activities. He's the prince responsible for events and public relations at the palace."
Charles took a deep breath.
Of course, Oscar was involved in part of that beautiful ceremony. Charles didn't know why this surprised him. Perhaps it was the fact that Charles was about to collapse as soon as he found out.
Max continued his explanation as if he hadn't noticed Charles's sudden distraction.
"Besides..." he pointed to a secluded area where organizers were checking lists. "There's the guest control desk. Everyone goes through double-checking. The security team is rigorous. Especially when there are foreign dignitaries present."
Charles observed everything with a growing sense of wonder and anxiety.
He had always enjoyed grand events - not because he was rich or spoiled, but because he had a natural curiosity for everything involving organization, aesthetics, and human stories. The entire hall seemed to scream stories.
"And…" Charles cleared his throat, looking at the ceiling. "Those chandeliers… they look so old."
"They are," Max confirmed. "Each one is over one hundred and fifty years old. They were brought from France during the reign of Liam and Oscar's great-grandfather."
Charles reacted with the complete expression of someone who had just found information he could save to throw in someone's face later.
"One hundred and fifty years?" he commented. "And here I am thinking I'm fancy for having a ten-year-old chandelier in my apartment in Monaco."
Max didn't smile - but he gave the impression that he almost smiled again.
"And what happens after the ceremony?" Charles asked, turning fully to face him now.
Max stared at him with that calm, deep, observant look.
"After the ceremony," he said, "...the party will take place here. The hall will be open to all the guests. There will be a buffet, musical performances, dancing, speeches. The protocol is extensive. And…" he paused briefly. "There will be a very special final presentation, organized by Prince Oscar."
Charles blinked.
He shouldn't be interested.
He really shouldn't.
But the name “Oscar” coming from Max sounded different.
Perhaps because Charles spoke of Oscar as if he were referring to his mortal enemy. Perhaps because Charles had seen old photos of the prince and recognized in him a quiet, discreet, intriguing beauty.
Perhaps because Max spoke with naturalness and respect - and when Max respected something, it automatically became intriguing.
Charles opened his mouth to ask something about Oscar.
But before he could, Max took another step closer.
"By the way..." he said, in that firm tone. "It's important that you know that, during the party, the chance of close interaction with members of the royal family is high. I recommend discretion."
"Discretion?" Charles raised an eyebrow, feigning indignation. "I am the very definition of discretion."
Max finally turned his eyes from the hall to Charles.
“Mr. Leclerc, you talk to yourself in the hallways,” he said, with a neutrality so sharp it bordered on unintentional humor.
Charles’s eyes widened.
“Did you hear that?”
“I hear everything,” Max replied simply. “It’s my job.”
Charles felt his face heat up.
“Okay…” he took a deep breath, covering half his face with his hand. “Sure. Professional. You are… professional. And I am… well. Me!"
Max didn't comment.
Perhaps because he didn't want to. Perhaps because he had nothing to say. Or perhaps because he had exactly what to say - but preferred to keep it to himself and didn't have permission to comment.
The hall was quiet, illuminated, immense. And, for the first time, Charles realized that there was something different about this trip. Something that had nothing to do with Oscar. Nothing to do with Carlos. Nothing to do with politics, or with the royal wedding, or with the impeccable ceremony that was about to take place.
Something that had to do with the man behind him.
The man who was now beside him. The man who seemed to see everything - including him - with a precision that made his heart dangerously uneasy.
Charles took a deep breath. And, in an impulse he didn't know where it came from, he started a conversation.
"Max, have you ever protected someone as… noisy as me?"
Max took a few seconds before answering.
"Not exactly," his voice firm, almost soft. "But I can handle you."
Charles didn't know how to react. He didn't know how to breathe. He didn't know how to stay alive for another three seconds. And he concluded, in the most desperately honest way possible: If he survives that trip without falling in love with Max Verstappen, then he truly deserves an international award.
Chapter 3: "To keep good intentions secret, to force a mask..."
Chapter Text
Several hours had passed since Carlos had left the room reserved for him.
The sun was beginning to set outside - tinging the sky with a golden hue that seemed purposefully chosen to match the ceremony's palette - when Carlos, completely dressed, gave his tie a final adjustment in front of the tall mirror.
He looked himself up and down.
Impeccable suit. Shoes gleaming. Hair styled with extreme patience. His expression - that one, at least - still carried a certain tension, as if he were going to a parliamentary vote and not to the wedding of a crown prince.
He took a deep breath.
Again.
And then another, just to be sure.
"Mr. Sainz?" called a voice behind him, firm and polite.
Carlos turned and found Sergio Pérez, his assigned bodyguard, standing impeccably by the door.
Sergio seemed the kind of person who could walk down a crowded corridor without bumping into anyone - balanced, calculated, attentive to absolutely everything. His gaze was calm, yet constantly assessing, as if he could spot danger even in a fly perched on a table.
"Is it time?" Carlos asked.
"Yes," Sergio replied with a slight nod. "Crown Prince Liam has requested that all special guests be positioned before the royal family enters. I will escort him to the ballroom."
Carlos nodded, taking his cell phone - which he couldn't use, but nobody lived in 2025 without taking it everywhere - and putting it in the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
"Okay, let's go then."
Sergio opened the door for him and, as soon as Carlos crossed the threshold, the man automatically assumed a position one step behind, as protocol dictates - always visible, always attentive, but never intrusive.
The hallway was busier than before.
Coordinators hurried back and forth, holding tablets or clipboards. Flower arrangements were positioned by staff who seemed to be working in a silent choreography. The air held the scent of floral perfume mixed with something soft, like apricot.
"Will the ceremony be long?" Carlos asked as they walked.
"Not too long," Sergio replied without turning his face. "It's traditional, but modern enough not to tire the guests. After the 'I do,' everyone will be guided directly to the reception hall."
"Modernity… Great word, considering I almost had a heart attack earlier."
Sergio raised an eyebrow, curious, but didn't ask anything. Professional to the core.
Carlos sighed and decided to change the subject, because mentally reliving the encounter with Oscar Piastri was already giving him nervous gastritis.
When they reached the doors of the grand hall, two uniformed guards made a slight bow, quickly checked Carlos's name on the list of special guests, and then made way for him to enter.
And there was the hall.
Illuminated.
Alive.
Ready.
And sophisticated in such a specific way that it seemed to have sprung from an outrageously expensive royal catalog.
But Carlos didn't pay attention to half of that, because he soon saw two familiar figures standing near one of the central arrangements.
Lando and Charles.
Charles looked impeccable in a suit that complemented his tanned skin and green eyes. He looked like he'd just stepped out of a luxury fashion editorial. Lando, beside him, wore a more relaxed, yet still elegant suit, gazing into the distance as if assessing the amount of food they would serve after the ceremony.
But they weren't the only ones.
A few meters away - a little further back, like well-trained professionals - were their security guards.
Max Verstappen, standing beside Charles, with such a solid posture he seemed part of the architecture. And Lewis Hamilton, Lando's bodyguard, more relaxed, but still intensely attentive to his surroundings, with his arms crossed and a practically impeccable posture.
Carlos grumbled mentally.
"Great. Exactly what I needed," he murmured as he walked over to his two friends.
Sergio took a step back when Carlos finally stopped beside them.
"Ya era hora…" Carlos began, exhaling as if he were carrying the weight of the world. "You two won't believe what happened to me."
Lando raised an eyebrow immediately.
Charles turned with a polite smile - but, seeing Carlos's expression, the smile became something between genuine concern and restrained amusement.
"Good evening to you too," Lando teased.
Carlos completely ignored him.
"I found…" Carlos emphasized each word with an indignant hand gesture. "Oscar. In the library."
Charles's eyes widened - not at the information, but because he knew exactly what that meant for Carlos's mental stability.
Lando stifled a laugh.
"You're kidding!" he said, crossing his arms and leaning forward. "Like… Oscar Piastri? The prince?"
"No, Lando, Oscar from the bakery on the corner outside," Carlos retorted with pure sarcasm. "Of course the prince! Who else would be in a royal palace library? Mickey Mouse?"
Lando burst into laughter.
Charles tried - really tried - to maintain a neutral expression. He failed.
"And… how was it?" Charles asked, his voice thick with curiosity and the inevitable danger of wanting to laugh as well.
Carlos raised his hands to the sky as if accepting his own misfortune.
"A complete mess, obviously! I was there, admiring the bookshelf about the Piastris, thinking 'wow, what an interesting place,' when suddenly I heard a voice behind me."
That made Charles laugh before he could even cover his mouth.
Lando leaned against the nearest table, almost doubling over with laughter.
"He actually showed up?" Lando could barely breathe.
"Yes. With that annoying way of his, kind of sarcastic, kind of 'I know so much more than you.'..." Carlos snorted. "And he even returned a book as if it had stepped out of a Renaissance painting. Seriously, who returns a book with that kind of… poise?"
Charles coughed to hide his smile.
"Are you nervous?"
"I'm not nervous!" Carlos retorted too loudly, and some guests turned to look. "I'm... annoyed. It's different."
From afar, Max looked at Charles.
Charles sensed it. He really did sense it. He immediately looked away, pretending not to have noticed.
Lewis, on the other hand, seemed to be amused simply by observing the chaotic dynamic that was forming between his colleague and the guest he was to protect.
"Well..." Charles said, trying to change the subject. "At least there wasn't an argument, right?"
Carlos blinked three times.
"I'm not going to comment on that."
"So there was an argument," Lando concluded triumphantly.
"I'm not going to..." Carlos said rigidly. "I'm not going to confirm that."
Lando laughed so hard he looked like a choking animal.
Sergio, behind Carlos, observed everything with absolute neutrality. The man had probably experienced enough social chaos in his life not to be impressed by Carlos's explosive personality.
"What matters," Carlos continued, raising his chin with controlled indignation, "...is that I left there with my dignity intact."
"You did?" Lando teased.
"You really did?" Charles repeated, almost smiling.
"I did!" Carlos insisted.
Lando patted Charles' arm.
"He definitely didn't."
"He certainly didn't." Charles agreed, already red from suppressing a laugh.
Carlos raised his hands.
"You guys are unbearable."
Charles took a deep breath, trying to maintain his composure, but his eyes were involuntarily drawn to Max, who, from where he stood, was still observing him with the same deep, penetrating calm he had shown in the hall hours before.
And, unintentionally, Charles smiled.
Slightly. Almost invisibly.
But Max saw it. Lewis saw it. Lando saw it.
Carlos, distracted and complaining about Oscar, was the only one who didn't realize that Charles was two minutes away from emotionally melting over the Dutch security guard.
Sergio Pérez, who had escorted Carlos there, stepped forward, bowing his head slightly in an almost military gesture of respect before speaking in a low, extremely controlled voice, as if afraid of disrupting the perfect harmony of the already impeccably prepared hall.
"Mr. Sainz, Mr. Norris, Mr. Leclerc…" he said each name precisely, never stumbling over any of their accents. "The ceremony will begin in a few minutes. The royal family has requested that the international guests of honor take their places now. If you could follow me, please."
Lewis, Lando's bodyguard, joined the line with a firm step, displaying such an elegant posture that Charles, even engrossed with Max, couldn't help but notice.
Max, for his part, remained slightly behind, observing the trio with that meticulously vigilant gaze - the kind of observation that allowed no gaps, distractions, or vulnerabilities.
Charles felt his presence like a whisper on the back of his neck. Perhaps no one else would even notice, but the Monegasque had always been sensitive to the energy of those around him - and Max seemed to radiate such focused attention that it made the air slightly heavier.
"Come on, Carlos," Lando said, adjusting his suspenders, perfectly aligned with the light beige suit he had chosen. "Prince Liam will think your country doesn't care about him if you're not there when he arrives."
"My country does care," Carlos grumbled, running a hand through his impeccably combed-back hair. "It's just that I don't care much about certain people there."
Charles raised an eyebrow, amused.
"Are you still talking about Oscar or about seeing that Renaissance art that didn't allow you to list all its republican flaws?"
"About Oscar," Carlos replied immediately, with the expression of someone who had bitten into a whole lemon. "I can forgive the art. Not Oscar."
Max observed the exchange, but showed no reaction, except perhaps the slightest movement of a muscle in his chin - or did Charles imagine it?
Sergio, impassive, simply extended his arm to indicate the way.
They began walking through the side hall, which connected the large front hall to the marble corridor leading to the area reserved for political and diplomatic guests.
The floor shone so brightly that the reflection of Carlos's entire suit was visible even as he walked. Giant chandeliers, with details in gold and cut glass, hung from the ceiling like crystalline constellations. There were enormous floral arrangements, laden with native Australian flowers - proteas, waratahs, banksias - mixed with white roses imported for the event.
The scent was sweet, soft, an invitation to slow down… but Carlos's soul was too restless.
As they walked, Lewis and Max kept close to their assigned companions with the precision of an invisible choreography. Sergio walked slightly ahead, clearing a path as if he were a natural extension of the palace structure itself.
When they reached the designated spot - the area reserved for “heads of government, children of heads of government, high-level diplomats, and special guests” - Carlos swallowed hard.
The golden plaque above the door was intimidating in itself, but no more so than the fact that, ahead of them, an organized line of important people was already beginning to form, elegantly positioned to receive the royal family.
It looked like they were about to start a scene from a historical film.
"Where are we going to stand?" Lando asked, adjusting his jacket, which seemed to have been specially tailored for him.
Sergio pointed with an open palm to an area marked by small emerald-green silk cords.
"Here, gentlemen. This is the section reserved for international representatives. The royal family will pass through this row before proceeding to the central aisle of the ceremony."
"Does that mean we'll have to greet each and every one of them?" Carlos asked, half horrified, half trying to maintain a diplomatic posture.
"Yes, Mr. Sainz," Sergio confirmed. "Including the youngest prince and his sister, Princess Hattie."
Carlos let out such a heavy sigh that Lando started laughing, losing control.
"Relax," Charles whispered, leaning in confidently. "You've already been through worse than running into Oscar unexpectedly at the library."
"I haven't," Carlos retorted. "I'm still emotionally shaken. I should sue you for letting me go there alone."
"We didn't leave you alone," Charles corrected, raising a finger. "You went there without telling anyone. Again."
"And you fell in love with a security guard," Carlos replied.
Charles blushed deeply, but raised his chin nonetheless, haughtily.
"I didn't fall in love. I just… appreciate his looks."
Lando almost choked, holding back a laugh.
As they positioned themselves correctly - Carlos in the middle, Charles to the left, Lando to the right - the bodyguards stepped back, maintaining the perfect distance, far enough away not to steal the show, close enough to act if necessary.
Silence fell.
Not an empty silence, but a silence of expectation, of prelude. The kind of silence that precedes a royal procession.
Down the aisle, movements began to echo - footsteps, whispers of organizers, quick calls from the ceremonialists. Sounds of dresses being adjusted. A distant violin tuned.
And then, the main doors opened. The glow of the Australian chandeliers entered along with the figures that emerged.
The corridor seemed to stretch out like a film in slow motion as the double doors remained open, gradually revealing the royal procession. The air changed - a mixture of floral perfume, sun dust, and the silent electricity that precedes an inevitable moment.
Carlos felt his shoulders stiffen as he watched the first members of the Australian royal family enter the hall. The Queen Consort in a deep blue dress, carrying the serenity typical of someone accustomed to protocol from a young age; Crown Prince Liam, impeccable, warm, returning each greeting with a flawless smile that seemed to have been polished over years of public appearances.
He was the protagonist of the day, radiating calm and purpose.
Beside him, the bride - stunning, radiant, genuine - walked with the grace of the princesses from the stories Carlos pretended not to believe. The guests straightened their posture, smiled, bowed their heads in respect.
But all of that, honestly, was merely a backdrop to what would come next.
Because it was when the people around began to subtly alter their expressions - eyes lifted, whispers intensified like leaves swaying in the wind - that Carlos knew the real moment had arrived.
Sergio, behind him, discreetly adjusted the communicator on his lapel. Max and Lewis, a few steps behind Charles and Lando, straightened their posture in impressive synchronicity.
And then he appeared.
Oscar Piastri.
The youngest prince of Australia. The reason half of the British tabloids had weekly outbursts in the past. The same one who disappeared from the media when he was sent - by his own choice or family imposition, nobody knew for sure - to a renowned military school in England.
The same boy with whom Carlos had an old, stupid, unresolved feud that had only worsened over the years.
Oscar appeared alongside his younger sister, Hattie, who wore a light green dress that seemed to have been tailor-made for her. She had a cheerful, curious, almost innocent expression, and greeted everyone with delicate gestures, waving to a few acquaintances who seemed charmed by her presence.
But Oscar… Oscar was another story.
He wore the royal family's full dress uniform - blood red with gold details, the royal insignia embroidered on his chest, structured epaulettes, and medals gleaming discreetly under the chandeliers. His hair, styled in a way that seemed to have required millimeter precision, was impeccable. His face, once more youthful, now bore features of maturity reminiscent of polished porcelain and tempered steel at the same time.
But it was his eyes that captivated Carlos.
Hazel-brown. Intense. Attentive.
The kind of gaze that not only saw - but analyzed, calculated, judged.
At that instant, when Oscar briefly raised his chin as if assuming a position and swept the room with his trained gaze, Carlos was certain that the prince had also found him in the crowd - perhaps from the very first second.
The world seemed to narrow, compressing itself between the two of them.
As the procession moved forward, greeting each guest with elegant formality, Oscar and Hattie approached the Spanish-Monegasque-British trio.
Lando began to sweat discreetly; Charles tried to appear neutral, but his nerves were more focused on how Max positioned himself behind him than on the prince approaching.
Carlos, on the other hand, fought the physical urge to roll his eyes, turn his back, or simply vanish into instant dust.
Sergio noticed the bodily tension but made no comment.
And then… the princes stopped before them.
The youngest sister was the first to speak.
"Good night," Hattie smiled broadly, bowing slightly. "Thank you for coming to celebrate Liam's day with us. We hope you enjoy the ceremony!"
Lando, charmed by the princess and already socially adept, was the first of the three to respond.
"It's an honor to be here, Your Royal Highness," he said, making a simple yet charming bow, typical of someone trying their best not to seem out of place.
Hattie smiled even wider.
"No 'Your Royal Highness,' please. Just Hattie is fine."
"Of course, Hattie." Charles and Lando answered together, almost in sync.
And then… Carlos was left.
Hattie looked at him and her smile remained, but there was a subtle curiosity there. Perhaps she had heard stories. Perhaps Oscar had mentioned something about "the annoying Spaniard who crossed my path more times than he should have and who once pushed me into a lake."
Or perhaps it was just his imagination.
Carlos opened his mouth to say something cordial - he even tried, he would swear he tried - but he didn't have time.
Because Oscar stepped forward. And the world seemed to shrink into a narrow corridor between the two of them.
Oscar inclined his head in the traditional gesture of the royal family. There was no smile. There was no gentleness. He was polite, perfectly polite, and absolutely icy.
"Carlos Sainz. Son of President Reyes Sainz, representative of Spain today."
It wasn't a question. It was a diagnosis.
Carlos felt his pride swell like an inevitable tide. He also inclined his head - not too deeply, but enough to show diplomatic respect. Nothing more than that.
"Prince Oscar. Youngest member of the royal family. And an expert at disappearing off the face of the earth."
Hattie bit her lip.
Lando's eyes widened.
Charles lost his composure for a second.
Oscar smiled.
A small smile, almost silent, almost invisible. But it was still a smile.
"Still direct as always," Oscar replied. "I thought that, with your political articles, you'd learned to craft your sentences better. Political journalism usually demands nuance."
Carlos chuckled softly.
"And I thought military schools didn't leave time for sarcasm. But clearly you found loopholes."
Oscar raised an eyebrow.
"Sarcasm is a survival skill. You should know that."
"I survive very well without you, thank you."
"I imagine. Since I couldn't avoid your presence in the library."
"I was there before you."
"But you shouldn't have been. It was a restricted area despite the stupid, old sign on the door."
"So you're going to arrest me?"
"I might consider it."
The exchange, though polished on the surface, carried enough layers to be visible even to a nearsighted diplomat.
Lando looked from one to the other as if watching a particularly aggressive tennis match. Charles tried not to laugh. Hattie seemed to be assessing whether she needed to intervene.
And, back there, Max and Lewis seemed to exchange a quick glance that said something like, "This is going to be trouble."
Oscar took a half-step forward - not an intrusion, but a calculated approach, part of courtly etiquette that dictated the prince should conclude the greeting with a quick exchange.
But Oscar was Oscar.
"I hope you enjoy the wedding," he said, his tone lower, almost confidential. "And try not to meddle in other places or throw someone into a lake. There are areas where you really shouldn't be."
Carlos responded in kind, narrowing his eyes.
"I get lost less often than you do. At least I didn't have to disappear from the entire country to find myself..."
Oscar took a deep breath - not in irritation, but something deeper. Something like recognizing where he was intruding.
"Some people need distance to mature. Others need an audience.
And others need to learn not to be so conceited."
"I say the same about you."
Time seemed to freeze.
The tension there wasn't just hostile. It wasn't just irritation. It wasn't just antipathy. It was something… older. More intimate, even if both denied it.
More dangerous.
Something that neither the years, nor the distance, nor real or political obligations had erased.
Hattie finally cleared her throat slightly and touched her brother's arm.
"Come on, Osc. We still have guests to greet."
Oscar didn't take his eyes off Carlos for long seconds before finally stepping back.
"Enjoy the ceremony," he said, now to the three of them, but looking only at Carlos. And then he walked away with his sister, mingling again with the royal procession.
Carlos released the breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
Lando slapped him on the shoulder.
"My God, that was… explosive."
"I'd say it was delicious. The tension was palpable. Almost cinematic." Charles smiled theatrically.
"I didn't start anything." Carlos turned to the two of them.
"Not at all," said Lando. "You just finished it."
"I don't finish anything!"
"Then start something," Charles laughed.
Carlos rolled his eyes.
But his heart was beating a little faster than it should. And somewhere in the room, Oscar still hadn't stopped looking at him.
──── ♛ ────
The ceremony was finally over.
Or at least, that's what Carlos believed, because there was a moment - around the fourth reading, or perhaps the seventh hymn - when he was absolutely certain that he had aged at least three years sitting on that bench, which was far too padded to be comfortable.
Crown Prince Liam wept discreetly. The bride smiled so warmly that half the guests were moved. Both sets of parents seemed proud, imposing, ethereal.
But Carlos was tired.
Exhausted.
Emotionally dehydrated by his exchange with Oscar before the ceremony.
And also very irritated.
When the couple finally walked down the aisle of flowers, applause echoing through the hall like waves, Carlos felt his body crave fresh air, a drink, or a complete brain reset.
But he didn't have any of those three options immediately.
The protocols were strict.
The important guests - and yes, Carlos, Charles, and Lando fell into this category thanks to their political roles and the sponsors involved - were the first to be escorted by the designated security group.
Max walked beside Charles, like a well-postured and extremely serious shadow, although Carlos had already noticed Charles's rather indiscreet glances at him during the ceremony - glances that Max pretended not to see, but definitely perceived.
Lewis, always impeccable, escorted Lando with the calm of someone who regularly dealt with chaos.
Sergio stood beside Carlos, attentive, focused, exuding tranquility.
"The advantage of having such an experienced security guard is that he doesn't comment on how many times you rolled your eyes during the ceremony," Carlos thought with a certain relief.
As they passed through a side corridor, double doors opened to reveal the reception hall. And, for a second, even Carlos was speechless.
The ballroom was simply gigantic.
The high ceiling, supported by columns sculpted from white marble, reflected the golden light of the crystal chandeliers. Each lamp seemed to shine with the calculated intensity to give everyone's skin a more beautiful tone and to make the guests' jewelry sparkle like stars.
The orchestra, positioned on a raised stage, tuned its instruments. Violins, cellos, and harps seemed ready to transform the air into sonic silk.
But nothing - absolutely nothing - drew more attention than the tower of glasses and the monumental cake.
The tower resembled a glass waterfall, perfectly aligned, with hundreds of glasses stacked in symmetrical levels that defied all known physics. Champagne trickled from the highest glass in slow, almost sensual movements, creating a small golden cascade.
And the cake…
The cake was absurd.
A millionaire absurdity.
Carlos stood there, staring at it as if it were an entity demanding respect.
It had about six large tiers - maybe seven - decorated with handmade edible flowers, sugar pearls, gold details traced with watchmaker precision, and small sculptures representing important moments in the lives of Crown Prince Liam and his wife.
It was so big it could have its own page in the population census.
"Bloody hell," Lando muttered, expressing the collective thought. "That's… That's a lot of cake. Like… irresponsibly a lot of cake."
Charles chuckled softly, crossing his arms as he looked at Max, who remained impassive - but had clearly seen it all before.
"I told you the cake was enormous," Charles stated, raising his chin with irritating false modesty.
"You said it was big," Lando replied, still utterly shocked. "Not that it was a fucking satellite of the moon."
Carlos couldn't help but chuckle.
"This could feed half the homeless population of Australia," he commented, nudging Lando with his elbow. "If it weren't illegal to steal a piece of this thing, I would have already planned to smuggle a whole slice in my pocket."
Lando agreed enthusiastically.
"I swore you were exaggerating when Charles talked about that," he continued, walking around the cake like someone inspecting an archaeological monument. "Now I know I underestimated it. I should have brought a flashlight and ropes to explore and climb the floors."
Charles smiled, proud of having anticipated the impact.
"I warned you."
"You didn't warn us enough," Lando replied.
Carlos took another step back, assessing the cake with a look that mixed political weariness, emotional stress, and pure aesthetic disbelief.
And then he decided...
He decided he deserved - needed - to drink.
Perhaps a lot.
He turned to another drinks table, where waiters and waitresses lined up like soldiers ready to serve. The glasses gleamed - endless rows of them - and the champagne was constantly being replenished, as if someone had opened an endless tap.
Charles noticed the commotion.
"Carlos… don't start," he pleaded, raising his hand in an almost pleading gesture. "You become unbearable when you drink too much. What if your mother finds out…"
"She's not here," Carlos interrupted, walking purposefully. "That was the first thing I noticed when I got off the plane today. And the best."
Lando laughed.
"At least grab something light first," he suggested. "You have a history of messing things up at diplomatic events, remember? There was that dinner in Seville..."
"I didn't throw wine on the woman," Carlos said automatically. "She threw herself in the wine when she tripped over me. It's gravity's fault."
"It's your fault for existing," Lando retorted.
Charles tried again.
"Carlos, look at me. Really look at me."
Carlos didn't look. He kept walking.
"Carlos, if you drink too much and run into Oscar later!"
Carlos froze for half a second. Only half a second.
But Charles saw. And Lando saw. And Sergio, behind him, definitely saw.
"I can handle Oscar," Carlos replied, resuming his movement. "In fact, let him handle me this time."
"That's exactly what worries me..." Charles snorted.
But it was too late.
Carlos grabbed the first glass he found. A delicate glass. Elegant. Transparent. Filled almost to the top.
He raised an imaginary toast to no one and downed half of it in one go. The champagne burned his throat, bubbling in a mixture that seemed like liquid courage, disguised nervousness, and pure accumulated frustration.
"This..." he exhaled, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "...is exactly what I needed."
Lando approached slowly, glancing at the empty glass, then at Carlos, and then back at the glass again.
"Are you really going to ignore Charles?"
"Yes."
"Are you really going to drink while you're in a royal palace?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, Lando. Damn it..."
Charles sighed dramatically.
"I'm already anticipating disaster. Max, please stay alert. If he tries to climb the tower of glasses, I swear I can't stop him alone."
Max simply gave a short, professional, and focused nod - though his eyes quickly returned to follow Charles more closely than the situation required.
Carlos raised another glass. And it was right there, in that instant, that something in the air shifted.
Because Oscar had just entered the ballroom.
The orchestra's music seemed to take on a new life as more guests settled into the hall, and the warm light from the chandeliers multiplied in the crystal tier of glasses.
Charles was still trying to take in the sheer size of the cake, despite having seen it earlier - almost a historical monument, too tall, too white, too expensive.
Lando kept muttering something like, “Half Australia could eat this for days,” and Carlos was already two steps ahead, grabbing another glass of some strong, golden drink before either of them could intercept him.
“Carlos…” Charles murmured, still with that tired worry in his eyes, like an older brother, or rather, like someone who constantly reminded the Spaniard that self-destruction at royal parties usually comes with diplomatic consequences.
Carlos didn't answer. He simply downed half his glass in one go for the second time, made a theatrical grimace - the kind that meant this is awful, but I'm going to keep drinking anyway - and walked off among the guests with determined steps.
The music drowned everything out, but Charles managed to hear Carlos mutter, irritated.
"I'm going to drink. Only that will get me through this hellish night." And he raised his hand in a gesture of refusal so quickly that Sergio Pérez, who was starting to walk behind him, stopped mid-sleep.
"Mr. Sainz?" Sergio called, in a professional tone, as if trying not to sound like he was disobeying orders. "I've been assigned to escort you."
"Not tonight," Carlos interrupted, without looking back. "Give me five minutes of peace, Pérez. My condolences for having to deal with me, but not tonight."
Of course, it wouldn't be five minutes, and Sergio knew that. But he also knew when a protégé needed distance more than surveillance.
The security guard sighed and took a few steps back, stopping beside Lewis, who had also been dismissed by Lando and was just watching the dance floor with his arms crossed like a teacher on the verge of losing patience with teenagers.
"Are they all like that?" Sergio asked Lewis, indicating with his chin the three friends who had come to represent Spain.
Lewis let out a short laugh.
"You get used to it. One of them always makes a scene. Another always tries to resolve the scene. And the third…" He looked at Charles and nodded, finishing. "…the third one believes he can control the other two."
Lando, for his part, had already moved away from their table and was approaching the appetizer table, adjusting his suit collar as if that would solve anything in life, and casting insistent glances at Princess Hattie.
Oscar's sister was chatting with two seemingly friendly women, waving with an impeccable smile - a smile as practiced as it was dangerous, because Lando was already as charmed as he was nervous.
"Wish me luck," Lando whispered to Charles before turning away. "Or pray? I think I need more prayer."
"You need common sense," Charles replied, but Lando didn't hear because he was already crossing the hall.
This left Charles standing there, with Sergio and Lewis chatting in a corner, Lando going to voluntarily throw himself at the lion, and Carlos…
Carlos was on the other side of the room, leaning against a high table, already on his third - possibly fourth - drink. His posture was so clearly defensive that Charles could almost feel the thickness of the invisible wall the Spaniard was building around himself.
But it wasn't just about the alcohol. It was because Oscar was there too.
Oscar pretended not to see him. Carlos pretended not to notice Oscar. It was a silent, bitter choreography, rehearsed over years of hurt and unexplained abandonment. And it was making Charles nervous in a way he didn't want to admit.
He took a deep breath, wanting to stop looking, wanting to really focus on something else. It was then that he turned to the only possible distraction that was also, surprisingly, the most effective.
Max Verstappen.
The bodyguard was there, standing close enough to be accessible, far enough away not to seem intrusive. His black suit was impeccable, his sandy blond hair deliberately slightly disheveled - or perhaps because he simply didn't care - and his attentive gaze swept across the room as if he could anticipate any dangerous move before it even happened.
Charles didn't know if it was his professional demeanor, his calm aura, or something undefined he didn't yet dare name, but just looking at Max made his chest seem to reorganize everything that was confused.
"He's going to keep drinking that until he passes out..." Charles commented, without realizing he was already walking towards Max.
Max looked away from the crowd and fixed his gaze on him so precisely, so directly, that Charles felt a small shiver run down his neck.
"Mr. Sainz isn't known for following advice on tense nights," Max replied serenely, crossing his hands behind his back. "My personal bet is that he'll drink to the limit and then deny he was unwell."
"Do you know him by any chance? Besides what the tabloids show?" Charles asked, genuinely curious.
"I know that type." Max tilted his head slightly, as if analyzing something in Charles as well. "People who carry much more than they show. He doesn't want to draw attention. He just doesn't want to feel anything anymore tonight."
Charles swallowed hard.
That described Carlos too accurately.
"And Oscar…" Charles began without realizing it.
"He doesn't want to look at him either, but he can't completely ignore him." Max finished for him.
Charles blinked, surprised.
"You noticed that?"
"It's my job to notice," Max replied, returning his gaze to the room. "And you noticed it too, even if you pretend not to see."
Charles chuckled softly, surrendering.
"You're very good at what you do."
Max looked at him again - and there was something there. Something Charles didn't yet understand, but which seemed to warm his entire skin.
"I try to be," Max replied. "But you… You're very easy to read, Mr. Leclerc."
Charles opened his mouth, incredulous.
"Me? Easy to read?" He laughed, a short, almost shy laugh. "Nobody ever said that about me."
"Then nobody ever paid enough attention." Max said this so naturally that Charles felt his heart stumble in his chest.
For a moment, everything that existed at the party - the absurd cake, the loud music, Carlos drinking to hide his pain, Lando flirting with the princess, Oscar avoiding a look that would burn him - completely vanished.
Only the two of them remained.
Charles and Max.
A royal guest trying to appear calm. And a Dutch security guard who seemed to see him better than anyone else there.
Charles, without realizing it, took a step closer, as if his body had decided for him that this was where he wanted to be.
"So…" Charles murmured, feeling the heat rise in his face. "If I'm so easy to read… what are you reading now?"
Max smiled. Not an open smile. But a slow, precise, calculated - and devastating - smile.
"That you're trying to distract yourself so you don't look at Lando and Carlos," Max said, almost in a whisper. "And that you haven't realized I don't mind being the distraction."
Charles felt the whole world stop.
But he didn't have time to respond, because at that moment, the orchestra changed the music and an announcement echoed through the hall, drawing everyone's attention.
Crown Prince Liam gave his acceptance speech, microphone in hand, his amplified voice filling every corner of the hall as he held the hand of his radiant new wife beside him. The crowd fell silent in deference, absorbing every word of his speech, which ranged from humor and emotion to gratitude and rehearsed protocol. It was beautiful, it was solemn, it was a historic moment.
But for Charles… none of that mattered.
He was already on his twelfth glass of… well, of something.
That golden liquid that burned his throat as if it carried tiny dissolved matches and that left his head light enough for him to believe he had good ideas.
The tenth glass had been excessive. The eleventh, foolishness. The twelfth… was uncharted territory, where he simply followed the flow, like a castaway who realizes too late that the tide has pulled him away from the shore.
The music had faded so that the speech could be heard. The orchestra rested. The conversations had partially ceased. The room seemed to hold its breath before the moment.
But Carlos didn't.
He squinted to focus on the world ahead. Everything seemed a little brighter, a little slower, a little more laughable. It was as if reality had been coated in varnish. Beautiful, but slippery.
And it was in this state that his eyes landed on Oscar.
Who stood close to the colossal cake decorated with white sugar flowers, gazing at Liam and the princess on stage with almost religious attention. Oscar was impeccable - of course he was - wearing that red suit that seemed tailor-made to irritate Carlos. His hair was styled too formally, his posture straight, his hands crossed in front of his body, his eyes fixed on the royal couple with a restrained glint that Carlos couldn't decipher.
Oscar seemed calm. Composed. Imperturbable. And that bothered Carlos on a primal level.
"Of course he's perfect," Carlos thought, his mind slightly clouded but full of venom.
The perfect prince. The perfect vanished man. The man who disappears from the media for years and reappears even more… irritatingly flawless.
He took a deep breath. Or tried to. The air seemed to bump against something inside his chest.
He didn't even notice when his feet decided for him. His body simply went. One step, then another. Hesitant, but determined. The drink coursed through his blood and his senses seemed dulled, but the will - or stubbornness - was sharp as a blade.
A few meters away, Sergio stared at him with an expression of “Oh my God, not now,” but Carlos had dismissed the security guard moments before and wasn’t in a position to perceive silent judgments.
Charles, talking to Max near one of the tables, immediately perceived the dangerous shift in the timeline.
“Oh no…” Charles whispered, already bringing his hand to his face. “He’s going to do it.”
Max raised an eyebrow.
"Is he going to provoke Oscar?" the security guard asked, as if reading the weather forecast.
"That's right," Charles replied. "And Oscar will retaliate."
"It'll be fun to watch..." Max murmured, impassive as always.
Charles snorted.
"For you, maybe. For me, no. For planet Earth, even less so."
But it was too late.
Carlos caught up with Oscar.
A few steps from the prince, the world seemed to slow down even more. The prince hadn't seen him. Or he had pretended not to see him - which irritated Carlos even more. The Spaniard's hand held the glass as if it were an argument, a weapon, or an amulet, and the smile that appeared on his face was crooked, sharp, clearly steeped in alcohol.
He stopped beside Oscar, so close he could see the detail of the stitching on the shoulders of the royal suit. The giant cake behind them seemed like a silent third spectator, judging everything.
"Pretty, isn't it?" Carlos said, in a tone that should have sounded casual, but came out too heavy. "The speech. The wedding. Everything so… perfect."
Oscar turned his face slowly. There was no surprise - perhaps just a slight internal sigh that didn't reach his lips. His green eyes analyzed Carlos from head to toe with an irritatingly controlled calm.
"Carlos..." He offered a minimal, polite, formal nod. Too formal. "I hope you're enjoying the party."
Carlos let out a laugh as short as it was dangerous.
"I am. Just like you!" Ironic tone. "Besides… it's really good to see you here."
Oscar blinked. Slowly. As if he knew the phrase wasn't a compliment.
"Thank you." He still maintained that impeccable posture, his hands firm, his face neutral. "It's good to see you too."
"Is it?" Carlos tilted his head, with a smile bordering on childlike. "Because I'm absolutely certain that the last thing you wanted was to see me again."
Oscar's breath faltered for half a second.
Just half a second.
But for Carlos - drunk, sensitive, furious - that was enough to set his chest ablaze.
"I never said that," Oscar replied firmly.
"You don't need to." Carlos swirled his glass, making the liquid swirl dangerously. "I know you, Oscar. I know you too well. You don't need to say anything for me to know when you're running away."
Oscar froze inside.
"I'm not running away."
"Oh, really?" Carlos took a step closer, completely blurring the respectable safe distance Oscar always maintained from the world. "Weird. Because the last time I checked… you were gone for years. Literally vanished. No interviews. No public appearances. No answers."
Oscar swallowed hard.
"I don't think this is the best place to-..."
"To what?" Carlos cut him off. "To tell the truth? To look me in the eyes? To tell me why the hell you disappeared?"
Liam's speech continued in the background, an unsuitable soundtrack for a reunion brimming with old fractures. The audience applauded something he had announced, but in the corner of the hall, time seemed to refuse to move.
Oscar took a deep breath.
"Carlos… you're drunk." When he spoke, his voice had that glacial calm that only he could use as a defense.
"And you're a coward," Carlos retorted instantly.
Oscar blinked.
Slowly.
The tension between them became a rope about to snap.
"I'm not going to do it now," Oscar replied, but his eyes were gleaming with something Carlos didn't want to acknowledge. "Not here. Not like this."
"Of course not," Carlos chuckled dryly, downing the rest of his glass in one gulp. "You never do anything like this. You just disappear when things get tough. And you expect the world to understand, because after all… you're the perfect little prince, aren't you?"
Oscar clenched his fist at his side so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
"It's not fair," he murmured, his voice low, firm, but wounded.
Carlos gave a half-smile, full of pent-up anger and longing.
"Life isn't fair."
For a second - a single second - Oscar looked away. He exhaled slowly, as if he were carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“If you want to talk,” he said finally, with calm courage, “I’ll be in the garden later.”
Carlos gave a bitter laugh.
“Talk?” He shook his head. “I didn’t come here to talk, Oscar.”
Oscar clenched his jaw.
“Then why did you come?”
"Because you're here." Carlos answered without thinking.
Without a filter.
Without hiding anything.
The music picked up again. The cake seemed even bigger. And for a moment, Oscar stood motionless, staring at Carlos as if he had just heard a confession that shouldn't exist.
Before he could respond, Liam grabbed the microphone again and announced the opening of the dance floor - and everything around them started moving again.
Oscar took a deep breath, visibly tired of the exchange, of that emotionally charged onslaught too intense for a room full of aristocrats, diplomats, and cameras trying to capture every microexpression of the royal family.
He was about to take a step back - not out of cowardice, but for self-preservation - when Carlos, still under the stinging effect of twelve glasses of wine, noticed the movement. And something primal inside him screamed, "Not again. Not this time."
Oscar began to turn away. But Carlos wouldn't let him.
His hand - warm, trembling, and smelling of expensive liquor - gripped the perfectly aligned shoulder pad of Oscar's suit. A firm touch. Urgent. Almost desperate.
"No!" Carlos murmured, his voice hoarse, too low for others to hear, but intense enough for Oscar to feel its weight on his skin. "You're not going to run away again."
Oscar froze.
This was no longer just irritation, no longer just resentment. It was something old, numbed, wounded, resurfacing in a wave that Carlos no longer had under control.
Oscar turned his face away, ready to respond, but then Carlos pulled him.
And pulled hard.
Hard enough to unbalance the prince, who hadn't expected the abrupt force.
Oscar took a step forward - perhaps to maintain his balance, perhaps to prevent Carlos from falling - but that's when everything happened at once, a sequence of events so disastrously synchronized that it seemed choreographed by the gods of cringe.
The tip of Carlos's shoe caught. It caught right on the hem of the bright white tablecloth covering the cake table - that immaculate tablecloth, embroidered with gold thread, that gleamed under the lights and looked like it had cost more than the annual salary of some ministers.
He stumbled.
Oscar tried to catch him. But of course - of course - he pulled the tablecloth down with it. And, with it, dragged the entire fate of the seven-tiered royal cake.
The noise was grotesque - the kind of sound that precedes reputational disasters.
The table trembled.
The tablecloth slipped.
The giant cake - majestic, expensive, photographed by half the international press - wobbled as if contemplating its own fate.
Carlos fell first, on his back, arms outstretched as if embracing his own ruin.
Oscar fell on top of him the next second, trying to protect both their heads, which would have been heroic if it hadn't taken down the last barrier between them and disaster.
And then the cake fell.
But it didn't just fall.
It collapsed...
It collapsed like a sugary monster, like a sweet and humiliating avalanche, crushing any remaining dignity of those involved. The impact was so strong that it scattered pieces everywhere - icing ricocheted off the floor, sugar flowers flew like confetti, and the top half of the cake literally rolled to the side like a log.
Half the hall fell instantly silent.
The music stopped.
The conversations died down.
The orchestra's instruments made a final, discordant sound as the conductor turned to see the cause of the commotion.
And all the cameras - all of them - turned to the scene.
Carlos slowly opened his eyes, his mouth partially open, completely covered in white icing, thick cream, and bits of crushed dough. His suit was ruined. His pride too.
Oscar, on top of him, in an equally catastrophic state, had his hair plastered with cream and a whole piece of sugar flower stuck to his ear.
They were on top of each other. On the floor. Underneath the royal cake. At the crown prince's wedding.
Carlos blinked, trying to grasp the gravity of the situation.
Oscar blinked, but seemed caught between shock and disbelief.
There were three seconds of absolute silence.
Three.
And then a muffled scream of horror came from across the hall.
Lando, standing beside the dance floor, put both hands to his head.
"Sainte mère de Dieu..." Charles murmured, completely breathless, his heart stopping for a moment. "They destroyed the royal wedding cake."
Max, standing beside him, merely raised an eyebrow.
"I told you..." he commented. "They had the energy of impending disaster."
Lewis, standing with his hands crossed, closed his eyes as if already anticipating the next day's headline. Sergio reached for the radio, but immediately lowered his hand when he realized there was no protocol for it.
The Crown Prince Liam, on stage, froze. The princess beside him put her hand to her mouth.
It was impossible to say who was more horrified...
The important guests? The members of the press? The palace servants? Or the protagonists of the chaos themselves?
Carlos tried to sit down - but slipped on a layer of icing and fell again, hitting his shoulder on the floor.
Oscar tried to get up too, but the sleeve of his suit jacket was stuck to Carlos's shirt, pulling him up as well.
"Get off me," Carlos whispered weakly.
"I'm trying!" Oscar retorted, irritated and mortified, trying to disentangle himself without looking like he was attacking the most troublesome international guest at the party.
But the more they tried, the more chaotically they became entangled.
A photographer took a picture. The flash went straight into Oscar's face.
"If that photo gets in the newspapers, I'll report everyone!" Carlos raised his index finger accusingly, still on the floor, still covered in cake.
Oscar closed his eyes.
"That photo will be in all the newspapers..." he murmured, defeated. "Tomorrow. In half an hour. Right now, probably."
"Great," Carlos replied, completely unfiltered. "Because it's always good to remind the world what you do to me."
Oscar opened his eyes, staring at him with a mixture of anger, deep shame, and something else that shouldn't exist in that situation.
"Carlos…" Oscar began, his voice hoarse and very low. "You…"
But he couldn't finish. Because the cake slipped a little more and another piece fell directly onto his shoulder with a loud "plop."
The silence of the room was broken by a collective groan of pure pity.
With cream dripping down their faces, cake in their hair, and a global crowd watching in horror - and fascination - Prince Oscar Piastri and Carlos Sainz unwittingly wrote the first international scandal before the new year.
Chapter 4: "Too many handwritten letters signed to: 'my dearest, with love'..."
Chapter Text
The presidential office had always had an intimidating aura, but that morning it seemed even more suffocating.
The heavy velvet curtains were half-open, allowing the harsh, white light of the Madrid morning to flood the room, reflecting off the dark wood of the furniture so sharply that Carlos felt each beam of light was a personal accusation.
He sat in the chair opposite his mother's desk, President Reyes Sainz, as if he were a troubled student before the headmistress - which, in a way, wasn't so far from the truth.
His mother hadn't said a single word during the first few minutes. She just stared at him over her thin-rimmed glasses, with a gaze so sharp it could cut marble.
Carlos, still with a slight hangover and the traumatic memory of the cake collapsing in slow motion on him and Oscar, tried to maintain his dignity. His clothes were clean now, his hair styled, the expensive cologne masked any trace of alcohol, but nothing - absolutely nothing - helped to lessen the incandescent shame burning inside him.
Finally, Reyes took a deep breath and crossed his hands on the table.
"Carlos... Do you want to explain to me exactly what happened last night?" she said, with a calmness as dangerous as a silent earthquake about to happen.
He had already mentally prepared himself, but her voice, her tone, her posture… Everything indicated that this would be worse than any punishment he had received in adolescence.
"Mom, that wasn't my fault. Oscar, he-..." Carlos tried to speak.
"Oh, sure," she interrupted him immediately, raising an eyebrow. "Prince Oscar Piastri pushed you against the cake. Is that the magnificent argument you brought to me?"
Carlos closed his eyes for two seconds, searching for patience deep within his soul.
"I didn't say he pushed me…"
"So you tripped all by yourself. And, by some absurd coincidence, dragged the youngest prince of Australia into the royal wedding cake along with you?"
Carlos swallowed hard.
The newspaper on the table, open to the main headline, gleamed like a constant reminder of the disaster.
The photo on the front page was the worst possible...
Carlos and Oscar lying on the floor, covered in white icing and red berries, Prince Liam's cake in ruins around them. The exact moment the cake hit them was captured with cruel precision. And, right below, the headline in large letters:
“ROYAL SCANDAL: SON OF SPANISH PRESIDENT AND AUSTRALIAN PRINCE STAR IN CATASTROPHIC FALL AT LIAM'S WEDDING. GAFFE OR DIPLOMATIC WAR?”
Reyes deliberately turned the newspaper around so that Carlos would be forced to look at his own humiliation plastered all over it.
"The whole world is talking about this, Carlos!" she continued, her voice rising slightly. "The Australian press is furious. The Spanish press is calling you childish. The British press is having a good time. And the videos have already surpassed forty million views. Forty million... Do you have any idea what that means?"
Carlos sank even further into his chair.
"It was an accident."
"It was a disgrace!" Reyes corrected, with surgical precision. "And not just a personal disgrace. It was a diplomatic disgrace. You destroyed the wedding cake of the heir to the Australian throne!" She opened her arms, indignant. "The cake, Carlos! A cake that cost more than the car you drive!"
“In my defense… he was very close to the table.” He scratched the back of his neck as he muttered.
Reyes slammed her palm on the wood, exasperated.
“And you were very close to the alcohol!”
Carlos’s eyes widened.
“I drank, but not that much!”
The mother gave a wry laugh.
"Enough to trip over a tablecloth. Enough to knock over a prince. Enough to become an international meme in a few hours!" She sighed deeply, rubbing her nose as if trying to massage her own patience again. "Carlos, you're the son of the president of Spain. There are expectations. There are protocols. There are limits. And you simply… jumped over all of them as if you were participating in a rodeo."
He had to restrain himself from laughing. After all, if he gave even a single smile, she would explode.
"Mom, I really didn't do it on purpose."
"Then the alternative is for you to be extremely clumsy. I don't know which of the two options is worse."
Carlos raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.
"I'm sorry, okay? I already told Prince Liam, Prince Oscar… the entire universe, apparently. I didn't want that to happen. It was a stupid accident."
The president stared at him for a long time, as if assessing the extent to which she believed him.
"And why, exactly, were you near Prince Oscar?" she asked, narrowing her eyes with political and maternal interest. "Because, according to all the reports… you two were arguing before the fall."
Carlos froze.
"W-We weren't arguing."
"Yes, you were." Reyes picked up the tablet, touched the screen, and rotated the device for him to see. A video, recorded by some guest, clearly showed Carlos and Oscar standing next to the cake, talking with tense expressions. The audio was poor, but Oscar could be seen trying to move away and Carlos holding his shoulder pad. "Here. Explain this."
He clenched his fist.
Damn it.
"I just… made a comment."
"About what?"
"Things…"
"What things, Carlos?"
He looked away.
"Things about… international politics?"
"The only international thing in that video is the scale of the embarrassment." His mother gave another short, dry laugh, devoid of any humor.
Carlos rubbed his face, already utterly defeated.
"Look, I provoked him, okay? Satisfied? I provoked Prince Oscar, because Oscar always provokes me. We have an old rivalry, okay? It's not a crime! He looks at me sideways, I look back sideways. That's all. And then… the shoulder pad and cake thing happened."
His mother took a deep breath, stood up, walked around the table, and stopped right in front of him. Carlos raised his head. Reyes placed her hands on his shoulders.
"Mi hijo…" her tone softened slightly, but not enough to completely reassure him. "…you need to control yourself. You're not a teenager anymore. And neither is Prince Oscar. You two are important public figures. And if this… animosity continues, it could become a real political problem."
Carlos finally looked up at her, feeling the true weight of her words.
"I know," he murmured. "I'll behave. I promise."
Reyes sighed, squeezing his shoulders one last time before returning to her seat.
"Great! Because Prince Oscar will make a public statement. And you…" she stared at him sternly. "…will do the same. You'll apologize, you'll smile, you'll appear dignified, sober, and sensible. You'll say it was an accident and that you have deep respect for the Australian royalty. And you'll hope the public buys that version, because if they don't…"
She let him finish the thought mentally.
"Okay. I'll do it." He swallowed hard.
Reyes adjusted a document.
"Oh, and Carlos? Try not to knock anyone else down until then," she added, in a slightly ironic tone.
He closed his eyes, defeated.
"I'll try."
Three sharp knocks sounded on the office door. The knocks were firm, polite, but carried an urgency that made Carlos straighten his posture automatically.
Reyes sighed deeply - the kind of sigh a president only let out when she was already halfway to her limit.
"Come in," she replied.
The door opened with a subtle creak, and Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris appeared like two high-ranking officials freshly unearthed from an urgent meeting.
Both were dressed formally - Charles impeccably dressed as always, with his shirt perfectly pressed and his blazer tailored to his liking; Lando slightly less formal, but still sharp, with his sleeves rolled up to his forearms and his tie slightly disarranged, which, ironically, gave him an even more professional air.
Both held tablets, virtual folders already open, and expressions tense enough to make it clear they weren't there to discuss pleasantries.
"President Sainz, my apologies for interrupting," Charles began, his voice soft, with that almost aristocratic French accent that made any sentence sound more diplomatic. "We know you're in the middle of an important conversation with Carlos, but… we need to discuss the next steps before the situation escalates further."
Lando nodded, entering right behind him.
"It's truly urgent. Prince Oscar's staff just sent us an update, and…" he glanced quickly at Carlos, as if trying to gauge his mood. "…it's best if we all talk together."
Carlos leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms.
"Great," he muttered. "More problems?"
Charles and Lando exchanged a quick glance. One of those silent glances that meant 'yes, many problems' - but which they would try to deliver in the most subdued way possible.
Reyes pointed to the two empty chairs in front of the table.
"You can sit down. Since we're all bogged down in this, let's get down to business."
As soon as they sat down, Lando swiped his finger across the tablet and projected a small image onto the screen. It was a recent headline, probably updated within the last ten minutes.
“CONFLICT BETWEEN AUSTRALIA’S PRINCE AND SPANISH PRESIDENT’S SON EXPLODES INTO THEORIES”
Below, a ridiculous montage of Oscar and Carlos side by side, as if they were boxers before a fight, with the cake behind them as a trophy.
Carlos buried his face in his hands again.
"I'm going to stay off the internet for a couple of weeks..." he murmured. "Maybe three."
"No, you're not," Lando retorted immediately, with the practical frankness of an experienced advisor and friend. "Because you have a press conference in eight hours."
Carlos snorted.
"Great. Wonderful. Perfect."
Charles leaned forward slightly in his chair, crossing one leg over the other, elegant as if he were attending an international summit.
"Carlos, the situation is this... Prince Oscar's image team has already spoken to us. They're going to issue a statement today at 3 p.m. A… moderate statement." He emphasized the word as if it were the rarest thing in the world. "Oscar won't blame you. He'll say it was an accident, that you were having a friendly conversation and that neither of you noticed the towel caught on your shoe."
Carlos let out a wry laugh.
"Friendly?"
Charles didn't smile.
"Yes. Friendly," he emphasized. "Because that's what the press will have to believe."
"Go on, Charles." Reyes nodded firmly.
The Monegasque took a deep breath, moving on to the next part of the presentation.
"After Oscar's statement, you'll make yours." Charles looked at Carlos, his expression becoming even more serious. "And it needs to be perfectly aligned with his. The audience can't sense any discrepancy."
"And besides, we need to put you two in the same public setting in the coming weeks. Show you together. Show you… well," Lando added, leaning forward.
Carlos raised an eyebrow.
"Together as… what?"
"As friends," Charles replied immediately.
"F-Friends?" Carlos coughed in surprise.
Lando turned the tablet to show another page - an already organized schedule.
"We have some charity events in the next twenty days. A fundraising dinner in Barcelona, a visit to a children's hospital in Melbourne, and a polo match in London. The idea is that you attend at least one of these events together for now."
Carlos blinked.
"Together, like… side by side?"
"That's exactly the idea," Lando clarified, as if it were obvious. "Side by side. Talking. Smiling. Greeting people. Looking like two best childhood friends who reunited after Oscar returned from England."
Carlos let out an almost indignant noise.
"Me and Oscar? Childhood friends? Are you guys delirious?!"
Charles maintained his impeccable posture.
"It's not delusion. It's damage control strategy."
Reyes rested her elbow on the table and touched her chin with her index finger.
"And what about the magazine?" she asked, already knowing part of the answer.
"Ah, yes, the magazine..." Lando slid his finger across the tablet again and opened the proposal. "International Elite Magazine has already offered a double interview. They want a special cover on 'modern diplomatic heirs.' The two of you together, photos in the royal garden, maybe a short walk, a shared coffee, something natural..."
Carlos's eyes widened.
"Natural?! I'll die before I can manage to look natural looking at Oscar's grumpy face."
"Then learn to act," Charles calmly replied.
"I don't know how to act."
"You'll learn," Lando patted his arm. "It's not that hard. Just pretend you don't want to stick his head in a pool of soap bubbles."
"Why a pool of soap bubbles?"
"Because it's photogenic and not too violent, Carlos. Stick to the fantasy!"
Carlos ran a hand over his face, clearly defeated.
"And does Oscar know all this?"
Charles and Lando nodded simultaneously.
"His PR team sent an official message at 9 a.m.," Charles explained. "He's already been informed that you'll need to appear together for the next few weeks. And…" a slight pause. "…he didn't seem happy about it either."
Carlos snorted.
"Good to know that, at least, my suffering is shared."
"He's as angry as you are," Lando admitted, scrolling through messages on his tablet. "But he also knows there's no way out. The Australian press is treating the accident as if you've started World War III with icing."
Reyes raised her hand, imposing order.
"Then it's decided. Carlos will follow this plan. You two," she looked at Charles and Lando, "…coordinate everything with Oscar's team. Schedule the appearances, arrange the events, align the statements." I don't want another inch of this crisis spiraling out of control.
Charles nodded.
"Yes, ma'am."
"I'll send a preliminary schedule now." Lando typed something quickly.
"Great. A shared schedule with my worst enemy. What a dream come true," Carlos grumbled.
Charles tilted his head, crossing his arms.
"Enemy?" he repeated. "Not today, Carlos. Not for the next few months. From now on, you and Oscar are…"
He hesitated, searching for the word.
"Allies." Reyes finished for him.
Carlos took a deep breath and faced the three of them.
"Friends..." he murmured, the word sounding as absurd as it was inevitable.
Lando smiled, satisfied.
"That's it. Friends." And he clapped once, too enthusiastically for Carlos's liking. "Now let's start the hard part, which is making the world believe you're such good friends that you shave each other's balls."
──── ♛ ────
The following week arrived far too quickly for the comfort of anyone involved.
After meetings, video calls, intermittent audio messages, and a tight schedule designed to minimize the damage, the day of the photo shoot and short exclusive interview in Melbourne had arrived - the first major step in the diplomatic operation to transform Carlos Sainz and Oscar Piastri into “close friends.”
Friends.
The word left a bitter taste in both their mouths.
The morning sun was strong, typical of the Australian summer, reflecting off every gleaming surface of the modern facade of the internationally renowned photography studio, located in a glass building in the center of Melbourne.
Reporters were already outside, huddled behind the security barriers, even though neither of them was present yet.
It was only the prelude to chaos.
Carlos was the first to arrive. On his mother's express orders—and also because Charles and Lando had insisted, arguing that "it's important to avoid the competitive aspect of who arrives first."
Carlos thought that was idiotic. But there he was.
He stepped out of the official car wearing sunglasses, an impeccable white shirt, sleeves rolled up, a blazer draped over his forearm. His hair was meticulously styled - not because he had prepared to impress, but because Lando had practically dragged him to a hairdresser in Madrid before they boarded the plane.
The studio staff greeted him with excessive formality.
"Mr. Sainz, welcome. The preparation room is ready. Would you like water, coffee, or tea?"
"Coffee," he replied curtly.
He was led down a wide corridor decorated with minimalist paintings. But nothing could quell the growing unease in his chest. His stomach felt like it had shrunk. The air conditioning was too cold. Something in the room - or perhaps within him - hummed with anticipatory irritation.
Because, any minute now, Oscar would arrive.
And no matter how many times Carlos repeated to himself that it was just work, just politics, just publicity… Something inside him would combust every time he thought about Oscar Piastri's face.
He'll be annoyed. He'll come with that cynical smile. He'll pull some provocation. He'll pretend everything's fine.
Carlos clenched his jaw.
"And I'll have to smile back."
He hated that.
Thirty minutes later, Oscar arrived. And he couldn't have arrived in a less casual way.
Black car, three bodyguards, a foreign advisor, sunglasses, the posture of someone who had rehearsed every inch of his breathing to avoid showing nervousness. He was also wearing white - white shirts seemed to be the diplomatic uniform of the crisis - but his had slightly more formal details, with discreet gold buttons on the sleeves. A burgundy blazer completed the look.
Oscar entered the studio with a heavy, almost tense silence. It wasn't arrogance - not exactly. It was a rigid, almost military self-control, as if every gesture was carefully considered to avoid showing vulnerability.
He greeted the team, the session director, the photographer, all with that polite, sharp smile.
But when he finished, his expression hardened for a millisecond - just long enough for Carlos to notice, even from a distance.
There was no nostalgia.
There was no sympathy.
There was only the inevitable recognition.
As he approached, Oscar removed his sunglasses and tucked them into the inside pocket of his blazer.
It was then that Carlos truly looked at him. And that instant - so small, so quick - seemed to reopen every old fracture between them.
Oscar looked at him as if he had rehearsed neutrality, but the truth slipped out at the edges. The discomfort, the memory of all the idiotic arguments, the clash at the wedding, the cake, the overall humiliation.
Carlos bit the inside of his cheek to suppress the automatic expression that always came when Oscar appeared, a mixture of irritation and… something else he preferred not to name.
Oscar was the first to speak - as always. His voice was low, firm, and overly polite.
"Carlos."
The name came out smoothly, impersonally, almost clinically.
"Your Royal Highness..." Carlos replied.
The tone was the same, cold, controlled - but the silence after their voices seemed to expand throughout the entire studio, seeping into every corner.
The session director, Clara Wang, immediately sensed the atmospheric temperature.
"Okay!" she said with a smile that was too cheerful to be honest. "Let's start with something simple! Individual photos, so you can get used to the environment. Then we'll move on to photos together, okay?"
Oscar nodded. Carlos did too.
But they didn't say anything more to each other.
While Oscar was being prepared first - adjustments to his shirt, lighting, angles - Carlos sat in an armchair, watching from afar.
And as much as he wanted to pretend he wasn't looking, he was.
"More to the left, Prince Oscar. Excellent. Softer gaze. That's it, perfect. Now try a more natural smile…" the photographer requested.
Oscar tried. But there was something stuck there - a discomfort he couldn't completely mask.
Carlos snorted softly.
"He can't even smile if he's faking it," he muttered to himself.
Lando heard.
"Shut up. You can't either."
"What?!" Carlos's eyes widened.
Lando crossed his arms, serious.
"When it's your turn, you'll freeze up just like that. You two are literally the diplomatic version of two soaked cats fighting over territory."
Carlos rolled his eyes.
Oscar, for his part, when he finished taking the photos, walked to a table with bottles of water and picked one up, opening it with exaggerated calm - the kind of calm that only existed to mask anger.
He didn't look at Carlos. But the lack of eye contact was almost a look, as intentional as it was.
When Clara called the two of them to finally stand side by side, the energy shifted instantly.
"Okay, boys! Let's do something light. Just stay close, shoulder to shoulder. Natural and relaxed! Like you're… well, two great friends of long standing!"
Carlos coughed.
Oscar blinked slowly.
"Sure," Oscar said.
"No problem," Carlos added.
But when they stood side by side, nothing seemed natural.
Oscar kept his body rigid, as if touching Carlos would open a tectonic fissure. Carlos, in turn, kept looking anywhere but at Oscar - but always all too aware of their proximity.
"Boys, could you… get a little closer?" Clara sighed.
They took a tiny step.
Not enough.
"More. Please."
Another tiny step.
"Guys, this is a magazine shoot, not a high school dance. Come on! Get together like normal people."
Oscar took a deep breath and, forcing professionalism, moved his shoulder closer to Carlos's.
Carlos almost froze in place.
"That's it!" Clara exclaimed. "Now, Oscar, turn your face a little towards Carlos. That's it. Carlos, look at him too!"
They both turned, but neither smiled.
"You two know what 'friendship' means, right?" The photographer lowered the camera.
Neither answered.
"They know. They just... don't practice." It was Lando who answered, sighing.
After the photos, they were led to a small room with a round table, two glasses of water, and a journalist waiting with a recorder already running.
The interview would be short - just basic questions about the “friendship.” Nothing deep. Nothing political. Just public image. But for them, it was like crossing a minefield.
As soon as they sat down, facing each other, Oscar crossed his hands in his lap.
“We can be professional.” The phrase wasn’t for the journalist. It was for Carlos. “This is just another formality.”
"I know." Carlos answered without looking up. But his foot trembled under the table.
The interview began.
"First question... How did you two meet?"
Oscar opened his mouth.
Carlos did too.
And they both spoke at the same time.
"At a diplomatic event when I was 18-…"
"At an international conference when our family-…"
They both stopped.
Silence.
"You can speak, Carlos." Oscar gestured with his hand.
"No, you speak, Your Highness."
"I insist."
More silence.
"Okay… Next question, then. How would you describe your relationship today?" The journalist smiled as if witnessing a disaster firsthand.
Oscar took a deep breath.
"Harmonious," he lied in a perfect voice.
Carlos almost choked.
"Cooperative," he lied with equal skill.
"And you see each other as friends?"
"Yes," Oscar replied.
"Of course," Carlos replied at the same time.
But neither of them looked the other in the eye.
As soon as the journalist turned off the recorder, gathered his papers, and thanked him, the silence that filled the room was not neutral.
It was dense.
Uncomfortable.
Alive.
Oscar was the first to stand. And as he adjusted his blazer sleeve, he finally looked at Carlos for the first time since he had entered.
There was irritation. There was resentment. There was the ghost of a story that neither of them mentioned aloud.
"You almost ruined everything," Oscar said calmly.
Carlos laughed humorlessly.
"Me? You're the one who tried to control the entire narrative from the very first question."
"Someone had to do it."
"Oh, sure. Because only you know how to handle crises."
Oscar narrowed his eyes.
"I'm not here to fight, Carlos."
"Neither am I," he replied, standing up. "But you always talk like you're above everything!"
"And you always react like you're being attacked!"
Carlos opened his mouth to reply - but Lando entered the room at that second, almost pushing the door open.
"We're done!" he announced, relieved. "Great! No deaths! A miracle! Now let's go to the car before the press-..."
The two were still staring at each other.
The tension between them was palpable.
And far from resolved.
The air hung heavy in the photography studio as Oscar and Carlos stepped through the side door, almost tripping in the harsh glare of the flashes projected from all sides, like small white explosions seemingly destined to blind them, punish them, and record every miserable angle of that supposed “friendship” that their respective PR teams insisted on building.
The security team tried to block the horde of photographers and microphones that advanced with the voracity of hungry vultures, and the shouts were so numerous, overlapping each other, that it became almost impossible to discern a single phrase - although some pierced the chaos like blades:
“PRINCE OSCAR, IS IT TRUE THAT YOU AND CARLOS HAVE BECOME CLOSE AGAIN?”
“CARLOS, HOW WAS IT TO SEE YOUR GREATEST RIVAL AGAIN?”
“IS IT A FRIENDSHIP OR A DIPLOMATIC OBLIGATION?”
Oscar took a deep breath, jaw clenched, body rigid. The feigned haste he displayed was rehearsed. A slight bow of his head, a restrained smile that didn't reveal even a millimeter more than necessary, and steps too quick for someone who was supposedly having fun with Carlos.
Carlos, on the other hand, played the complementary role with improbable mastery. A sly smile, a blasé look, a posture of someone who wanted to appear casual but ended up conveying the same irritation that pulses in someone forced to swallow things they detested.
"Sorry, guys, we can't talk now," Lando announced theatrically, raising his hands as he walked behind the two. "We're late. They both have plans to enjoy the day… together."
The word “together” hung heavily in the air, immediately fueling more flashes, as if each camera had been triggered by a spontaneous electrical discharge.
Max Verstappen, in his perfectly tailored black suit, his impenetrable sunglasses, and with the posture of someone who could take down five men without damaging his expensive watch, cleared a path with almost military efficiency. He discreetly touched Oscar's elbow, guiding him to the car as if programmed to ensure nothing touched the prince without first passing through him.
Carlos noticed. Of course he noticed.
And he always hated what he noticed.
When Oscar got into the back seat of the car assigned to him, Max positioned himself beside him, keeping his body slightly leaned forward to guard the entrance. There was something possessive about the way he made sure the door was securely closed - too possessive for a bodyguard, but all too fitting for someone who had once been accused by the press of “being overly close to his charge.”
Carlos looked away, irritated. It had nothing to do with him, he repeated to himself. Nothing.
The car ride that would take Carlos and Lando to the hotel was filled with a silence so thick it could be packaged and sold.
Neither of them dared say anything. Not a silly joke from Lando. Not a provocative comment from Carlos. Not even an exaggerated sigh.
It was as if everything was suspended - the photo shoot, the false compliments, the carefully calculated touches for the cameras, the interview full of half-truths and diplomatic smiles.
Carlos rested his head against the cold windowpane, watching the city pass by in a melancholy and irritating blur. His muscles were still tense, especially those in his back.
Photographs demanded posture. Precision. Proximity. Too much time near Oscar.
Too much time breathing near Oscar.
Too much time spent remembering things he shouldn't remember.
In the seat next to him, Lando was looking at his phone, opening and closing the same app without realizing it. He was also silent - and that said a lot.
When they arrived at the hotel, Max was the one who opened the car door for them. Yes, Max had gotten out all the way just to take them to the correct location before taking Oscar back to the palace.
It was almost humiliating.
Carlos got out without looking at the security guard, but he could still feel the weight of his gaze following his movements - or maybe it was just paranoia. In any case, he walked quickly to the hotel entrance, his steps too long, too hard, trying to appear self-assured.
Lando thanked Max with an overly friendly wave, as always, before running after Carlos.
"He doesn't bite, you know that, right?" Lando murmured, half-laughing as he waited for the elevator. "You look at Max like he's a vicious dog and you've become a mailman."
"I don't like him," Carlos replied dryly.
"You don't like anyone in the Australian royal family."
Carlos didn't respond. But the statement wasn't entirely untrue.
When they entered the room where they were staying, the soft light from the bedside lamp illuminated only half the space, creating a stark contrast to the chaos outside.
And there was Charles, sitting on the bed, his back against the headboard, the laptop on his lap, the seemingly relevant file flashing on the screen. His glasses were delicately positioned on the tip of his nose - not slipping, but resting there with the naturalness of someone who had already accepted that he needed them, but still preferred to pretend he didn't.
He looked up to watch them enter. A quick glance, first at Carlos, then at Lando, then back at the document.
Or at least he tried to go back to the document. Because the unspoken question was already etched on his face.
Carlos saw it. Even before Charles looked away. Lando saw it too, the smile slowly growing.
"No," Carlos said before either of them could say anything. "Don't start."
Charles adjusted his glasses with his index finger, a small gesture but full of intention.
"I didn't say anything," he replied calmly, but with the corner of his mouth betraying what was to come. "I was just wondering…"
Lando grinned widely, anticipating the next scene.
"...whether Max came to leave Prince Oscar in safety or... to take care of him." Charles crossed one leg over the other, resting the notebook on his thigh.
Carlos closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, as if trying to avoid a breakdown.
"Go fuck yourself, Charles."
Lando burst out laughing. Charles smiled as if he'd won the day.
Carlos, irritated, tired, and with a whole mental knot still dripping down on his dignity, let himself fall into the armchair in the room, running his hands over his face.
──── ♛ ────
The following morning dawned heavy, cloudy, and stifling, as if the city itself sensed the diplomatic obligation hanging over it. The charity event - the visit to Saint Marianne Children's Hospital - had already been announced by the press offices of both governments and had made headlines even before Charles left the hotel and Oscar left the palace.
The headlines were exaggerated, as always.
“Prince Oscar Piastri and Carlos Sainz, friendship reborn in service of Australian children.”
“Former rivals, new allies, prince and junior president make their first joint public appearance.”
“Sainz helps Piastri spread hope in Melbourne.”
Carlos wanted to die reading that last one.
But he didn't have time to complain. Not when Lando practically dragged him to the car, and not when Charles threw an apple at him on the way - and Carlos almost threw it back.
When they arrived at the hospital, there were journalists positioned behind the barriers, but the atmosphere was much less chaotic than during the photo shoot. There was something about that atmosphere - perhaps the white building, perhaps the carefully manicured garden, perhaps the respectful silence - that compelled everyone to behave.
Oscar got out first, accompanied by Max, who observed everything as if every shadow were a threat. The prince quickly ran his fingers through his hair, straightened his light blue blazer that matched the hospital environment, and took a deep breath before crossing the lobby with its automatic doors.
Carlos followed closely behind - not by choice, but because the staff had made it clear they should enter together. Side by side. Like longtime friends.
Friends…
What a joke.
The hospital reception welcomed them with sweet smiles, thanks, flowers, and small balloons. But what really caught Carlos's attention was something he wasn't prepared to see.
Oscar… has changed.
As soon as he stepped through the door of the pediatric ward, the prince ceased to be the well-trained, rehearsed, and diplomatically perfect young audience member that Carlos was accustomed to mocking.
Something in his face softened. His shoulders relaxed. And that glint in his eye - a glint Carlos hadn't seen since the days when they tolerated each other without threatening to bite - lit up in an almost childlike way.
Oscar wasn't acting.
Not there...
He greeted each nurse by name, even without looking at their name tags on their uniforms. He hugged a six-year-old child with genuine care. He sat beside a bald little girl, resting his chin on his hand as she showed him a drawing that was too colorful to be realistic.
“Is that a dragon?” Oscar asked, leaning forward as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world.
“No, it’s my hair when it grows back,” the girl said, smiling with a gap where a tooth should have been.
Oscar smiled back, and Carlos felt a strange knot in his stomach.
A knot he didn’t want to feel.
An irritating knot.
Oscar looked at those children as if he truly cared. As if he had a connection that no one had taught him. As if he had lived through it. As if that hospital was more than just a protocol.
Carlos tried to approach without seeming to, but the truth was he was intensely analyzing the prince.
Oscar seemed completely at ease there.
Almost happy.
And that confused him more than it should have.
"You know…" Lando whispered behind him. "…this is kind of cute to watch."
"Shut up," Carlos replied, but without forcing rudeness. He really didn't know what he was feeling.
To avoid seeming out of place, he crouched down next to another child, a skinny little boy with huge, curious eyes, who was watching him with almost scientific concentration.
"Hey," Carlos said, trying not to sound strange. "Want to see something cool?"
The boy nodded with immediate enthusiasm, and Carlos realized he needed to think fast. Luckily, his mind recalled a ridiculously basic magic trick he'd learned as a child - and which was probably the only useful thing he knew how to do skillfully outside of politics.
He put his hands in front of him, crossed his fingers, and pretended to pull off his own left index finger, holding the tip between the thumb and index finger of his right hand.
"Ah!" the boy's eyes widened, and he put his hands to his mouth.
Carlos pretended to put the finger back in place and moved his hands theatrically.
"There. I have ten fingers again." He opened his hands to show.
The boy started laughing so loudly that it infected the nearest nurse, who also laughed. Then the boy tried to imitate the trick, failing completely, which made Carlos chuckle slightly.
“I didn’t know you had a talent for entertaining children,” Oscar said.
Carlos turned his face slightly. Oscar was standing there, arms crossed, his expression curiously too gentle to be provocation. His hazel eyes were shining - not with insolence, but with something Carlos wasn’t used to seeing in him.
Admiration?
No. It couldn’t be.
“It’s just a silly trick,” Carlos replied, trying to downplay it.
“The children don’t think it’s silly,” Oscar retorted, shrugging. “And I didn’t either.”
That caught him off guard.
For a very brief moment, they stood there - just staring at each other. No hostility. No masks. No cameras.
Carlos quickly looked away, too uncomfortable to sustain it.
“You really like this, don’t you?” he asked, almost without realizing it.
Oscar blinked, as if he hadn’t expected the question.
“This what?”
“The hospital,” Carlos pointed around. "Being... here."
There was a short but meaningful silence.
Oscar looked at the wide windows of the pediatric ward, then at the little girl who was now proudly showing her drawing to Max - who pretended to know how to interpret children's art with all the seriousness of an impeccable bodyguard.
"I've been coming here since I was twelve," Oscar finally replied, his voice low, almost intimate. "My father used to bring me. He said it was… important to remember that not everyone has time. That not everyone has health. And that if I could bring joy to someone, even for five minutes, then it should be used for something."
Carlos swallowed hard.
The sincerity was almost painful in its unexpectedness.
Oscar wasn't acting.
Carlos realized he had no idea how many layers existed within that boy.
The prince then lowered his gaze slightly, fiddling with the button of his own blazer.
"I like being here," he repeated. "Not because I have to like it. But because… it makes sense. It feels good."
Carlos looked away, feeling something strange - uncomfortable, warm, involuntary - growing inside.
He didn't want that. He didn't want to see Oscar that way. He didn't want to feel empathy. And he definitely didn't want old feelings resurfacing.
"Carlos! Prince Oscar!" Lando called from afar, beckoning them to the next room. "You two are going to make us look irresponsible! Let's go!"
Oscar sighed, straightening his blazer once more before walking away towards Lando.
Carlos stood still for a few seconds, watching Oscar walk among the children, crouch down again, make another joke, shake another hand, smile sincerely.
That was disturbing him too much.
That was confusing him too much.
That was too dangerous.
But Carlos couldn't look anywhere else.
Oscar Piastri was not the person he had decided to hate. And for Carlos, this was the beginning of a much bigger problem than the press could have imagined.
He was about to take his first step toward following Oscar and saying something - anything to dispel the strange feeling the prince had left in the air - when the world seemed to crack.
A dry, violent, raw sound.
It didn't sound like an object falling. It didn't sound like a door slamming. It didn't sound like anything a hospital would normally emit.
It sounded like a gunshot.
The entire hospital screamed.
Children, nurses, photographers hiding in corners, even Lando, who was halfway through a sentence with a little girl in pink pajamas, screamed as if a switch had been flipped.
Oscar paled in a way Carlos had never seen before. As if his body had recognized the sound even before his mind - a conditioned, trained, automatic reflex. The kind of reaction one only develops in a military environment. But before Carlos could react, talk, ask, pull him, or even think of grabbing his elbow to guide him back, Max Verstappen was already acting.
The Dutch security guard appeared like a living shadow, too quick, too efficient, too professional. He grabbed Oscar's right arm with enough force to freeze him, and with his other hand, he held Carlos by the forearm.
"Don't speak," Max whispered, his voice too firm to allow any argument.
Carlos never imagined he would obey someone so quickly.
Max dragged them down the hallway, around a corner, pushed open a side door, and found what appeared to be a cleaning supplies room - narrow, crammed, smelling of disinfectant, with coat hangers hanging from it.
"Go in, both of you. Now!"
Oscar went in first, more out of survival instinct than conscious obedience. Carlos followed right behind, but the room was too small, too narrow, too cramped.
Max shoved them inside, practically throwing them, and before Carlos could regain his balance, the door slammed shut - and the sound of the key turning followed immediately.
"Stay there. Don't come out until I get back!"
Max's voice was a warning and an order.
And then… silence. Absolute silence. And it was in that silence that Carlos realized he was lying on top of Oscar.
Completely on top.
The two bodies were pressed against the cold floor, Carlos's leg trapped between Oscar's, one hand flat beside his head and the other between them.
Carlos's face was inches from Oscar's - so close he could see the small freckles hidden by the dim light, the almost imperceptible tremor in his chin, and his rapid breathing.
Oscar was terrified. But not the usual kind of fright; not the childish terror seen in those who have never faced danger.
This was something deeper.
Something old.
Something that stemmed from years at military school that he never spoke of. A trained fear, painstakingly contained, his body too rigid for someone who should have had a cool head.
Carlos, even emotionally drunk from his presence all day, realized immediately that Oscar wasn't reacting like a prince. He was reacting like someone who had heard that sound before.
Carlos opened his mouth to comment - perhaps a joke, perhaps a question, he was still thinking - but Oscar cut him off without saying anything.
"W-Was that… Was that a gunshot?" Oscar whispered softly, almost inaudibly, his breath short. His voice broke at the end of the sentence.
Carlos had never seen Oscar like this.
Never...
The tight air in that room felt trapped in both their lungs.
Carlos swallowed hard - so hard it hurt - and tried not to react to the fact that he could feel Oscar's heart beating too fast under his chest.
"I don't know," Carlos replied, keeping his voice low so as not to seem as affected as he really was. "It could have been something else. It could have just been-..."
"I know that sound," Oscar interrupted him. His brown eyes, wide open, stared into the void as if remembering something Carlos didn't want to imagine. "I… I know that sound."
A dense silence fell between them.
Carlos swallowed hard and instinctively straightened his body, trying to take some of the weight off the prince, but this only brought them closer in another way - their faces now even closer, as if any movement could result in involuntary contact.
Oscar blinked rapidly, almost trembling.
Carlos then realized that the prince wasn't breathing properly.
"Hey…" Carlos whispered, not knowing where he was getting the courage from. "Look at me."
Oscar hesitated.
"Oscar..." he repeated. "Look at me."
Oscar looked. Really looked.
Eye to eye. Short breath. Dilated pupils. That invisible armor that Oscar always carried simply wasn't there.
Carlos slowly raised one hand carefully - not to touch him, but to show that he didn't intend to pressure him or frighten him further.
"Nothing happened," he said softly. "Max locked us in here for a reason. He would never leave you exposed if there was real danger in the hallway. He's checking. We're safe."
Oscar swallowed hard.
Carlos saw. He felt.
For a second, very brief, very dangerous, very intimate… the prince relaxed his hand, which was intertwined in his blazer. Just a little. Just enough to admit that he was, indeed, afraid.
"You… really think so?" Oscar asked, in a whisper that Carlos would never forget.
Carlos took a deep breath.
"I'm sure of it."
Oscar closed his eyes, breathing more slowly for the first time.
Carlos realized his hand was still resting on Oscar's waist, and that their faces were too close for any innocent interpretation. He moved away slightly - enough to break the closeness, but not enough to truly break the tight contact.
"Sorry for falling on top of you," Carlos murmured, trying to inject some normalcy into the claustrophobic situation.
Oscar opened his eyes, still trembling.
"I'd rather this than be left alone outside."
That hit Carlos right in the gut. He didn't answer. He had no answer. There was no possible answer.
Outside, footsteps echoed down the hallway. The same key turned. The door began to open slowly. And Carlos felt Oscar stiffen beneath him again. But this time Carlos pushed his hand into Oscar's chest, holding him down - not by force, but for protection.
The door opened and Max appeared. Serious look. Firm. Attentive.
"It's alright. It wasn't a gunshot," he announced. "Someone dropped a metal cylinder in the sterilization room. The noise echoed down the hallway like a crack. But everything's under control."
Oscar released the breath he had been holding. Carlos did too.
Max stared at them for a second longer than necessary.
"You two can come out now. Slowly," Max said.
Oscar tried to stand up, and Carlos noticed his hands were trembling.
Carlos, without understanding why he was doing it, discreetly held Oscar's forearm firmly, anchoring it.
Oscar looked at him, surprised.
"I promise everything's alright now," Carlos said.
Oscar didn't answer. But he let Carlos help him up.
Max watched.
Carlos knew everything was about to change - not because of a fallen cylinder, but because he had just seen Oscar vulnerable for the first time since he'd known him. And vulnerability was the kind of truth no one could unsee.
Chapter 5: "All pulled from their papers, ripped out as cover up to disguise endearment, as friendly notes..."
Chapter Text
The cold, white light of the hospital corridor seemed more intense now that the shock had passed.
The adrenaline had finally dissipated from Oscar's muscles, and the prince had returned to the impeccably trained manners he had used as armor since childhood - straight back, aligned chin, controlled steps, gentle expression. The inner chaos remained, alive, pulsating, but now wrapped in royal tissue paper, well hidden.
Carlos noticed this change before anyone else.
He didn't know why, but he could always read Oscar even when no one else could - even when he preferred not to read anything.
They all exited together through the automatic doors leading to the hospital's exterior, the humid night air pulling back the sense of reality.
Lando paced back and forth, arms crossed, looking bored, but clearly nervous about everything that had happened. Max walked beside Charles, his hand on his back like a personal bodyguard… or something more possessive. Charles, for his part, was flushed, a mixture of embarrassment, tiredness, and mild irritation.
"Mr. Leclerc, come here," Max pulled the Monegasque man by the elbow with an extremely natural firmness, as if it were an old habit. "You're coming, come on. I want them to check your pulse again. Given what happened, there's no problem checking it."
"Max, for God's sake…" Charles rolled his eyes, but didn't pull his arm back. "I just tripped, I didn't have a heart attack."
"You almost fainted," Max retorted, unperturbed. "And you got dizzy. And you turned pale. And when you turned pale, I got worried. So let's go."
Lando snorted loudly.
"Ah, sure, favoritism. If I fall, Verstappen's security guard tells me to drink water and move on, but if it's Charles… Oh no, if it's Charles, there's a medical escort, a VIP wristband, personalized assistance…"
He was still talking when he noticed that not only Max, but also Carlos had turned their faces towards him at the same time - Max impatiently, Carlos with that look that only he gave Lando.
The one that silenced Lando.
Lando raised his hands.
"Okay, okay, I didn't say anything. I'll stay quiet. I'm going to the car now. Look, I'm going... Really going."
He literally ran to the car.
Max pulled Charles back inside the hospital, muttering something about "being non-negotiable." Charles looked back quickly, as if asking for help, but no one helped - Oscar was too busy trying not to laugh, and Carlos was analyzing every detail of Oscar's expression.
Because now that the shock had passed, the stark truth was showing. Oscar was no longer pale. Nor trembling.
In fact, Oscar was blushing. Subtly, delicately, enough that only someone who had spent too much time paying attention to him would notice.
Carlos swallowed hard, not knowing why that sent a warm shiver down his spine.
He snapped back to reality when he realized Oscar was a few steps ahead, already descending the small flight of stairs that led to the car. The light rain had stopped, but the asphalt still glistened with thin puddles that reflected the yellowish lights of the hospital.
"Oscar." Carlos called him, almost without thinking.
The prince stopped immediately, as if his name were a command. He turned his face over his shoulder, his profile illuminated by the outside lights - it was too beautiful an image for someone Carlos was supposed to dislike.
"Yes?" Oscar asked, his voice too calm, too polite. A transparent disguise for those who knew him.
Carlos descended the steps slowly.
He didn't want to scare Oscar. He didn't want to make things worse. But he also didn't want to pretend he hadn't felt that tightness in his chest when Oscar freaked out, or that he hadn't kept looking at the prince to make sure he was really alright.
He took a deep breath, as if he were about to do something completely illogical.
"I…" he began, the word stuck in his throat. "I know it wasn't the day anyone imagined, and you… you went through a big scare. So…"
Oscar blinked, confused. The slight furrow in the corner of his eyebrows - always so easily wasted in photos - appeared.
Carlos continued, hesitant.
"I'm throwing a New Year's Eve party in Madrid with some friends. A small thing. I mean, not that small. But anyway..." He looked away, feeling silly because he didn't stutter. "If you want to come, I'm... I'm inviting you."
The silence that followed seemed to pull the air from the entire parking lot.
Oscar's eyes widened slightly - not much, never much, just enough to indicate genuine surprise. Surprise and something softer, almost imperceptible, that Carlos couldn't name.
"You're… inviting me to your New Year's Eve party?" Oscar repeated softly, as if still processing it.
Carlos chuckled a short laugh.
"It's not a crime for me to want you to have a good night after… almost scaring me to death, is it?"
Oscar opened his mouth as if to reply, but closed it again. Then he took a deep breath, and that's when the provocation returned - his subtle, dangerous, delicious provocation.
"Are you sure it's not just because you think a prince makes any party better?" Oscar tilted his head slightly, that overly gentle smile that always hid something more.
Carlos tried to look annoyed, but the corner of his mouth betrayed him.
"If I wanted a spectacle, I'd call Ryan Reynolds," he retorted. "He puts on a better show than you."
Oscar lowered his gaze, but not before Carlos saw a faint smile appear - not the practiced smile. The other one. The one that lit up his eyes.
"Maybe I'll go," Oscar said, in that low voice that always seemed to pull Carlos a few steps closer. "If you really want me to be there."
Carlos swallowed hard. Too hard.
"I do," he replied, simply, directly, too genuinely. "Yes, I do."
The car honked, and Lando appeared through the open car door with the patience of a hyperactive gremlin.
"Hey guys, what's up? Are we going to sleep here? Because I honestly don't have a problem, but I don't think you two want to spend the night here arguing about little things…"
Carlos approached and slammed the car door in Lando's face with a single, firm movement.
Oscar laughed.
Carlos lost his breath for a second.
That laugh was worth any future humiliation.
"Shall we go?" Carlos said, opening the back door for Oscar.
"Let's go," the prince replied, entering with impeccable posture but still with that hidden smile at the corner of his mouth.
Carlos went around and got in too, feeling his heart beat faster than it had since… never.
Max and Charles returned through the hospital doors a few minutes later - Max with a closed expression, Charles still with a red face, as irritated as he was embarrassed.
"There," Max grumbled, guiding Charles by the shoulder as if he were a ninety-year-old. "Everything's fine. Normal blood pressure. Normal pulse. Only my ego is wounded."
"My ego is fine, merci," Charles retorted, turning his face away, clearly avoiding looking at Oscar, because Oscar was smiling in a way that was too dangerous for someone so recently frightened. "My pride, perhaps, that you destroyed a little."
Max ignored him. Anyway, he opened the car door with the authority of someone who instinctively took control.
Lando, who had already settled into the driver's seat as if it were a throne, grinned broadly.
"Ah, you're here! You took so long I was already choosing the soundtrack for our ride. I voted for Stray Kids-..."
Max opened the door, grabbed Lando by the collar of his shirt and literally dragged him out of the car.
"Get out."
"Hey!" Lando stumbled, almost falling on the wet asphalt. "I'm a grown man! You can't treat me like this!"
Max was already sitting behind the wheel.
"Get in the back seat before I throw you in there, tied up."
"I think it's unnecessary violence..." Lando grumbled, but obeyed, because when Max spoke like that, even Carlos thought twice about contradicting him.
Oscar, already seated in the back seat, merely observed with an expression of someone trying, unsuccessfully, to appear neutral. Carlos took the seat next to him, Charles got in from the other side - and suddenly the car was filled with crossed tensions, micro-glances, and uncertainties.
Max started the car. Silence fell like a heavy blanket.
Lando, unable to remain quiet for more than seven seconds, reached for the radio, searching for an upbeat station. Three seconds of extremely explicit funk music played.
Max slapped his hand away before the lyrics actually started.
"Ouch, damn it!" Lando complained. "I was trying to lighten the mood! You guys look like you're at a funeral!"
Max didn't answer. He just turned his eyes back to the road.
Lando waited ten seconds. He fiddled again. This time, a radio ad started with: "Have you tried the new gel-..."
Max slapped him again.
"Mate!" Lando shouted, rubbing his hand. "This is torture! I'm just trying to liven up the trip!"
Carlos, even though quiet, had to look away to the window to hide his laughter. Oscar was clearly also trying not to laugh, his shoulders trembling slightly.
"Please, shut up, just for ten minutes… I beg you." Charles had his hand on his face, murmuring.
The city passed by the windows - lights reflecting in puddles, silent buildings, lone cars crossing wide avenues. The drive to the hotel was almost silent, except for the occasional bickering between Lando and Max, Charles's resigned sighs, and the glances Carlos and Oscar exchanged - quick, fleeting, indecipherable.
The car stopped in front of the hotel.
Lando was the first to open the door.
"Finally. I'm free from Verstappen's dictatorship."
"Keep talking and I'll step on your foot before you get out," Max threatened.
Lando shut his mouth immediately.
Carlos got out next, slowly unbuckling his seatbelt, as if he needed to readjust his posture after being too close to Oscar. Charles exited through the other side, still half asleep from exhaustion and stress.
Carlos took two steps to keep up with the two of them.
"Carlos," Oscar's voice came softly, but firmly.
Carlos froze. He turned around.
Oscar was still in the back seat, hotel lights reflecting on his face, creating soft shadows that made his eyes even more intense. He held his cell phone in his hands - the elegant hands of a trained prince, always controlled, always measured.
"You two can go inside," Carlos said automatically to Charles and Lando, without taking his eyes off Oscar.
Lando opened his mouth to retort, but Charles grabbed his arm and pulled him into the hotel lobby with the exhausted expression of someone who simply didn't want to deal with anything else until the next day.
When the automatic door closed behind them, Carlos returned to the open car door.
Oscar picked up his cell phone.
"I realized we're going to have a lot of public events together," he said, with that polite calm that only made Carlos more tense. "And since sometimes we…" he took a deep breath, choosing his words carefully. "…disagree, it would be good to have a direct channel to resolve things before they become bigger problems."
Carlos crossed his arms, moving closer to the door. The distance between them decreased - not enough to be inappropriate, but enough to be noticeable.
"You want my personal number," Carlos said, his voice low.
Oscar nodded.
"I want us to be able to talk directly, without intermediaries. To avoid misunderstandings." A brief smile. "Or to provoke new ones, if necessary."
The subtle provocation hit Carlos like a punch to the gut. He took the phone from Oscar's hands, his fingers brushing against his own - and Oscar didn't flinch. Not even an inch.
Carlos typed his own number slowly. Very slowly.
He was fully aware that Oscar was watching him. That Oscar could feel his breath. That Oscar could hear his racing heart.
When he handed back the phone, he leaned in a little more, until he was at the exact angle where the tension was building between them. His smile was slow, dangerous, and extremely calculated.
"Now that you have my number, just don't complain when I start sending you a bunch of nudes to evaluate," Carlos said in a low, drawn-out voice, almost a whisper.
Oscar blinked. His breath faltered for a split second - a tiny, almost imperceptible moment, but Carlos saw it.
The prince, however, recovered too quickly, perhaps even too quickly for someone unaccustomed to masking emotions. He raised his chin an inch - that small, aristocratic gesture that signified Oscar was trying to maintain control.
"I'll be… honored to evaluate your nudes," Oscar replied, also quietly. "But I promise to be honest. I can be cruel if the photos are bad."
Carlos laughed, muffled, surprised and pleased. Very pleased.
"I can tolerate your cruelty, Your Royal Highness."
Oscar opened his mouth to reply - perhaps to retort, perhaps to provoke, perhaps to say something that would completely break the thin, dangerous line they were walking. But the hotel's automatic door opened, an employee entered, the lighting changed - and Oscar closed his mouth, straightened his posture, and his smile returned to being innocent. Polite. Regal.
"Good night, Carlos," he said, with a perfectly polished nod. "Thank you for today and for your number."
"Good night, Oscar," Carlos replied, making room. He stood still for a full three seconds before finally breathing again.
His phone vibrated in his pocket as he turned and headed for the hotel. It was a message from a new number.
“Waiting for nudes for technical evaluation... - O.P.”
Carlos closed his eyes and laughed. He cursed softly in Spanish snd entered the hotel with his heart beating so fast it felt like it was stealing air from his lungs.
He tried to appear normal.
Normal...
As if his whole body wasn't already vibrating. As if the phone in his pocket wasn't burning against his leg with that provocative message that was too provocative to be innocent.
He took a deep breath. Lifted his chin. Straightened his shoulders. Tried to relax his jaw. And took two steps.
Lando's voice echoed in the lobby like a gunshot.
"My God, finally!" Lando practically ran to him, throwing his arms up. "Mate, you took so long I thought the prince had kidnapped you to give you a lecture on royal etiquette or something... put you in a dark room with books on protocol!"
Charles came behind, silently, firm steps, sharp gaze, his coat falling perfectly over his shoulders. He had the exhausted and skeptical expression of someone who simply didn't buy into nonsense - but he observed everything. Every micro-reaction.
Carlos swallowed hard.
"I just… had to talk to him about something," he replied, simplifying things too much, because if he explained more than that he would start to stutter.
Lando narrowed his eyes.
"Talk about what? About him almost having a heart attack at the hospital? About how you kind of saved his day? About how you two are now kind of, I don't know… like, temporary, hired friends?"
Carlos pinched the bridge of his nose.
"None of that. It was just work. Formalities."
Charles stopped right next to him. And he looked. That clinical, cold, precise look. The look of someone who could perceive even the slightest change in a person's breathing, down to the smallest detail.
"You're red," Charles said softly, as if commenting on an obvious detail.
"I'm not!" Carlos retorted too quickly.
His mistake.
Charles raised an eyebrow, pleased to have found an opening.
"You are."
"It's just… The air is hot."
"It's twenty degrees in here," Charles replied dryly, crossing his arms. "And you just got out of a car with air conditioning."
Carlos opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
Lando grinned like a gremlin.
"Oh, no!" Lando took a step back. "Carlos is blushing, Charles is analyzing, that only means one thing… Drama."
"I'm not blushing!" Carlos groaned.
"You are." Charles.
"You're hiding something," Lando sang, pointing with his hand.
"Lando, for God's sake, shut up," Carlos pleaded.
"Then confess!" Lando insisted, too excited. "What did you do? Give him a goodbye hug? Promise to buy flowers? Invite him to dinner?"
Carlos turned so quickly that Lando choked on his own words.
"No. We only talked about events. And numbers. And work. And…" He stopped. Too long. Too hesitant. Too exposed.
Charles took a half-step back, but only to observe him from a better angle. It was ridiculous how the Monegasque managed to look like an FBI interrogator even with dark circles under his eyes and a crumpled jacket.
"He asked for your number?" Charles asked calmly and deadly. It was so direct, so to the point, that Carlos unfortunately reacted. He didn't say anything. But his eyes widened for half a second.
And that was it.
Charles crossed his arms.
Carlos felt like disappearing into the lobby carpet.
"It wasn't in that sense," he tried to explain, but his voice came out choked.
"In what sense was it?" Charles asked.
"Work-related!" Carlos repeated, too quickly, too desperately. "Like… to coordinate things. Event. Press. Image. That kind of thing."
Charles tilted his head slowly.
"And you believed that?"
Carlos remained silent.
"Carlos... you're smiling." Lando nudged him with his elbow.
He quickly brought his hand to his face.
Charles chuckled subtly, but noticeably. It was the kind of laugh someone makes when they understand everything but decide not to speak - for now.
"Let's go upstairs before Lando asks more stupid questions..." Charles said, heading towards the elevator.
"Hey!" Lando protested. "My questions are great. Scientific. Researched."
"Lando, you think 'researched' means based on TikTok gossip..." Charles retorted, pressing the elevator button.
"Which technically is research," Lando insisted.
Carlos simply followed them.
Trying not to look like his heart was about to leap out of his chest.
The elevator door opened. The three of them stepped inside. The silence fell like a weight.
Carlos went to the back corner, leaning his back against the mirrored wall. Charles stood in the center, his posture impeccable. Lando stood in front, pressing the button for the floor.
When the door closed, the mirror reflected Carlos's face. It was red. Completely messed up.
Charles turned slowly, tilted his head, and crossed his arms - his voice low, analytical, definitive.
"Carlos… You're completely messed up by him."
"I'm not." Carlos choked on air.
"Yes, you are," Charles repeated, without a shadow of a doubt.
Lando nodded vigorously beside him, agreeing like an excited puppy.
"Like, really messed up," Lando added. "Like, 'give me five minutes in the bathroom to breathe' messed up."
Carlos almost fainted.
"I'm not in that state!"
"Then why are you holding your cell phone in your pocket like you're afraid it's going to explode?" Charles asked, pointing with his chin.
Carlos froze. Slowly, with the delicacy of someone handling a ticking time bomb, he looked at his own hand holding his pants pocket.
He dropped the fabric as if it were burning.
"I was just… holding it."
"Was the message very compromising?" Charles asked, now clearly amused.
Carlos closed his eyes.
"It wasn't," he tried to answer.
Charles raised an eyebrow. Lando smiled. Carlos looked away at the elevator ceiling as if it were a place of spiritual salvation.
"Okay…" Lando said, turning to him. "Can we at least tell if it was a cute message or a… naughty one?"
Carlos sighed wearily.
"Lando, for God's sake…"
"It's none of my business," Charles said, turning around again. "But I'll find out anyway."
"How?" Carlos asked, horrified.
"You're terrible at hiding when you like someone." Charles replied so naturally it seemed obvious.
The impact of those words hit Carlos like a bucket of ice water.
Before he could react, the elevator opened with a soft 'ding'. They stepped out.
Carlos was still processing.
"Just don't do anything stupid, Carlos. Again..." Charles walked past him and murmured without looking directly at him.
"Unless it's something fun. Then invite me to watch," Lando added.
"Lando!" Carlos exclaimed.
"What? I want to support my friends!"
They reached the door of the room. Lando opened it with the card.
The room was silent, illuminated by the soft light of the bedside lamp, exactly as they had left it - except that now it was evident, from the way Charles let out a long sigh, that the atmosphere had completely changed.
Carlos closed the door behind him. For a moment he leaned against the door, breathing deeply, trying to regain his composure, trying to stop the idiotic smile from returning, trying to extinguish the absurd heat that had been rising in his chest since Oscar had said he was waiting for the nudes to evaluate them.
Charles watched him from the other side of the room. Lando threw himself onto the bed as if nothing in the world mattered.
His cell phone vibrated again.
Carlos slowly pulled it out of his pocket. A new message from Oscar.
“Don’t drink anything but water after midnight. Let me know when you’re available again so we can plan the next event :)”
Carlos read it. He reread it. And he noticed, very clearly, that there was a discreet smile at the end of the sentence.
Charles raised his head.
"It was him, wasn't it?"
Carlos sighed. Long. Slow. Defeated.
"It was."
Charles nodded.
"I thought so..."
──── ♛ ────
The presidential mansion in Madrid was in absolute frenzy.
Lights were being hung. Boxes were being moved in and out of the hallway. Security guards were coordinating routes. Organizers were checking lists. Staff were carrying tables, sound equipment, bottles of imported champagne, and flower arrangements that had arrived just hours before.
Outside, in the enormous garden behind the house, a gigantic white tent was almost ready - illuminated from within as if it sheltered a piece of the moon.
But Carlos, the host of this party, was locked in his suite's bathroom, staring at his own reflection while running his hands through his freshly dried hair and trying not to look as exhausted as he really was.
It wasn't working.
Not at all.
The trip back from Australia had been a torment. Sleepless nights, insomnia mixed with too many thoughts, too many memories, too many messages saved on his cell phone that he refused to reread - but he did reread them, of course. Every time he could...
He took a deep breath, adjusted the collar of his dress shirt, still open at the chest, and went to the closet to get his blazer. His cell phone vibrated in his pants pocket.
He already knew who it was.
By the way his stomach tightened.
By the way his heart skipped a beat.
He answered even before the second ring.
"Sainz speaking." His voice came out low, hoarse, heavy with weariness.
On the other end, the soft Australian accent sounded almost too intimate.
"Do you always answer like this?" Oscar asked, with a slight irony that was becoming all too evident now that the two had spent enough time together to recognize nuances.
Carlos leaned against the closet door frame, his blazer hanging from his forearm.
"Like what?"
"Like…" Oscar paused briefly, as if searching for the right word. "Like you answered lying in bed with the sheets all messed up."
Carlos closed his eyes for a second.
Great... Exactly the kind of image he didn't need.
"I'm getting ready for the party," he replied, trying to sound more credible than he was.
"Hmm," Oscar murmured, but there was a slight note of provocation, almost a smile. "So my imagination was just… creative."
Carlos bit his lip.
"What did you call to find out about?" he interrupted, because if he let the conversation continue like that he would end up losing track.
"About the time I should arrive, as you suggested," Oscar replied, his voice returning to a composed tone, albeit too soft. "I don't want to cause too much of a commotion at the entrance. Nor turn your event into another press conference about our… friendship."
Carlos heard the hesitation in the last word. And felt something sink in his chest.
"You can stop worrying about that," he said, as he walked to the dressing table where he had spread out perfumes, a watch, cufflinks. "My people will take care of everything." And you enter through the back, with your security guards. No one will see you beforehand.
"Sounds clandestine." Oscar chuckled softly.
Carlos didn't know why that laugh affected him so much.
Perhaps because he rarely heard it. Perhaps because it was too light coming from someone who always seemed to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.
"It's just a precaution," Carlos replied, taking the perfume and spraying it on his neck. "But if you want to enter through the front, strike a pose, wave to the press, I'll let you."
"I'm not going to wave to the press at your party," Oscar said, with a controlled indignation so typical of him. "Unless you want me to."
Carlos laughed. A short, but genuine laugh.
Something relaxed between his shoulders.
"I want you to come without causing chaos. That's already asking too much."
"Then I'll make 'not causing chaos' my New Year's resolution," Oscar replied. "Although it's highly unlikely."
Carlos dropped the perfume on the counter. He rubbed his face with both hands.
The call was lasting too long. It was too intimate. Too natural. Too dangerous.
He'd spent a week pretending to be the prince's friend. Posing for photos. Giving interviews. Going through an episode in the hospital that he still hadn't been able to erase from his mind. A trembling prince. Real fear. His breath failing.
Carlos holding him. Oscar gripping his arm as if it were the only solid thing in the world. And Max locking them both inside a tiny closet.
Just remembering it sent a shiver down Carlos's spine.
He cleared his throat.
"About your arrival," he said, trying to get back to the main subject before his mind betrayed him. "It would be best if you arrived… say, half an hour before midnight."
On the other end of the line there was silence for a few seconds.
Oscar was processing.
"Half an hour before?" he finally asked.
"Yes." Carlos turned his back to the mirror, walking to the window. The tent lights shone brightly outside. "That way you avoid all the speeches. And the toasts. And my mother asking if you're eating properly. You know how she gets with visitors."
Oscar gave a light, almost amused sigh.
"Your mother likes me a lot, Carlos."
"Too much," he replied, pulling the curtain back with two fingers. "She'll think I invited you because we're really friends."
Oscar didn't answer.
The silence became different. Denser. More thoughtful.
Carlos noticed.
He turned slowly, leaned against the wall, and let his head lightly bump against it, his eyes closed for a moment.
"Oscar?" His voice came out low.
The phone buzzed, and the reply came slowly.
"We're fake friends, but…" the sentence stopped halfway through. "…it doesn't have to seem so hard to believe."
Carlos opened his eyes.
Something warm, uncomfortable, and strange slid across his chest. It tightened.
The silence continued, but now both were fully aware of it.
Oscar was the first to break it.
"Anyway…" he said, his tone too decisive to be natural. "About arriving half an hour before midnight… I just wanted to know if you'll be available. I mean… if you'll be free to see me."
Carlos blinked. Slowly.
"Do you want me to go to the entrance when you arrive?"
"Yes," Oscar replied bluntly. "I don't want to go alone into a place that isn't my natural habitat."
Carlos was so quiet that even his own heart seemed to fall silent. For several seconds. Then he swallowed hard.
"I'll be there."
"Great," Oscar replied, but his voice came out a little lower. "Then I'll come at… 11:30."
"11:30 is perfect."
"Carlos…" Oscar called again, out of nowhere.
"Hmm?" Carlos closed his eyes.
"Are you… okay?"
The question hit so deep, so unexpectedly, that Carlos needed a second to answer.
"I'm fine."
"Are you sure?" Oscar insisted. "You've been… strange since you got back from Melbourne."
Carlos gave a short, incredulous laugh.
"You think I'm strange? Look who's talking."
Oscar sighed, but seemed to be smiling.
"I don't know what you mean."
"Oh, yes you do."
Oscar remained silent.
Carlos too.
They both breathed the same way without realizing it - marked, tense, as if the conversation had become more intimate than it should have.
"Oscar," Carlos finally said, his voice lower than it should have been, more sincere than he wanted to be. "We'll talk more when you get here. Okay?"
There was a sigh on the other end.
"Okay."
"Good luck tidying up at the hotel. Don't let anything explode."
"Too late," Oscar replied. "Hattie just dropped a whole tray of glasses."
Carlos laughed.
"Of course she did."
"See you later, Carlos."
"See you, Oscar."
He hung up. He stood there, phone still in hand, staring at his own reflection in the mirror.
His face was hot. His breath was caught in his chest. And the New Year's party he always loved organizing now seemed… small, discreet, insignificant compared to what was to come at 11:30.
Carlos exhaled. Slowly.
His bedroom door swung open without ceremony—and only one person in the world could do that in that house without being immediately murdered by him.
"Carlos, are you going to be long?" Charles entered without looking back, pushing the door open with his shoulder, as if it were his room too. "The tent is already full, the DJ's here, Lando's almost starting a fight with one of the bartenders because they said he doesn't look of age…"
Carlos blinked slowly.
"Have you lost the ability to knock?"
"No," Charles replied, throwing himself without hesitation into the armchair near the window. "I just decided that your privacy tonight doesn't exist. I'm too nervous to deal with formalities."
Carlos stared at him.
Charles looked impeccable - light blue sweater, hair combed and carefully tousled at the same time, that expensive cologne he always wore making the room's air more elegant than it should be. But his face betrayed something else… worry.
He held up a white, elegant envelope bearing the golden presidential coat of arms.
"A message from Madam President," he announced, waving the envelope in the air as if it were toxic. "She asked me to give this to you before you set fire to some part of the party."
Carlos closed his eyes.
"Wonderful..." he muttered, going over to Charles and taking the envelope reluctantly.
"There's more," Charles pointed, raising his eyebrows with pure irony. "She also asked me to remind you that the diplomatic tragedy you caused at Crown Prince Liam's wedding is enough, so you're not to drink too much tonight. Her words, not mine."
Carlos felt his face immediately flush.
"I didn't drink too much at Liam's wedding."
"Carlos," Charles interrupted, lowering the tablet onto his lap and looking at him with that indulgent yet judgmental gaze. "You literally fell on top of an entire cake."
"Oscar fell on top of me and knocked us over!"
"You pulled Oscar, actually," Charles corrected, raising a finger in the air. "And then you fell. On top of the cake. And dragged it with you. And destroyed half the table. And lay there covered in frosting while thirty cameras flashed in sequence."
Carlos groaned.
"Damn it, Charles…"
"I know." Charles sighed dramatically, as if suffering alongside his friend. "I still wake up in the middle of the night remembering the smell of that cake."
Carlos threw the envelope onto the bed and ran a hand through his hair, turning his back for a moment, as if the universe were determined to torture him.
Charles, of course, didn't miss the opportunity.
"And now your mother is worried about the possibility of you causing a social, diplomatic, or literal firestorm at your own New Year's Eve party," he recited naturally. "She specifically asked me to keep an eye on you."
Carlos turned slowly, facing him.
"You already do this."
"Yes, but now it's official." Charles smiled with a slight malice. "I consider this a promotion."
"Promotion for what?" Carlos picked up the blazer from where he had left it lying, putting it on with abrupt movements. "Inspector of chaos? Presidential nanny?"
"I like specialized behavioral supervisor." Charles picked up the tablet that was on the small table beside him and opened something on the screen. "Incidentally, here's the list of risks I prepared for you today…"
Carlos put a hand to his chest, indignant.
"You made a list?"
"Obviously." Charles pointed to the screen, where topics were organized in an absurdly methodical way.
❖ Things Carlos cannot do today: ❖
— provoke reporters;
— provoke diplomats;
— provoke members of the royal family;
— provoke Oscar;
— drink more than two glasses;
— influence Lando to drink more than two glasses;
— give an impromptu interview;
— climb on the table;
— race golf carts with the security guards;
— throw someone into the pool;
— fall;
— trip;
— touch cakes;
— give a dirty look to anyone related to the Australian monarchy.
Carlos tapped the screen with a finger.
"This is stalking."
"This is prevention." Charles locked the tablet with two taps. "My mental health thanks you."
Carlos let out a mocking laugh. But he was nervous.
Charles noticed. Of course he noticed.
"Carlos…" Charles softened his tone, resting his elbows on his knees, observing him with genuine care. "You've been restless ever since you got back. Since Melbourne."
Carlos swallowed hard. He glanced to the side. But Charles wouldn't stop staring.
No judgment. Just presence. It was both irritating and comforting at the same time.
"It's been a complicated week," Carlos grumbled, adjusting the sleeve of his blazer. "Too many things happening. The hospital. The press. Preparing the party. The… agreement."
Charles raised an eyebrow.
"The deal or the Oscar?"
Carlos froze for a second. Then he grimaced.
"Both..."
"Hmm." Charles lifted his chin, pleased with the unintentional honesty. "And does that have anything to do with the fact that you've been blushing ever since I came into the room?"
"I'm not blushing." Carlos snorted.
"Yes, you are." Charles stood up from the armchair, walked over to him, and adjusted his shirt collar with irritating precision. "Either you have a fever... or you were talking to someone who makes you blush."
Carlos didn't answer.
"Did Oscar call?" Charles smiled slightly.
Carlos looked away.
Charles raised his hands.
"Okay. I won't judge. Yet..." He sighed and picked up his tablet again. "The party's already packed. But you need to show up before Lando starts chasing you around the garden with a microphone in his hand."
Carlos' eyes widened.
"He's not going to give a speech before midnight... is he?"
Charles let out a bitter laugh.
"Carlos... he's Lando. If you let him, he'll give two speeches."
Carlos groaned again.
"Let's go," Charles said, reaching for the door. "Before Lando also tries to climb the tent thinking it's a good idea."
Carlos took a deep breath. He adjusted his blazer. He picked up his cell phone. And he followed his friend towards the door.
"Ah… And if you're thinking of drinking too much, remember that Oscar arrives at 11:30." Before leaving, Charles made the casual, but not innocent, comment.
Carlos stopped in his tracks. He turned slowly.
"How do you know what time he'll arrive?"
Charles winked with the most brazen look in history.
"You're predictable, Carlos."
Carlos stood still for a moment, staring into space, his heart racing, his breath caught.
"This is going to end badly," he muttered to himself.
Chapter 6: "It doesn't take a scholar, to know how this one goes..."
Chapter Text
The music was already vibrating on the floor when Carlos crossed the corridor that connected the mansion to the outside area, where the gigantic tent had been set up especially for the night. It was an absurd structure, tall enough for even a small drone to fly inside without hitting the ceiling, with transparent walls that allowed a view of the garden illuminated by hundreds of golden lanterns hanging from the trees.
The Madrid cold that night beat against the plastic surfaces, but inside, the human warmth, the close proximity of bodies, and the constant movement created an almost tropical atmosphere.
The security guards made way when they recognized the presidential heir, but Carlos barely registered it - his thoughts were still contaminated by the entire week he had spent in Australia. A week of constant pretense, social masks, strategically measured dialogues, and, above all, the incident at the hospital.
He no longer knew if he had swallowed more words than he had swallowed coffee during that period. As soon as he returned to Madrid, everything inside him seemed like a distant echo, still vibrating, but weakly, as if he were outside his own body. But there, now, reality was pulling him back forcefully.
When he crossed the main entrance of the tent, a wave of colored lights, perfumed smoke, and electronic music immediately hit him. The beat seemed to synchronize with his chest, as if forcing him to breathe to the rhythm of the party. The space was packed - more than he expected - and the guests already seemed to have moved three spaces on the board between "politely altered" and "completely ready to forget the following night."
As soon as they saw him, his friends came rushing in.
"Carlito!" shouted one of them, someone from the time Carlos did his exchange program, hugging him tightly, patting his back as if trying to resurrect him. "It's about time, damn it!"
Carlos smiled automatically, that practiced, social smile, full of charm and devoid of emotion.
On the other side, a group of acquaintances from politics - children of congressmen, advisors too young to be at that level of influence and too old to still be behaving like university students - waved exaggeratedly at him, calling him with raised glasses.
"Carlos! We have to introduce you to the new cultural ambassador of France. Sensational guy, he disappeared with three glasses of champagne in ten minutes!"
He waved back, but kept walking, without stopping. Not now. Not before finding Oscar.
The next group were his party friends. The ones who really knew him. The ones who knew when his posture changed, when his shoulders slumped, when he desperately needed a distraction. They didn't ask anything. They just hugged him, greeted him, and let him pass, as if instinctively knowing Carlos was there, but wasn't.
He pushed through all of that until he finally saw who he was looking for.
Lando was leaning against the makeshift counter of one of the tent's bars, arms outstretched on either side, as if he had decided to dominate the territory, and arguing animatedly with the bartender. Or, more specifically, trying to convince the man to serve him four drinks at once.
“Mate, I just need you to trust me!” Lando said, gesturing broadly. “I swear I can balance four glasses in one hand!”
“You can’t even balance your own body, Norris,” the bartender retorted, laughing as he looked around, clearly noticing Carlos approaching. “And I’m not quitting tonight.”
Lando turned around when he felt the murmur behind him, and a smile automatically lit up his face.
“Carlos! Finally!” He raised his hand for a high five, but Carlos went straight for a quick, firm hug, almost grateful for the familiarity. “You disappeared, mate. It seemed like you were hiding in a bunker.”
“Something like that,” Carlos replied, but without any weight in his voice. He didn’t even realize how much he was masking. “Did you manage to miss my party before it even started?”
“Not yet, but I’m working on it,” Lando said, turning to the bartender. “Brother, three… no, just make four gin and tonics.” Two for me, one for the future president over there, and another for the troublesome assistant.
Carlos frowned.
"Troublesome assistant?"
Lando just raised his chin, discreetly pointing behind Carlos.
Carlos turned around.
Charles was approaching down the aisle between the tables, with that naturally elegant gait - because, obviously, Charles had found some handsome waiter hidden along the way and had already started the night before even reaching the group.
The colored lighting highlighted the contour of his jaw, and, for a fleeting second, Carlos noticed something in the way Charles looked at him - it wasn't judgment, it wasn't pity, but something attentive. Observant... A slight arching of his eyebrows when his eyes passed over his posture, as if Carlos were carrying more weight on his face than he thought.
Charles arrived beside them.
"I have a feeling I'm arriving too late for the mess."
"You're arriving just in time," Lando replied, handing over one of the glasses the bartender was finally preparing. "Now the wonder trio is complete!"
"This doesn't improve your reputation at all," the bartender muttered as he served. "The three of you together are synonymous with trouble."
Carlos took his glass.
Charles took his.
The music got louder. Dramatically. The DJ switched to a heavier beat, a synth-heavy remix that vibrated across the tent floor and elicited cheers of approval from the crowd. Lights illuminated the top of the structure, forming white, pink, and gold rays that swept across the dance floor like blades.
Lando immediately waved his glass, rotating his wrist to the rhythm.
"It's now, gentlemen! First official round of the last night of the year!" he proclaimed, before downing half a glass in one gulp.
Carlos tried to laugh - and even managed a little. But the weight of the week still hung in his neck, as if he were overly conscious of his own breathing.
Charles noticed. He said nothing. He just stepped closer, like someone offering support without announcing it. His eyes followed the slow movement of Carlos's fingers pressing the glass, then returned to his face, reading, interpreting, understanding without intruding.
Carlos looked away. Just for a second. But Charles remained there, subtle, silent, a steady presence against which Carlos could lean without admitting he needed to.
"Hey," Charles said, low enough for only Carlos to hear, "Are you alright?"
The music was too loud to allow for elaborate answers. Perhaps that's why Carlos managed to be honest.
"Not yet. But I will be!"
Charles nodded. That was all. No drama, no pressure, no trying to get more out of him.
"Let's toast to the new year before I get sentimental!" Lando raised his glass again, laughing.
"Please, no!" said Charles, finally smiling.
"No sentimentality," added Carlos. "Just problems!"
The three raised their glasses at the same time. The crystal clinked.
The party seemed about to explode.
"On to the problems, then!" Lando declared, completely satisfied.
"And to the bad decisions!" added Charles.
"Those always come first!" said Carlos, before downing his glass. It was the first sip of the night.
Carlos didn't know exactly when the music had become so loud that each frequency seemed to pierce through the fabric of his jacket and vibrate against his skin.
The party was already in one of those fluid stages where nobody walked anymore - people glided, spilling from one group to another, in laughter that mingled with the aroma of imported perfumes, dry ice smoke, and the human warmth accumulated under the gigantic tent.
He, Charles, and Lando had spent at least half an hour surrounded by friends - too familiar to ignore, intimate enough to be inconvenient - and Carlos even tried to relax. Really. He tried to let the music sink in, to let the artificiality of the party numb him a little. He tried to pretend he wasn't counting down the minutes to something he couldn't name.
But it was no use.
And, little by little, the group dispersed. Someone dragged Lando onto the dance floor; another person pulled Carlos aside to introduce him to a music producer from Ibiza; and Charles… Carlos noticed Charles before he noticed anything else. Not because he was looking directly at him - but because something in the atmosphere around him changed. The kind of change that happens when someone important moves into the environment, when the energy reconfigures itself.
Gradually, he caught it in his peripheral vision. Charles was dancing. With someone. With someone very familiar.
Carlos turned more openly - even if only for a second - and recognized the figure immediately.
Pierre Gasly... Elegant, dressed in black, easy smile, body leaning towards Charles's as the two moved in a synchronicity that hadn't been rehearsed, but seemed natural, organic, comfortable. Pierre was whispering something in Charles's ear - and Charles, of course, leaned in slightly to listen, smiling with that soft curve of his mouth, a playful glint in his eyes.
That unsettled Carlos.
Not in an obvious way. It wasn't jealousy. It wasn't irritation. It was… tension. A dull unease. Something that gently poked at his recent memory, because in the second list of rules the Monegasque showed him after the first, Charles had made it very clear about no flirting with strangers. No getting involved with someone you know will complicate your life later. No repeating behaviors that hurt yourself.
And yet… there he was. Laughing. Dancing. Touching Pierre's arm in a gesture that would go unnoticed by anyone but Carlos - who, for reasons he preferred not to admit, was paying far too much attention.
"He's alright, mate!" Lando murmured beside him, as if he'd read his thoughts. "Charles deserves to have some fun!"
Carlos didn't answer. Because, at that moment, he realized something even more relevant... the time.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out his cell phone, and the screen flashed violently, illuminating his face in an almost theatrical way.
11:27 PM.
His heart rate changed.
That was it. The moment was approaching.
Lando immediately noticed the change in the air beside him and frowned.
"Going somewhere?" he asked, already holding his eighth drink of the night.
"I just need…" Carlos began, but didn't finish. "I'll be right back!"
He didn't wait for an answer. He didn't even look back. He simply walked away.
Behind him, the party continued - explosive, euphoric, hot - but Carlos walked as if he were crossing a silent corridor, a tunnel of lights, sounds, and bodies that didn't touch him. People moved, waved, pulled him by the arm, asked for photos, greetings, social favors - but he escaped them all with an automatic, almost mechanical politeness.
With each step toward the back of the tent, the air grew a little colder. The lights dimmed. The rhythm of the music vibrated more distantly. It was like returning to the surface after being underwater for too long.
Up ahead, near the service entrance - where almost no guest dared approach - was the discreet exit leading to the side garden.
Carlos slowed his pace as he approached, mainly because his breathing seemed shorter. It wasn't anxiety - or perhaps it was, but he didn't want to label it. It was anticipation.
He knew Oscar was coming. He knew Oscar would be there.
He knew that with him would be people Carlos, honestly, wasn't prepared to see again after the week he'd had.
Further ahead, he saw two security guards positioned. They weren't his. They weren't his mother's. And that confirmed everything.
He adjusted his clothes, took a deep breath, and pushed aside the heavy tarp that served as an improvised door. The cold night air hit him immediately - and the silence outside seemed like another world, more real, more raw.
He took a few steps. And then he saw him.
Oscar Piastri.
The youngest prince of Australia stood there, beneath one of the suspended lanterns, his suit impeccably tailored, his hair styled almost indecently beautifully, his hands in his pockets as he spoke quietly to his sister, Hattie - who wore a silver sequined dress that reflected the light as if made of liquid water.
Beside them, motionless as a statue and yet absurdly imposing, stood Max, the bodyguard.
Oscar looked up when he heard footsteps. And then his eyes met Carlos's.
Everything inside Carlos's body tensed. As always. As in the last few weeks. Like in the hospital. Like when they were little. Like all the times Carlos pretended not to feel anything.
Oscar smiled a small, controlled smile, but one that, to Carlos, always seemed bigger than it should be.
Hattie turned too, and waved excitedly. And Max just watched - vigilant, impassive, but recognizing Carlos with that minimal nod of someone who knows exactly who matters and when.
Carlos stopped a few steps away.
The moon illuminated the side of Oscar's face, drawing a pale line on his jawline. His eyes seemed darker brown in the dim light, but there was a lively flame in them.
"You're late," Oscar said, his voice low, heavy with that slightly drawling accent that always stirred Carlos.
Carlos opened his mouth to reply. But nothing came out. Because, for the first time that night, the party had completely vanished.
Oscar was the first to break the silence that had formed between them - a silence that, to anyone else, might seem like just a brief moment between acquaintances, but to Carlos it had weight, texture, memory.
Oscar's eyes - which at that moment were more serious than irritated - scanned Carlos from head to toe as if trying to assess something he himself didn't understand. And then, with a short exhalation, almost childlike in its exasperation, he rolled his eyes in a way that was as theatrical as it was restrained.
It was the perfect reaction.
Familiar. Irritating. Comforting.
Typical of Oscar.
"Please, Carlos. Don't start," he said, passing Carlos without even waiting for a response. "If we're going in together, then let's go in quickly. It's almost midnight, and I don't want to stand here in the cold waiting for you to remember how human speech works."
Carlos blinked. He breathed. And smiled - though he tried to hide it. Oscar didn't see it. Or perhaps he did see it and pretended not to.
Hattie chuckled softly at her brother's teasing, adjusting the thin tiara in her hair before walking lightly behind him. Max made a quick gesture for everyone to go inside, but maintained a clinical gaze, sweeping the surrounding darkness with military attention.
And then they entered the tent.
The immediate change in temperature - from the biting cold of the garden to the stifling heat, filled with warm lights and pulsating music - almost made Carlos blink. Waves of scent - perfume, drinks, flowers, sweat, dry ice smoke - hit him like a sensory wall. But nothing - absolutely nothing - was as immediate as the collective reaction.
As soon as Oscar crossed the threshold, the party erupted in a vibrant wave of sounds. A mixture of surprise, joy, shock, and excitement swept through the space like lightning.
People pointed. They shouted. They waved frantically. Some ran toward them until Max subtly positioned himself almost invisibly, yet efficiently, blocking any unauthorized approach.
Oscar seemed accustomed to it.
He smiled politely at some, raised his hand in a discreet wave, but his face was firm - the kind of firmness that came from years of training to maintain composure in public, even when tired, even when irritated, even when uncomfortable.
Hattie, on the other hand, seemed born for this. Radiant, animated, absorbing the energy of the party as if it were pure fuel.
Lando noticed her presence before anyone else. He literally appeared in front of them like a human rocket.
"Hattie Pattie!" he shouted, so excited he almost tripped over his own enthusiasm. "I knew you were coming! I mean, I expected it! I mean, I was 99% sure, but that 1% was killing me!"
Hattie's smile was so big and spontaneous that it even made Carlos wonder when, exactly, it had started between them.
"Lando!" she exclaimed, holding his hands. "I won't lie, I was also curious to see if you'd be as excited as you said on the phone!"
"Said?" Carlos murmured, his eyes narrowing dangerously.
Lando ignored her. Or pretended to ignore her. He was already pulling Hattie by the hand, leading her straight to the dance floor as if the whole world had disappeared. And she went. Without resistance. Without hesitation. As if it were exactly where she wanted to be.
Carlos opened his mouth to say something, but Oscar walked past him, brushing his shoulder lightly - completely unintentionally, or perhaps not so unintentionally.
"If you're going to ruin this for her, I'll drop another cake on you."
Carlos choked on air, surprised by the reminder, as casual as it was threatening.
"I didn't even say anything!" he protested.
"Yet," Oscar replied, stepping deeper into the tent.
Carlos sighed, threw his head back for a moment, and then followed him, trying to ignore the absurd feeling that Oscar always managed to completely throw him off balance with just three words and a passive-aggressive threat.
On the other side of the tent, Max had already discreetly positioned himself on one of the sides - his posture rigid, but not uncomfortable, like someone accustomed to being the silent guardian of a valuable piece.
He didn't dance, he didn't drink, he didn't relax. He simply observed. He observed everything.
It was then that his eyes—sharp as blades—found something in the crowd.
Or rather, someone.
Max narrowed his gaze.
Charles.
The Monegasque was leaning against the makeshift bar, laughing at something the young man next to him had just said. That young man had the exaggerated smile of someone already drunk enough to think he had a chance.
Charles, however… Charles seemed to be genuinely enjoying himself.
His smile was relaxed, his head tilted slightly back when he laughed, his fingers touched the young man's arm naturally - not deliberate seduction, but a slight, almost curious openness.
And Max watched.
Firm. Attentive. Impassive.
But his eyes, for a fraction of a second - just one - seemed distinctly irritated. Or worried. Or… jealous?
The party inside the tent seemed to take on a life of its own as the minutes ticked by, as if the air were charged with some invisible electrical energy - a mixture of loud music, alcohol, expensive perfume, sweat, laughter, and the constant murmur of hundreds of people celebrating the imminent arrival of the new year.
Oscar had entered determined not to overthink. Not about Carlos. Not about the party. Not about Max and Charles exchanging enigmatic glances. Not about the fact that he was in a tent in the middle of Madrid, surrounded by strangers who murmured his name as if by magic.
But that didn't last long.
Because Carlos was there. And Carlos, with his hair tousled by the heat, his easy smile fueled by alcohol, and his body that seemed to effortlessly fill the entire space, was impossible to ignore.
Oscar tried. He swears he tried.
He danced politely - first with two young diplomats who recognized him, then alone while Hattie laughed and tried to teach him steps he clearly didn't know, and then with Hattie herself, who twirled him around like a rag doll.
Then he danced with some girls who pulled his hand too impulsively, so he stepped back, laughed, apologized, and went back to Carlos. Not on purpose - never on purpose - but because the dance floor was a living organism and everyone moved like waves.
Every time Oscar realized it, there was Carlos… Nearby.
Never too close. But close enough for Oscar to feel.
The warmth. The presence. The smell. The tension.
They orbited each other like two irritated satellites pretending not to notice the gravity pulling them.
It was ridiculous… And enchanting.
At one particular moment - perhaps the most irritating of the night for Oscar so far - Charles reappeared on the dance floor.
With his sweater disheveled, his hair messy, his cheeks flushed with alcohol, and his smile beaming, Charles looked exactly like the kind of person who causes a stir wherever he goes. And he did.
Oscar noticed Max's change immediately. Max was a few feet away, talking to another security guard, but he couldn't take his eyes off Charles. His gaze impassive, but clearly… engaged. His body rigid. His jaw clenched for a second.
Oscar had the strange feeling that this tension wasn't his concern - and yet it was entirely his.
"Come dance with me, Your Highness. I'm sure you won't step on me as much as Lando did!" Charles, seeing the opportunity, took Oscar's hand.
Oscar laughed, because Charles made him laugh, and let himself go for a few minutes, trying to focus on the rhythm, the lights, the moment. But it was only during a spin, when Charles pushed him back to the center of the circle, that Oscar looked at Carlos. Carlos looked at Oscar. And the world - or at least the music - seemed to shrink for a moment.
Carlos was leaning against one of the columns supporting the tent's roof, with a model's body practically pressed against his. Her arms were around his neck, her hands playing with his shirt collar, her perfume so strong that Oscar felt imaginary nausea.
Carlos was smiling. But was it his smile? Or the smile of alcohol? Or the automatic smile he used when he wanted to distance himself from his own feelings?
Oscar didn't know.
What he knew was that Carlos's face was tilted, his nose almost touching the woman's neck, while his eyes - dark, heavy, unsteady - were fixed on Oscar.
Direct. Firm. Inescapable.
Oscar held his breath.
Charles stopped dancing, noticing the change. But Carlos didn't look away. Not for a second.
It seemed like a provocation. But there was something more. Something deeper. Something Oscar didn't want to analyze there. Not at that party. Not at that moment when everything was too hot, too confusing, too bright.
Oscar could have broken eye contact. But he couldn't. Until, by luck or misfortune, Lando went up on stage.
Lando was visibly drunk. Visibly excited. Visibly about to do something stupid.
He grabbed the DJ's microphone with the nonchalance of someone who grew up meddling where they shouldn't.
"Everyone!" he shouted, and the tent vibrated. "Attention! Attention! Anyone who has a flirtation, a fling, a crush, a midnight kiss, get ready! It's almost over! Don't miss out on the love of your life, okay?!"
Hattie clapped, laughing, and climbed onto the stage to try and prevent the disaster. She couldn't. Lando hugged Hattie around the waist and shouted the countdown.
"Ten!"
Everyone repeated.
"Nine!"
Oscar looked at Hattie and felt his chest warm at seeing her so happy.
"Eight!"
Carlos remained leaning against the column. The model was still clinging to him.
"Seven!"
Carlos looked at Oscar once more. Oscar swallowed hard.
"Six!"
Charles was pulled away by a stranger. Max took a step towards the stage, almost instinctively.
"Five!"
Oscar's heart pounded.
"Four!"
The music faded into the background.
"Three!"
Carlos ran his hand along the model's waist.
"Two!"
Oscar felt a pang inside him.
"One!"
"HAPPY NEW YEAR!" they all shouted, and the explosion of noise was deafening.
Hattie and Lando kissed as if the world were about to end.
Charles smiled, blushing, when a boy tugged at his shirt and kissed him too.
Carlos was approached by two women at the same time - perhaps models, perhaps just enthusiastic guests - who tugged at his shirt, laughing loudly, and kissed him with the same triumphant intensity seen in movies.
And he responded.
Without hesitation. Without thinking. Without looking at Oscar.
But Oscar looked. And felt something break.
Not an explosion. Nothing dramatic. Just a crack. Small. Internal. Deep. The kind of pain that doesn't show on your face - but you feel it in your stomach.
Oscar blinked rapidly, trying to push away the burning sensation that threatened to rise to his throat. He tried to smile. He tried to convince himself that none of this mattered. But he failed miserably.
The air in the tent grew heavy. The lights were too bright. The sound too loud. The bodies moving too fast. And then, without thinking, Oscar turned away.
He simply turned and left.
His chest ached - with frustration, with anger, with something he wasn't ready to acknowledge. He pulled back the curtain separating the tent from the garden and breathed in the cold Madrid night air as if he'd been deprived of oxygen inside. He closed his eyes. And for a second… he allowed himself to feel.
On the other side of the tent, Carlos lifted his head from the second woman's mouth. And finally realized that Oscar was no longer there.
Carlos's body was too hot and his head too light to make sensible decisions, but even so, he managed to excuse himself - with a somewhat dirty and lazy smile - to the woman who was pulling him by the collar again. The music blasted from the speakers, the bass vibrating in his chest, and the crowd looked like a colorful blur of purple and gold lights as he walked away.
"We'll talk later," he said, using the automatic charm that always worked, even though, at that moment, he was thinking about everything but her.
He needed air. Or maybe he just needed to see someone else.
In the corner of the tent, Max was standing there again, rigid, as if he were part of the structure. But his eyes, those always so attentive blue eyes, were fixed in a specific direction. A direction that Carlos didn't even need to follow to know what he would find.
Charles.
Charles being Charles - laughing, leaning against some tall guy with a smug smile, Charles's hand sliding up his shoulder, their mouths meeting as if nothing else in the world mattered. The lights flickered blue for a moment, then pink, and Carlos saw the exact moment Max took a deep breath, almost imperceptibly, his jaw clenching.
But Carlos wasn't there for that. Not today. He took a deep breath, ignoring the little drama unfolding beside the two of them, and stopped in front of Max.
"Where's Oscar?" he asked directly, without beating around the bush.
Max blinked once, as if returning from a distant place, and suddenly his entire posture changed. The distraction vanished. The perfect security guard entered the room. His gaze swept across the tent in seconds - high, attentive, needing only two moments to register that Australia's youngest prince was no longer inside.
"He's not here," Max said, his tone firm, almost professional. "He must have left. I'll look on the left side of the tent. Check the courtyard!"
Carlos nodded and left immediately, ignoring the stifling heat and the music that continued to blast inside. The cold night air hit his face like a bucket of ice water, and for a moment he closed his eyes, trying to reorganize his thoughts.
The mansion's exterior was too quiet compared to the party - distant enough that voices were just echoes. White lanterns hung along the stone paths, illuminating everything with a soft glow.
It was there, a few meters ahead, leaning against the shadow cast by a huge tree, that Carlos saw Oscar, his back to him. His shoulders hunched.
His arms crossed over his chest as if he were trying to hold himself up. Or as if he were cold. Or as if he were trying not to collapse.
Carlos's pace slowed. For a second, he almost turned back. Because Oscar didn't seem like the firm, irritated, sarcastic, and overly composed prince he always was. He seemed small. Lost, just like in the hospital in Australia. And that unsettled Carlos in a way he couldn't name.
"Oscar?" he called slowly, walking until he stopped a few steps away. "Are you alright?"
No answer.
The wind blew, ruffling Oscar's hair, making his jacket move slightly. But he didn't move. Didn't turn. Nothing...
"Did I do something?" Carlos insisted, lower, more carefully than he expected his voice to be. "If I upset you with some shit I did… tell me. Don't be like this."
Oscar let out a laugh so short and humorless it didn't even seem like him.
"You think everything revolves around you, Carlos..." he said, and despite the acidic tone, his voice was low. Almost fragile. "Even when I look at the sky, you think I'm looking at you."
Carlos frowned.
"What?"
Oscar finally moved. Not much - enough to turn only half his face, enough for Carlos to see the strange glint in his eyes. It wasn't alcohol. It wasn't anger. It was something else. Something dangerous. Something Carlos didn't know how to handle.
"I'm saying..." Oscar murmured, his voice a whisper. "...that you're so slow it hurts."
"Slow? Me?" Carlos tried to laugh, but couldn't. "Oscar, for God's sake, say it in a way I understand."
Oscar turned his head and now stared intently at him, with what looked like irritation, frustration.
"Idiot," Oscar whispered.
"What-?"
Carlos didn't finish the sentence.
Oscar simply lunged forward. Not elegantly, not carefully - he lunged forward like someone deliberately throwing themselves off a cliff. Like someone who had already crossed the line and couldn't turn back. His hand gripped Carlos's face too tightly, his fingers hot on his cheeks, and before Carlos could react, think, or breathe, Oscar kissed him.
Oscar's mouth collided with his in a crooked, urgent, desperate kiss, devoid of any technique or logic. It wasn't beautiful. It wasn't gentle. It was impulsive. It was raw.
Carlos froze. For half a second. Only half a second. Because after that, something exploded inside him - as if someone had turned on all the lights that were off at once. His hands automatically went to Oscar's waist, pulling him closer, his body reacting before his head.
But before he could deepen the kiss, before he could show that he was there, that he was responding, that he wanted it, Oscar pulled away. Abruptly. As if he had touched fire.
His eyes were wide, his chest rising and falling rapidly, as if he had just been running.
"I…" Oscar swallowed hard, shaking his head, taking a step back. "I'm sorry."
"Oscar, wait…"
"Forget about it, okay?" he said quickly, still backing away, as if Carlos were radioactive. "Forget it. I… I shouldn't have. It was… it was stupid."
"Oscar…"
Oscar turned his back and hurried away, practically fleeing into the darkness between the tent and the mansion, leaving Carlos standing there. His heart pounding, his mouth hot, his hands still suspended in the air as if his body hadn't understood that the other was already gone.
Carlos took a deep breath. But it was no use. Because he could still taste Oscar. And now nothing in the world seemed to make sense.
Chapter 7: "And historians will call them close friends, besties, roommates, colleagues, anything but lovers..."
Chapter Text
The following days passed like a series of gray mornings. It didn't matter that the Madrid sky was blue, that the sun shone brightly in winter, or that the city was buzzing with excitement at the start of the new year - to Carlos, everything seemed slightly desaturated. As if someone had lowered the saturation of the entire world without warning.
The first thing he did when he woke up on the 1st was grab his cell phone. An automatic reflex. And there it was, no notifications. No replies. No messages. Nothing.
He blinked, trying to rationalize. Oscar was probably busy. Of course. Prince... Full schedule. Royal family. He was one of the most watched people in Australia - it was normal for him to disappear for a few hours.
The problem is that a few hours turned into a day. And then two. And then four... And the silence remained like a wall, growing and oppressive, crushing any attempt by Carlos to pretend that it wasn't driving him crazy.
On the second day, he had begun to try to make contact "lightly." As if it were casual. As if he hadn't been kissed by Oscar under a tree a few days before.
Message 1 — Carlos → Oscar:
"Are you alive?"
No response.
Message 2 — Carlos → Oscar (hours later):
"Sorry for scaring you that night. Can we talk? Or should we ignore it? Anything is fine."
Nothing.
On the third day, Carlos tried to vary his tone.
Message 3 — Carlos → Oscar:
"Oscar, cabrón. For God's sake. Answer me one line. A simple "fuck off" would have helped."
Silence.
That same day, out of desperation and wounded pride, Carlos tried to contact Max.
Carlos → Max:
"I need to talk to Oscar."
Max →
*seen, no reply.*
Which meant Max had read it. Understood it. Chose not to reply.
Wonderful... The bodyguard is more loyal to the prince than he expected, Carlos thought, sinking into the sofa in the makeshift war room he had set up in the presidential mansion's office.
He even tried Hattie, with Lando's help - because he didn't have her number.
Carlos → Lando:
"Text your crush and ask if Oscar's okay."
Lando → Carlos:
"She said she doesn't know where he is. She told me to stop bothering her. She said that if it was important, Oscar would tell me. That's what she said between destroying one of my croissants."
Lando still tried to be funny, but Carlos sensed the tension behind it.
Was Oscar missing even from his own sister? Or was he just avoiding… him?
On the fifth day, he tried to be practical, rational. He sent a message to the Australian royal press office. Something formal, almost clinical, because this was work.
Email — Carlos → Prince Oscar's Communications Team:
Good afternoon, We await an update on the joint strategy for future appearances involving Prince Oscar and Mr. Carlos Sainz, considering what happened at Prince Liam's wedding. We remain available for any alignment meeting. Sincerely…
And when the reply came - an automated and cold line - Carlos's stomach dropped.
Email — Prince Oscar's Communications Team → Carlos:
"At the moment, His Highness has no instructions to transmit or appointments to confirm. We will return your call when appropriate."
That's it.
At that moment, Carlos was certain he was being avoided. Perhaps "cut off."
The worst part was that he had absolutely no idea what to do. Oscar had run away from him as if his mouth had burned. He had disappeared immediately. He wasn't answering anyone. His advisors weren't saying anything.
Carlos could only try to live as if he didn't have a hole in his chest. So, in the following days, he threw himself headlong into the only place where he could hide from himself... work.
His mother's office was crammed with documents, newspaper clippings, statistics, city maps, and graphs that the consultants insisted on printing in A2 size, as if the size of the paper would change the election.
Carlos rested his elbows on the table, massaging the bridge of his nose as he looked for the third time at the paragraph he'd been trying to finish for hours.
The article he'd promised to write - about how to revitalize his mother's image to attract more young voters in Madrid - was only half done, and even then it looked like garbage.
He typed a few words, deleted them. He wrote others, deleted them. He tapped his foot on the floor as if stepping on an invisible accelerator, trying to find a train of thought that wouldn't be interrupted by the same thought that had haunted him since that blessed kiss: "Oscar doesn't want you around. You ruined everything. You don't even know what you feel and you've already ruined everything."
"Concentrate, please," he murmured to himself, reopening the draft. "Young people… Young people want authenticity, less rigid posture, more closeness, colloquial language, and… Mierda, why did I write 'attract' with three t's?"
He erased it again.
He ran his hand forcefully through his hair, knocking some papers to the floor. He let them fall. He didn't have the energy to pick them up.
The clock on the wall showed almost four in the afternoon when he realized he'd been staring at the same sentence for twenty minutes. The text seemed to mock him.
His head throbbed. His neck ached. His chest tightened.
And everything, everything returned to the same point of origin... Oscar under the tree. Oscar trembling. Oscar kissing him as if the world were about to end. Oscar running away before Carlos could even say anything worthwhile.
"Eres un idiota," Carlos whispered, leaning forward until his forehead rested on the table. "I look like a lovesick teenager. A complete idiot."
The phrase echoed through the empty room. And, worse, it was true.
He didn't know what he was feeling. He didn't know why Oscar's silence hurt so much. He didn't know why that awkward, short kiss seemed to repeat in a loop in his head - as if it had been glued to his skin. But he knew that, for the first time in a long time, he couldn't think about absolutely anything else.
Not politics.
Not strategy.
Not his mother's reelection.
No parties.
No nameless models.
No Charles and Max giving each other dirty looks.
Nothing.
Just Oscar... And the deafening silence he left behind.
Carlos took a deep breath, forcing his body to straighten up, trying to return to the text, to real life, to work.
He had tried - really tried - to focus on the work. He forced himself to stare at the same document for almost an hour, rearranging sentences, moving data around, deleting entire paragraphs as if it were possible to reorganize one's own brain simply by editing a text. But it was no use.
Carlos closed his eyes tightly, his fingers pressing against his temples.
"It's no use. It's no use, it's no use, it's no use!" he muttered, pushing the chair back with an irritating creak.
He was more restless than he had been since adolescence, when he awaited the results of a school exam. His whole body seemed to vibrate with a nameless anguish, as if something were constantly out of place inside him.
He needed to talk.
To someone... To anyone but himself.
There was only one person in the world who would be mercilessly honest, who wouldn't be afraid to throw the truth in his face, who wouldn't sugarcoat anything, who would look him straight in the eye and say exactly what Carlos needed - and didn't want - to hear.
Without thinking twice, he stood up, left the computer open, his mother's phone beeping on the table, the half-finished stack of reports. He didn't take his coat, didn't turn off the lights, didn't close the files. He simply grabbed his car keys, pushed the door, and left.
The clock on the wall showed almost six in the afternoon. He didn't call.
He descended the stairs of the presidential mansion as if pursued by his own thoughts. The cold evening air hit his face as he crossed the garden and got into the car. He started the engine abruptly. The music that began playing automatically - some upbeat pop song - irritated him so much that he violently turned off the radio.
The silence became even more deafening.
The road seemed strangely long that day. Or perhaps it was just Carlos driving too fast, trying to escape his own thoughts. Every traffic light, every pedestrian, every light flashing on the dashboard seemed to amplify the unease simmering inside him.
He parked in the visitor's spot of the office building where Charles worked some afternoons, especially when he needed to "breathe away from Lando," as he put it. Or when he needed silence to paint on the upper floor, where he had rented a small studio.
The security guard at the entrance recognized Carlos immediately - it was impossible not to recognize the president's son when he arrived with that somewhat irritated, somewhat lost demeanor.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Sainz," said the man, opening the door without Carlos having to ask. "Mr. Leclerc is in office three, second floor. He arrived about forty minutes ago."
Carlos nodded and entered, thanking him without the slightest conviction. The elevator went up too quickly, as if it were as anxious as he was. And when the doors opened, the sound hit him before he had even taken two steps down the corridor.
Laughter. Conversations. A noisy celebration.
Employees crowded around the large table in the marketing and design studio where Charles worked part-time. Glasses of sparkling wine. A simple square cake on a side counter. Silver balloons with improvised letters. It looked like a last-minute office party.
Carlos frowned. He wasn't in the mood for this. Not at all. But as soon as he crossed the threshold of the space, he saw what he needed to see.
Charles was sitting in the quietest corner of the office, where his personal desk was - the same one that was always full of campaign drafts, forgotten paintbrushes, and a laptop with colorful Formula 1 stickers. He was leaning forward, typing intensely on his notebook, his glasses perched crookedly on the tip of his nose, his hair haphazardly tied back, a posture that said, "Interrupt me and die."
And yet, it was exactly the sight Carlos needed at that moment.
The relief hit him so hard it almost hurt.
He took a few steps inside, passing the employees who were celebrating the large sale of campaign materials to Barcelona - Carlos's mother's reelection was one of the office's biggest projects that quarter, so any goal achieved was treated as a national victory.
"Guys, I told you!" someone laughed near the cake. "I said Barcelona would close the order before Madrid! Now you'll have to admit I was right!"
"Stop arguing and drink!" another replied, already filling more glasses. "This is going to be paid for with official funds, so enjoy!"
Carlos tried to smile politely at those who recognized him, waved to two employees who had worked with him on campaign events, dodged a forced toast with a face that looked like he was about to bite someone - but no one seemed to really notice him. They were all too busy celebrating.
Except for one person.
Charles looked up the exact moment Carlos approached his table. And, in less than a second, he read everything. He read the tiredness, the contained despair, the irritation, the tension in his jaw, the restless way Carlos's fingers moved, which he had been trying to control since the trip to Australia.
Charles froze for half a second, as if adjusting his mental focus. He took off his glasses.
"What happened?" he asked bluntly, without even giving Carlos a chance to lie. "Why do you look like you ran over a dog, crashed the car, and discovered you ruined your grandmother's communion cake all in the same day?"
Carlos closed his eyes for a moment. He took a deep breath. And he discovered that his voice was more shaky than he expected when he finally managed to answer.
"I need to talk to you... Now."
Charles blinked. He put away his laptop. He closed the screen. He pushed his chair back and stood up.
"Then let's go," he said simply.
Carlos exhaled as if he'd been holding his breath for hours, because yes, that was it. He needed someone to grab him by the shoulders and tell him what to do. Someone to put his brain in its place. Someone who wasn't afraid to throw the truth at him like a brick.
And nobody did that better than Charles Leclerc.
"Okay," Carlos murmured. "Okay."
Charles winked at him - one of those sharp, suspicious, and overly intelligent looks. And, before leaving the room, Charles discreetly touched Carlos's arm, a quick but firm gesture that said: "I'm here. Now talk. What did you do this time?"
Carlos swallowed hard.
Because the truth was, he had an answer.
He kissed the Prince of Australia. Or rather - he was kissed. And now he had no idea what to do with it.
Charles climbed the narrow stairs leading to the building's top floor, the floor he alone used and which the rest of the team treated as sacred territory - or more precisely, forbidden territory.
It was a small studio with high ceilings, its large windows catching the late afternoon light and reflecting on the worn wooden floor. It smelled of dried paint, reheated coffee, and a faint hint of some vanilla candle that Charles always lit without realizing it left the room smelling of a French pastry shop.
When they got upstairs, Charles pushed the door open with his shoulder, went in first, and then made a simple gesture with his head.
And Carlos spoke.
But he didn't speak lightly. He didn't start slowly. He didn't breathe beforehand. He exploded.
"I don't know what happened!" he began, pacing back and forth like a trapped animal. "I swear, Charles, I don't know. One minute I was kissing two women at the same time because it was New Year's Eve, the next I was following Oscar outside the tent because he disappeared after seeing that, and then... And then-..."
Charles raised his hand.
"Breathe."
Carlos breathed. Short. Quick. Not enough.
"And then he kissed me!" Carlos blurted out, throwing his hands up in the air. "He kissed me! He grabbed me like, I don't know! Like he was a furious linebacker and I was the ball! I almost fell, Charles! I almost fell!"
Charles stared at him. A silence of a second. Two... And then, very slowly, very calculatedly, he crossed his arms.
"Carlos... You know that the difference between American football and rugby isn't just the grappling, right?"
Carlos blinked, completely lost.
"Charles, this isn't the time to talk about sports."
"Of course it is!" Charles retorted, in that tone of someone on the verge of laughter. "Because from what you're describing, Oscar Pull-astri tackled you completely."
"Piastri," Carlos corrected Charles after his pun, almost begging for patience from the heavens. "And yes! He grabbed me so hard that I felt like, if that were a field, I would have spun at least six meters. He pulled me, kissed me, and then-..."
"He ran away," Charles finished matter-of-factly.
Carlos stopped.
"How do you know?"
Charles gave a half-smile, almost indulgent.
"Carlos, you look like someone who was kissed and dumped in less than five seconds."
Carlos opened his mouth, ready to retort, but stopped. Because… well, he really did.
"It wasn't just that, Charles." He took a deep breath and continued. "The way he pulled me. The way he held my face. The force he used… It seemed like it had been trapped inside him for a long time. As if…"
"As if he'd been holding it in for years," Charles finished, this time without sarcasm.
Carlos squeezed his eyes shut. The sensation of the kiss returned like a tactile memory. Hot, urgent, unexpectedly desperate.
"I never... I never imagined that Oscar, I don't know... liked men. Never! He never, ever gave any hint."
Charles rested his hand on his hip, tilting his hip, that typical movement he makes when he's about to blurt out an inconvenient truth.
"Of course he never gave a hint, Carlos. He's a prince. Princes can't be gay! Not officially. Not publicly. Not in the family. They hide it. It's the rule."
Carlos stopped walking. He exhaled slowly. His heart skipped a beat.
"So…" Carlos began slowly. "You think that…"
His mind pieced things together on its own.
Oscar being sent to military school in England when he was twelve. Oscar staying there until last year. Oscar only appearing in public a few times after that. Oscar always so proper, always neutral, always "polite for the kingdom."
The idea fell on Carlos with the weight of a building.
"You think that's why..." he murmured, his voice hoarse. "You think they sent him to that military school for that reason? To 'fix' him?"
Charles didn't take his eyes off him. The expression on the Monegasque's face was no longer humorous, nor sarcastic, nor lighthearted. It was serious. Deep. Sad.
"Carlos..." he said softly, almost in a whisper. "If there's one thing I've learned from living with rich, powerful, traditional families desperate to maintain their image, it's that when an heir is different, they get rid of them. They hide them. They send them far away. To strict schools. To excellent boarding schools. To programs that swear to build character."
Carlos felt his stomach sink. Like an unexpected, icy plunge.
"My God..." he ran a hand over his face, sitting down in one of the ink-stained chairs in the studio. "That explains everything. Explains why he never talked about London. Why did he only come back last year? Why does he always seem, I don't know… scared when the subject changes to his personal life?"
Charles approached, leaning on the table in front of Carlos.
"And explain why he kissed you like someone who's never been able to kiss a man before."
Carlos slowly raised his head. His chest was tight. His throat was dry. His mind was a mess.
"He never been able..." Carlos repeated, more to himself than to Charles. "He never been able to do that."
Charles nodded quietly.
"And now he kissed you... drunk at midnight, his emotions were overflowing, his heart probably about to explode, and then he panicked. Obviously, he disappeared. He probably doesn't even know if you'll hate him, expose him, or tell someone."
Carlos touched his mouth unconsciously. As if he could still feel Oscar's touch there.
"I…" he took a deep breath. "I would never do that to him."
Charles narrowed his eyes, assessing the situation.
"So you want to talk to him about… what? Guilt? Worry? Interest? Or just because the kiss affected you?"
Carlos remained silent. And that silence was too loud.
"Ah… It affected you." Charles smiled slightly.
Carlos rubbed his face with both hands.
"I don't know what's affecting me more," he admitted. "The kiss or the idea that he lives like this. Hidden. Alone. Unable to be who he is."
Charles sighed. That kind of sigh full of understanding and judgment at the same time.
"You need to talk to him. Seriously… Not as an enemy. Not as a political adversary. Not as part of a charade to clean up your image. You need to talk to him as… a person."
Carlos looked up, certain features solidifying on his face.
"I'll go."
"Great!" Charles replied, taking his glasses back. "Because if you don't go, I'll personally drag you all the way to Australia by your hair."
Carlos let out a short, weak, but genuine laugh.
──── ♛ ────
The meeting had already stretched far beyond what Carlos had the patience to endure that day.
The glass room was vast, too brightly lit for his mood, and the oval table seemed long enough to stretch across the entire country of Catalonia. Around it, advisors, sponsors, and project leaders were scattered in cushioned chairs, all with their tablets open, digital documents gleaming with optimistic forecasts for Reyes' campaign.
Carlos tried to pay attention. He really tried. But each graph, each speech, each projection of voting intentions seemed to pass through the air and hit an invisible wall on his forehead before trickling down to the floor meaninglessly.
It had been like this since New Year's. Since Oscar under the tree. Since that kiss and since the escape.
The mere thought made his stomach clench.
At the head of the table, his mother, the president of Spain, was chatting animatedly with Pascale - Charles's mother, as well as his personal advisor and general campaign coordinator - while pointing to a presentation on the screen. Carlos knew this was supposed to be the part where he took notes, contributed, showed he was present in the real world.
But all he wanted was not to think. Or, at least, to think about something other than Oscar.
He took a deep breath, squeezing the pen between his fingers.
He had decided to leave Oscar alone. To give him space.
Accepting that perhaps it had been an impulse—a mental confusion caused by alcohol, jealousy, or maybe the weight of being himself for the first time. But then his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Just once. Briefly. Like a nudge.
Carlos tried to ignore it.
He failed.
He carefully picked up the phone, hiding it behind his report folder so his mother wouldn't catch it.
When he saw the name in the notification - Charles - his heart raced with a strange sense of alert.
The message was short.
“Go on Twitter and search for ‘Prince Oscar Piastri’. Now.”
That’s all. No emojis, no irony, no context. The kind of message Charles only sent when something very wrong was happening.
A chill ran down Charles’s spine.
He opened the app slowly, with the tense movements of someone about to face a judge’s verdict. Twitter loaded, the timeline updated automatically, and before he could even search for anything, the name Oscar Piastri was already trending.
His heart sank.
He clicked on the topic.
The page opened, and immediately his vision was filled with photographic flashes - paparazzi shots, shaky footage, comments exploding like small wildfires.
It took Carlos a second to understand what he was seeing.
In the center of the photos, Oscar was sitting at an outdoor restaurant table - elegant, discreet, clearly expensive - with a woman across from him. Not a stranger, but a very famous Australian actress, young, beautiful, with a perfume commercial smile.
They were talking. Laughing. They seemed… close.
But that wasn't what paralyzed Carlos.
It was the photos of the actress touching Oscar's hand across the table. The photos of her leaning closer, laughing with her head thrown back. One where Oscar seemed to smile back with a gentle, vulnerable, comfortable look.
His stomach churned. He scrolled. The hashtags were cruel.
"#NewCoupleOfTheYear"
As always, Twitter did what it did best: speculate.
"Finally, a public girlfriend to silence the fandom's daydreams."
"They were such a good match, I really ship them."
"Oscar really needs someone to keep him grounded, not these European messes."
"If they're dating now, imagine what it'll be like after Carlos's mother's election..."
One particular photo took the breath away from Carlos's lungs.
Oscar standing next to a black car, the actress holding his arm while speaking too close to his face. He seemed surprised. Disconcerted. But he didn't move away.
Carlos's throat tightened.
That was it.
That was the reason for the silence. That was the reason Oscar didn't answer him. That was the reason Max didn't say anything. That was the reason no one sent any sign of life.
Oscar was moving on. With someone who made sense. With someone the world expected him to be with.
And the worst part - the part that truly crushed him - was the realization that perhaps Oscar was trying to prove something to himself. To himself, to his family, to the media, and maybe even to Carlos.
Around the table, someone was saying something about numbers from the interior of Andalusia, but Carlos couldn't hear.
The pressure in his chest increased, hot, corrosive, as if the air in the room were evaporating.
He slowly closed the screen, but the images continued to burn beneath his eyelids.
Oscar with the actress. Oscar smiling. Oscar touched. Oscar being seen. Oscar being… normal.
Carlos blinked a few times, trying to shake off the burning in his eyes. He had no right to feel this way. None. Oscar owed him nothing. Not after the kiss and the panic. Not after the silence.
But even so… it hurt. It hurt in an ugly, unexpected, deep way.
A distant murmur caught his attention. He slowly looked up. Pascale was looking at him from across the table with an expression that suggested she had noticed something immediately. His mother was still talking, animatedly, oblivious to everything - but Charles's mother, with that sharp instinct, was already watching Carlos with silent concern.
He cleared his throat, straightening his posture. He tried to appear normal. He tried to appear whole. But his hands trembled slightly under the table, betraying the earthquake raging inside. Slowly, he slid his cell phone back into his jacket pocket and took a deep breath.
Oscar was fine. Oscar was getting on with his life. Oscar didn't want to talk to him. And now Carlos knew exactly why.
He forced his gaze back to the papers on the table. The words looked like blurs. The arrows, scribbles. The world, a distant echo of what truly mattered.
Inside his head, all that remained were those images - Oscar smiling at someone else. And the heavy, suffocating, inevitable certainty that Oscar was only living what was expected of him. And Carlos was just a mistake he wanted to forget.
Carlos closed his eyes for a moment, breathing slowly, as if he could push all the turmoil in his stomach to a remote corner of his mind.
The meeting room continued spinning at its normal pace - presentations, ideas, projections - completely oblivious to the fact that the floor beneath his feet seemed to have cracked a few minutes earlier. He straightened his posture, smoothed the lapel of his blazer as if that could glue him back to reality, and stared at the table in front of him.
He knew he needed to react. He needed to appear professional. He needed to be the president's son, the political strategist, the Carlos Sainz everyone expected to see there. Not the man whose heart had just been ripped from his chest by Twitter's trending topics.
His mother's voice echoed in the distance.
"...so we need to review the plan for this fortnight. Carlos, darling, do you have anything to add?" she asked, turning to him with that expectant glint in her eye, as if he were the anchor of common sense in any room he entered.
That was his cue.
Carlos opened his eyes. And, even though inside he was caught in a whirlwind of shock, jealousy, anger, and a suffocating feeling of abandonment... the expression on his face was one of absolute professionalism.
He leaned forward, clasping his hands and resting his elbows on the table, as he always did when he took control of a topic.
"Actually, yes, I do," he began, his voice low at first, but firm, without trembling. He mentally thanked himself for that. "I've been reviewing the Madrid numbers for the past few months, as we agreed, and I think we can direct our efforts more intelligently than simply investing in the same old strategy."
The room gradually fell silent. Eyes turned to him. Even his mother fell silent, giving her son space.
Carlos continued, trying to keep up the pace, trying to stay focused, trying not to think about Oscar's smile in the photos.
"Young people in Madrid…" he took a deep breath, looking at the screen full of graphs. "They're not disconnected from politics. They're actually fed up. And angry. They feel they're not being heard, especially after the increase in university taxes and the cuts to cultural grants."
Some aides nodded.
Carlos didn't blink. He couldn't blink - because every time he blinked, he saw Oscar at the restaurant table again.
"If we want to win them back, we can't offer more of the same. We need to show that we are aware of the impact these measures have had. My proposal is that we create a parallel campaign, not necessarily to make new promises, but to acknowledge their frustration."
Pascale raised an eyebrow, interested.
Carlos took a deep breath, elaborating.
"My article on this is still in production, but I've already identified some important points in the behavior of young voters. They no longer respond to vertical, formal, institutional communication. They want authenticity. They want to talk to someone who understands what they're going through, not a distant figure on a platform."
As he spoke, he moved his hands, firmly marking the points. The room listened attentively. It was as if the rational part of him took over to prevent the other - the part that just wanted to leave that room, get in the car, and drive until he lost all sense of where he was.
"The central idea..." he continued. "...is to create a multimedia project that combines real testimonies from young people about their difficulties with a vision of how a responsible government can address these needs clearly. It's not about promising everything. It's about showing that we know the mistakes and are willing to correct them."
His mother crossed her arms, analyzing him with that mixed look of pride and scrutiny that only mothers and presidents can have at the same time.
"And how do you intend to do that, mi hijo?" she asked.
Carlos flipped over a sheet of paper, showing the first drafts of the article he had been writing, which were now crumpled because he had squeezed the folder between his fingers without realizing it while checking Twitter's trending topics.
"With a modern approach," he said. "Do we want their attention? Then we need to go where they are. Social media. Podcasts. Live streams. Hybrid events. Young and influential supporters who identify with the message. We need to build a narrative with a face, with a voice, with a soul. Something bigger than PowerPoint graphics!"
"Maybe even with artists and engaged people…" an advisor on the left commented.
Carlos tried not to freeze.
The phrase "engaged people" involuntarily made his mind wander to him. To Oscar. Oscar, who, at that very moment, was being photographed with another person, unintentionally helping the media push the narrative that he was great, happy, uncomplicated, and straight.
He swallowed hard before answering.
"Yes… We can involve public figures who have influence among young people. But it has to be authentic. It has to be someone who truly believes in the proposal, and not just someone who promotes it."
"You talk as if you already have someone in mind." His mother smiled.
Carlos held her gaze, even though a muscle in his eyelid threatened to twitch.
"No," he replied firmly. "I'm just thinking strategically."
It was a lie.
The biggest lie he'd told in weeks.
He couldn't help but imagine how easy, natural… even powerful, it would have been if he'd been able to involve Oscar in the project.
He trusted Oscar. Or he trusted him, until he was left in the dark.
That thought hurt more than he was prepared to admit. But Carlos swallowed the pain and refocused.
"If we do this right..." he said, returning to the papers. "...we can win back a good portion of the young electorate in Madrid before the end of the quarter. They just need to feel like they're part of the process. That they're not being forgotten."
"I like the idea. It's bold, but true. And it's... human." Pascale interjected, crossing her legs.
Carlos nodded, but said nothing. Because, at that moment, the word "human" seemed too ironic to fit well within him. It was human to want someone who didn't want to talk to him. It was human to be devastated by photos with another person. It was human to wonder if the kiss had been just a mistake or if he was the one who had always been wrong.
But he wasn't just human in that room. He was the president's son. And he needed to appear impeccable.
"Carlos," his mother said softly, but proudly. "That was excellent. You've really been working hard on this story."
He forced a small smile.
"Always."
The room returned to activity, with advisors asking for details, noting suggestions, adjusting topics. The meeting continued, but Carlos felt he was watching everything through glass - seeing, hearing, but not really there.
While the debate continued, he kept his hands clasped on the table to avoid checking his phone again. To avoid opening the trending topics. To avoid seeing Oscar's smile directed at someone else once more.
He couldn't afford to break down there.
So he stayed. He spoke. He participated. He contributed. With a broken heart and a perfect expression. As a Sainz should.
Chapter 8: "History hates lovers..."
Chapter Text
The characteristic chill of late January cut through the Madrid air, even inside the covered courtyard of the presidential residence, where crystal chandeliers hung from metal structures, transforming the north entrance into something worthy of an old-fashioned gala ball. The light marble reflected the light with an almost icy sheen, and the air smelled of expensive perfume mixed with freshly opened wine.
Carlos had been standing there for at least fifteen minutes. Standing - but restless. He insistently adjusted the lapels of his perfectly tailored tuxedo, running his thumb along the seam as if that could keep it in place. But it couldn't. Nothing was working.
On the left, Charles checked the guest list with a blasé look, his cell phone strategically hidden among the papers. On the right, Lando used the reflection in the glass to fix his hair, completely oblivious to the fact that Carlos looked like he was about to explode with anxiety.
“Breathe, damn it,” Carlos thought. “It’s just a dinner. Just politics. Just… Oscar.”
But just thinking about the name made his breath short. Because, that very night - in that same cold entrance where everyone was so impeccable and so superficial - he would finally have to face Oscar.
After weeks. Without an answer. Without even an “I’m alive.” Without justification for the kiss.
No explanation for the photos with the actress. Nothing.
Oscar had completely disappeared, leaving Carlos at the mercy of his own mind - and Carlos was discovering that his own mind could be terrible company. Especially since, a few days ago, he had finally managed to name what had been haunting his thoughts, his body, and his memory since that damned New Year's kiss: He was bisexual.
The word still sounded strange in his mouth when he repeated it mentally. A new, raw, disconcerting truth.
Something that explained a lot and complicated things ten times more.
Charles knew. Of course he knew. Charles was the only one capable of extracting confessions from him without even trying.
Lando… not yet.
Lando didn't know.
Lando had no idea what was going on inside Carlos, and Carlos had no idea how to tell him. He feared what his friend would say, what he would think. Not in a prejudiced way - Lando wasn't like that. But Carlos needed it to be said carefully. Delicately. Courageously. Courage he didn't yet possess.
So he pushed all that far away from his mind, locked it deep in his head, and tried to appear functional.
The guests began to arrive in waves: ministers, ambassadors, important businessmen, the political elite of Madrid. Fake smiles, formal greetings, discreet flashes. The protocol flowed perfectly.
Carlos pretended to keep up - nodding, shaking hands, exchanging pleasantries. But inside, everything was locked. His mind, his chest, his breath. Until the air changed. It was almost as if the entire environment recognized his presence even before Carlos turned his head.
And then he saw Oscar. Entering through the main door, under the golden light of the tallest chandelier, dressed in the perfectly tailored black tuxedo that molded his shoulders in a way Carlos should never notice. But he did. And he immediately hated himself for it.
Oscar seemed more grown-up than the last time they'd seen each other. More princely. More distant. More inaccessible.
Beside him, as always, was Max Verstappen - the trained and deadly attentive bodyguard who accompanied Australia's youngest prince to high-profile events.
Max scanned every corner of the entrance with lion's eyes before allowing Oscar to take another step.
Oscar walked as if he had been sculpted for events like this. Impeccable posture. Neutral face. Stunning beauty. And a coldness so elegant it hurt.
Carlos felt his stomach drop as if he had been pulled under an entire ocean.
“Damn it,” he thought. “He really came.”
“Breathe, Carlos. You look like you’re going to faint.” Charles, standing beside him, murmured without looking at him.
“I am breathing,” Carlos retorted quietly, annoyed, without taking his eyes off Oscar.
“No, you’re not,” Charles corrected. “You’re panting like a teenager staring at her favorite idol.”
Lando just raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, great. Here we go. Drama even before dinner,” he complained, rolling his eyes. “What’s going on with you two?”
Carlos said nothing. Because at that exact moment, Oscar looked up and met Carlos's gaze.
It was quick. Too quick. A second, maybe less. But it was enough for Carlos's heart to beat so hard he felt it in his fingers.
Oscar dodged first. Of course he would have dodged. But the damage was already done.
Carlos swallowed hard, trying to suppress the blush on his face.
Lando, oblivious to all the internal chaos, patted Carlos's arm.
"Hey, go on. You two are in the official photos now, remember? That thing for the international press about the new generation of young politicians and diplomats..." Lando mimicked air quotation marks, mocking the ceremonial phrase. "So go."
Carlos's stomach dropped.
Lando smiled innocently.
Charles sighed as if watching a disaster about to happen.
Carlos walked up to Oscar with the most indifferent posture he could muster. Relaxed shoulders, chin up, neutral expression - all on autopilot for his public life. But inside, he wanted to rip the damn black tuxedo off the prince right there at the entrance, just to stop imagining things and see them as they really were.
Oscar stopped when Carlos approached, Max immediately taking two strategic steps back to allow the photo, but without leaving their field of vision at any point.
"Your Royal Highness," Carlos greeted, in a perfectly polite tone, as if the man's name hadn't been burning inside him for weeks.
Oscar maintained his impeccable composure.
"Mr. Sainz." His voice was too controlled. Too polished. Too distant.
As if nothing had happened between them on New Year's Eve. As if there had been no kiss. No escape. No silence. No weeks of mental and emotional torture.
As if Carlos had been erased.
Photographers began to approach discreetly, cameras raised, lights flickering softly - standard protocol for the initial dinner reception.
Carlos kept his mask on.
Oscar kept his on.
Carlos positioned himself next to the prince for the photo. Inches from him. Close enough to smell the familiar woody scent. Inches from the man who kissed and ran away. Inches from the man who now pretended nothing had happened.
Carlos smiled at the camera. The most perfectly political smile he had ever given in his life.
The white light of the flashes still danced within Carlos's vision when he raised his hand, placing it with rehearsed - yet deeply intentional - naturalness on Oscar's waist.
The prince stiffened imperceptibly at the touch, as if the muscle beneath the perfectly tailored fabric of the black tuxedo reacted before his mind could register anything. Even so, he didn't pull away. He couldn't, not with photographers frantically alternating angles, urging him to get closer, to turn slightly to the left, to show the "good relationship" that supposedly united the son of the Spanish president with the youngest prince of Australia.
"Closer, please!" said one of the photographers, raising his camera. "That's it, that's it… perfect. Now smile!"
Carlos smiled again. A flawless, practiced smile, worthy of an election campaign - except for the detail that his eyes, when they landed on Oscar's face, shone in a way that was anything but political.
"I'm glad you're not dead or something..." He leaned in just enough for his whisper to reach the prince's ear exclusively.
Oscar blinked, as if the comment dismantled a fortress carefully built in his silence of the last few days. His gaze shifted, rising to meet Carlos's for a moment that seemed too long to be innocent. Words tried to form, but never quite came to be. His mouth opened and closed, almost as if he needed to catch his breath before answering.
"I…" he began, in a weak breath. "Carlos, I…"
He didn't have a chance to finish.
A firm hand landed on Oscar's arm, pulling him with trained precision. Max, the private security guard assigned to accompany the prince that evening, bowed his head to the photographers in a gesture of politeness before giving the inevitable command.
"More photos, Your Highness. With President Reyes now."
Oscar didn't even have time to look back before being led through the hall.
Carlos stood exactly where he was for a split second, feeling the emptiness in the palm of his hand where Oscar's waist had once rested - and having to hide the irritation that rose rapidly, like a hot pulse in his throat.
"Carlos!" Lando called, tugging at his blazer by the sleeve. "We need to go." The movement toward the dining room began.
Charles, standing beside him, looked at him with that air of someone who knows more than he lets on.
"Come on," he said in a low, drawling voice. "We're not going to let you get away with this part."
They were led into the enormous dining room of the presidential residence, illuminated by antique, impeccable chandeliers, with long, dark wood tables, deep floral arrangements, and silverware that gleamed as if it had never been touched.
The entertainment announced for the evening was already heating up on the small stage: an indie singer with disheveled hair, a crumpled face, and a blasé attitude, a guitar slung over his shoulder, and an expression of a disinterested vegetable - and, for some mysterious reason, extremely popular among Carlos's age group.
But none of that caught his attention. Nothing. Because Oscar was seated. Next to ministers.
Alongside influential politicians and Reyes herself, who smiled at him as if this agreement between the two nations were the political masterpiece of her life.
Oscar, for his part, did exactly what he had been trained to do since childhood. He smiled politely, inclined his head at the right moment, and responded to comments with the calm of someone born to be in the spotlight.
Carlos chewed his food as if he were crushing stone.
With each bite, his jaw clenched. With each distant laugh from Oscar, something inside him burned. With each glance - however quick - that caught the prince observing the table, the surroundings, or Reyes with diplomatic attention, Carlos felt the entire table become unbearably small and the chair uncomfortably so.
He glanced at Charles.
"Could you, I don't know… go over to him? Get him away from that table for five minutes? Anything…" he asked, his whisper thick with trapped tension.
Charles raised his eyebrows, crossing his arms with Monegasque elegance and a look of someone politely suppressing a laugh.
"Carlos, I'm the son of the president's assistant, not a secret agent."
"Charles," Carlos pressed, his voice almost a plea. "I need to talk to him. I need to. Tonight. Now. Please."
The Monegasque sighed dramatically, but before he could plan anything, Carlos pushed his chair back. He was already losing his patience, and if it were up to him, he would cross that giant table to drag Oscar to the nearest hallway. But he knew he couldn't.
So, he stood up and walked to the corner of the room where Max was observing everything with the attentive gaze and impeccable posture of someone who would have been hired by any government in the world.
Carlos stopped in front of him, maintaining enough composure not to attract attention.
"Max," he began, his voice still low and controlled. "I need your help."
The security guard turned his face slightly toward Carlos.
"About what?"
"I need to be alone with Oscar. Just for a few minutes. I swear I won't do anything to jeopardize his safety. Or his reputation. Nothing!" He ran a hand through his hair, nervously. "I just… need to talk to him. That's all."
Max maintained a neutral expression. A dangerous, calculated neutrality.
"Where?" he asked directly.
Carlos inhaled a mixture of hope and despair.
"The Red Room."
Max blinked once, as if assessing probabilities, risks, cameras, blind spots, escape routes, suspicious movements throughout the entire room.
"I can get him out of here for ten minutes. No more and no less," he replied coldly, professionally, and surprisingly collaboratively.
Carlos felt his heart race so fast he had to steady himself on his own two feet.
"Ten minutes… That's enough."
Max tilted his head.
Carlos nodded, trying not to look like he was about to explode with anticipation.
"And Mr. Sainz…" Max continued.
"Hmm?"
"Don't hurt him."
Before Carlos could respond, Max returned to his post, ready to execute a plan that no one - not even Oscar - would know was happening.
Carlos heard a faint, different murmur in the background - not the sound of ministers discussing taxes, nor the indie rocker humming some lyrics about inner revolutions. It was something smaller, more specific. A shift in air. A shift in familiar footsteps.
He turned and there they were.
Charles, hands in his blazer pockets, an expression of feigned innocence; Oscar, slightly defensive, with a glass of water in hand and the rigid posture of someone who had just been pulled from a serious conversation; both positioned near the table of appetizers and artisanal chocolates, exactly where Carlos had managed to keep his gaze fixed for most of the evening.
Charles seemed to have used some impeccable social trick - probably a combination of charm, a discreet laugh, and irrelevant comments, something like, “Your Royal Highness, I think these truffles are a divine creation; you must try them” - to lure Oscar away from the head table without raising suspicion. Which, considering the level of formality that evening, was quite a feat.
Oscar, however, seemed to still be trying to understand how he had ended up there.
Seeing Carlos approaching, Charles raised only one eyebrow with a minimal smile, an air of “I did my part, now it’s up to you.”
Carlos wasted no time.
He crossed the rest of the room with firm steps, dodging an aide, a waiter, and a lady who held a champagne glass as if it were explosive. He squeezed between Charles and Oscar without any ceremony, positioning himself exactly in the middle of them - so close to Oscar that his cologne became the only thing he could breathe.
"Charles," he said, looking at him as if silently warning him to get out of there. "I'm going to steal Oscar for a second. Political matters...
Charles smiled more openly, that smile that carried half malice, half chaotic solidarity.
"Ah, of course," he replied, taking two steps back, hands raised. "Politics. Nothing more dangerous."
Oscar frowned.
"Carlos, what are you-..." he didn't finish. He didn't have a chance.
"Shut up." Carlos turned his face to him, closing the distance between them in less than a second, and whispered in a low voice, full of determination.
Oscar's eyes widened, scandalized. Not because he was being pulled - Carlos had done that before, at events, interviews, diplomatic meetings. But because of the tone. The look in his eyes. The way Carlos's hand gripped his arm firmly enough to be impossible to ignore, and yet careful enough not to leave a mark.
Carlos glanced quickly at Max, who was standing a few meters away, observing everything like a hawk. Max nodded with an almost imperceptible movement of his head.
Ten minutes.
And Carlos left. He dragged Oscar out of the illuminated area, guiding him down a richly decorated side corridor, with walls covered in antique tapestries, heavy furniture, and the smell of polished wood. Oscar followed behind him, trying to keep up with the Spaniard's long strides, still trying to understand what was happening.
"Carlos, seriously, have you gone mad? We're in the middle of a formal dinner, you can't just-..."
“I can’t what?” Carlos retorted without turning his face. “Are you going to stop me? Good luck with that, Your Royal Highness.”
Oscar snorted, annoyed, but continued walking - especially since Carlos’s hand on his arm kept him trapped in a dynamic he couldn’t escape even if he tried.
They arrived at the door of the Red Room, one of the oldest and most restricted rooms in the presidential residence. Carlos turned the doorknob decisively, opened the door, and pushed Oscar inside. As soon as they crossed the threshold, Carlos closed the door behind them in a single, forceful movement that echoed through the silent space.
Oscar opened his mouth.
"Carlos, what exactly do you think you're doing-..."
Carlos silenced him. Abruptly, with a kiss.
The impact made Oscar take two steps back. Carlos took two steps forward.
His fingers still held the prince's arm, but now it was Carlos's own body that pushed Oscar against the old wall of the room - a wall filled with heavy paintings, gilded frames, historical works that certainly cost more than both of their lives.
Oscar's back hit the cold surface, a slight thud reverberating. The painting above his head swayed dangerously, almost falling off its nail, almost collapsing on top of them.
"C-Carlos..." Oscar gasped, his voice completely overtaken by shock, disbelief, the feeling that the ground had disappeared beneath his feet. "You... You're crazy?"
But Carlos didn't answer. Or, rather, he answered with his body.
His free hand moved up to Oscar's jawline, trapping him there, his thumb brushing against the warm skin, his heavy breath mingling with the prince's. The kiss deepened - urgent, desperate, laden with days of silence, weeks of tension, months of feelings neither of them dared to name.
It was anger. It was longing. It was jealousy. It was desire built up to the limit. It was everything at once.
Oscar tried to push him away - not with conviction, but reflexively. His hands went to Carlos's chest, pressing against the fabric of his tuxedo.
"Carlos," he said again, weaker, almost a plea.
Carlos pulled his face away just enough to touch his forehead to his - breaths mingled, eyes closed for a second.
"You ignored me for weeks," he murmured, his voice hoarse, almost broken. "I thought I was going crazy."
Oscar blinked rapidly, as if trying to regain some semblance of rationality.
"That doesn't give you the right to throw me against a wall," he retorted, breathless.
Carlos opened his eyes, staring at him with a burning intensity.
"Yes, it does," he whispered. "Because you ran away from me. Because I needed to talk to you. Because…" he took a deep breath. "Because I couldn't stand not touching you anymore."
Oscar felt his stomach sink as if he were falling off a cliff.
Carlos's hand on his jaw tightened just a little, just enough to ensure Oscar looked directly at him.
“You almost killed me, Oscar,” he said, low, sincere, almost cruel. “And I’m tired of pretending it doesn’t matter.”
Oscar opened his mouth - to deny, to contradict, to escape - but Carlos wouldn’t let him.
His mouth returned to Oscar’s, in a second kiss even more urgent, more intense, more full of contained need than the first. Oscar hit the back of his neck against the wall as he involuntarily leaned back, the painting above them swaying again, harder, almost falling.
The whole room seemed to hold its breath.
Oscar's breath was too hot against Carlos's mouth. The air around them felt heavy - heavy, electric, almost solid. The Red Room had this claustrophobic effect, its walls guarding too many secrets, ancient secrets, forbidden secrets. And now it was about to hold another one.
Carlos carefully pulled his hand away from the wall, holding Oscar by the hip now, as if he feared he would escape if he wasn't being held. Oscar seemed about to say something - a protest, perhaps an insult, perhaps a request for an explanation - but Carlos simply didn't give him time. He grabbed Oscar by the waist and pulled him away from the wall.
"Come here," he said, his voice low and hoarse, more of an order than a request.
Oscar, still dazed, stumbled slightly as he took the forced step, but Carlos was already guiding him firmly to the other side of the room - to a small dark wood table, placed directly in front of another enormous painting, a historical portrait of 19th-century Spanish royalty. The gilded frame seemed to observe the scene with silent judgment.
"Sit down," Carlos interrupted firmly.
Oscar opened his mouth to protest. But his body obeyed before his mind even thought twice.
Carlos placed him on the edge of the table - not gently, but with an awkward, urgent care, as if he were afraid that Oscar would simply disappear between one blink and the next.
Oscar leaned on the wood behind him, breathing rapidly, his chest visibly rising and falling beneath his perfectly tailored suit. His knees instinctively parted as Carlos positioned himself between his legs, getting close enough that there was no space left between them.
The smell. The warmth. The hands. The touch.
It was too much.
Carlos cupped Oscar's face in his hands, pulling him into a kiss so intense it made Oscar let out a tearful moan against his mouth - a short sound, almost unworthy of a prince, but inevitable. The kind of sound that brought a small smile to the corner of Carlos's mouth before he deepened the kiss even further.
Oscar gripped Carlos's clothes tightly, pulling him almost desperately. As if instinct took complete control of his body, Oscar's legs rose and wrapped around Carlos's waist, trapping him there, preventing any real chance of pulling away.
The table creaked softly under their combined weight.
Carlos smiled against the kiss - a crooked, victorious, almost cruel smile.
"Damn it, Oscar…" he murmured against his lips, breathless. "You're impossible."
Oscar opened his eyes for a second, staring at him with a mixture of anger, attraction, and pure emotional panic.
"I hate you," he said, but his voice came out so hoarse it sounded like something completely different.
Carlos laughed. Low. Dangerously.
"Little liar…"
Before Oscar could retort, Carlos grabbed one of his wrists - his left - and lifted it, pinning it firmly against the wall behind the desk, right next to the painting. Oscar gasped at the force of the movement, his fingers automatically opening, his face turning slightly to the side from the impact of his body being pressed.
"Carlos…" it came out in a whisper that was too heavy.
The sound ran down Carlos's spine like an electric current.
He didn't stop. He couldn't. He didn't want to.
The kiss returned even more urgent, even deeper. Oscar leaned forward, seeking more, even with his wrist restrained. His other hand gripped Carlos's shoulder tightly, his nails digging into the expensive tuxedo fabric, pulling him impossibly closer.
The table shook.
The painting swayed.
The air disappeared from the room.
Carlos, on the verge of losing all sense of limits, slid his free hand down Oscar's side - from waist to ribs, from ribs to chest - making Oscar arch his back slightly and release another warm sigh against his mouth.
Carlos was about to go further. His hand was lowering. Oscar was giving in.
And then the door opened.
"The ten minutes are up."
Carlos froze.
Oscar froze.
The table stopped creaking, the picture stopped shaking, but the air remained electric, too charged, betraying everything that had just happened inside.
Carlos slowly turned his face toward the door.
Max stood in the doorway, arms crossed, his expression too neutral - except for his eyes, which expressed such explicit disgust that it could be physically felt.
"Seriously?" Max asked, looking from Oscar to Carlos, then to the table where Oscar was sitting with his legs still wrapped around the Spaniard. "Seriously? In less than ten minutes?"
Oscar, blushing to his ears, practically ripped his legs off Carlos's body and tried to compose himself with the dignity of someone who definitely wasn't managing to maintain any dignity at all.
Carlos released Oscar's wrist, as if he'd been burned upon realizing what he was doing. They both stumbled away, adjusting their clothes, straightening collars, trying to appear minimally presentable.
Max rolled his eyes dramatically.
"I'm not paid enough for this..." he declared, before turning his back and leaving the room. But before taking two steps down the hallway, he collided directly with someone.
"Hey, watch out!" said a familiar, tense voice.
Charles.
Max straightened up instantly, regaining his security mode in milliseconds - rigid posture, hands behind his back, impassive gaze.
Charles, however, seemed uncomfortable, almost on alert, like someone who had just stumbled upon a lion trying to pretend to be a bodyguard.
"Ah… Hi, Max," Charles murmured, trying to sound natural, failing miserably.
"Mr. Leclerc," Max replied seriously, even giving a small nod. It was almost comical how Max could switch between professional security and traumatized witness in a span of three seconds.
Charles looked at the closed door of the Red Room. Then at Max. Then back at the door. His face contorted in a mixture of distrust and dread.
"They…?" he began.
Max's expression was one of pure emotional exhaustion.
"I'm not going to comment," he replied. "Never. About anything. Ever…"
Charles decided not to press the issue.
Max straightened his posture as if ready to march back into the hall, perhaps to pretend that nothing, absolutely nothing, had happened in that Red Room.
He took a half step to the side - his body large and rigid as a marble column - when Charles finally registered who was there, how Max was staring at him, and why that uncomfortably cold look seemed familiar.
Because he'd seen it before.
On New Year's Eve. Just after midnight. When Charles, carried away by the energy of the party, the alcohol, the music, and the irritation of Max being stuck in the corner of the tent while he danced alone, had given in to a foolish impulse and kissed the first good-looking guy who was close enough to prove a point.
And Max had seen it.
Lando had told him.
The memory flashed a pane of light in Charles's mind - a flash of lightning.
“Mate… I think Max saw you kissing that guy at the turn of the year.”
“So what?” Charles remembered replying with drunken disdain.
“So what? He had this look on his face that… I don’t know. It didn’t even look like jealousy, it looked… angry. Really angry. Not the everyday kind of angry. The kind of angry he gets like when he kicked me out of the driver’s side of his car that day in Australia.”
Charles swallowed hard.
Because now - there, in the narrow corridor, the dim light reflecting off the marble floor - Max had the same expression. Not hostile. Not judgmental. But something between old irritation and current embarrassment.
Charles, however, was Charles. And when something made him uncomfortable, he smiled. He always smiled.
"M-Max…" he began, trying to sound casual as he tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. "Before you go back inside and pretend nothing happened…"his gaze dropped to the Red Room doorknob, then back up to Max."…would you like to take a walk with me in the garden?"
Max blinked. Twice. A slow, heavy blink. As if trying to confirm he'd heard correctly.
"Excuse me?" was all Max managed to say.
Charles continued, trying to keep his tone light, but failing miserably:
"It's just… You couldn't see the garden on New Year's, remember? The tent covered everything." He made a loose gesture with his hand, as if trying to indicate that it was a collective memory, not a memory laden with meaning. "But now… it's all lit up. The fountain is lit. There are even fireflies, can you believe it?"
Max frowned slightly. He clearly didn't know where to look - at the door where Oscar and Carlos were trying to catch their breath, at Charles, at the floor, at the ceiling.
His expression changed. It was no longer contempt for what he had just seen. It was… surprise. Disarming. And that made Charles uneasy.
"Do you want to… Hmm… Go see it with me?" Charles finished, this time more quietly. "Just five minutes. Before you go back inside."
Max's posture tightened. He took a deep breath. He glanced sideways, as if searching for a reality TV camera.
"I'm on duty," he replied curtly. It was an automatic response. Military. Impersonal.
Charles smiled slightly.
"And you were on New Year's too," he retorted, his voice heavy with something that sounded like a joke but wasn't exactly a joke. "But that didn't stop you from drinking two glasses of champagne that Lando gave you."
Max looked away. Very quickly. As if trying to hide that, yes… he remembered.
Silence fell between them - a tense silence, full of unspoken memories, of questions Charles didn't dare ask, of reactions Max refused to reveal.
Max cleared his throat, trying to regain his composure.
"I can't leave Prince Oscar alone for long," he said, looking rigidly at the dining room in the background. "And he's already away from the table."
Charles tilted his head slightly.
"Oh, really?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "Because it seems to me he's over there…" he pointed with his chin toward the door, where Carlos and Oscar were behind it, still adjusting their clothes, trying to look like two disciplined guests, not two men who had almost secretly knocked over works of art minutes before. "…very well accompanied."
Max couldn't hide his discomfort. Charles noticed. And that small detail, that tiny crack in the Dutchman's perfect armor, gave him courage.
"It's just the garden, Max," Charles said softly. "Just lights. A fountain. A few fireflies. Nothing clandestine."
Max took a deep breath. He glanced once more at the Red Room door. Then at Charles.
His jaw clenched - always the first sign that something inside was in conflict. And then, after a few tense seconds, he shook his head.
"Five minutes," Max said. Almost growled, actually.
Charles smiled. A real smile. Wide. Almost radiant.
"Great," he said, already turning towards the corridor that led to the garden. "I promise I won't kidnap you. Yet."
Max snorted softly. A mixture of irritation, exhaustion, and such a minimal trace of amusement that Charles only noticed because he was looking directly at his mouth.
They walked side by side down the silent corridor.
For the first time since the chaos of the visit to Australia and the New Year's tent, it didn't seem like Max was running away from him. It seemed that, against his own will, he was following Charles.
The air outside was colder than Charles had expected, but not cold enough to drown out the distant murmur of the party that continued inside the residence.
As soon as the door closed behind them, the muffled sound of voices, cutlery, and indie music faded, giving way to a damp silence, filled with the scent of wet grass, night-blooming flowers, and the gentle flow of water in the illuminated fountain in the center.
Charles took a few steps forward, gently pushing the lapel of his jacket to adjust himself, his heart beating faster than he cared to admit. He felt Max right behind him - not the touch, not the physical warmth, but the firm, dense presence, occupying the space in a way that sent shivers down his spine, even without contact.
Max was two steps behind him. Perfect posture. Jaw rigid. His hands clasped behind his back as if he'd returned to personal security training. But his eyes would wander from his every few seconds, always returning too quickly, as if looking too long was dangerous.
Charles took a deep breath, shoved his hands into his pockets, and tried to appear casual.
"See?" He lifted his chin, indicating the fountain. "Without the tent, you can finally see the lights. In the summer, the fireflies appear here on a whim."
One of the yellow lights blinked between two bushes, as if it had heard the comment.
Max observed without moving much, maintaining a formal - and completely artificial - distance. He didn't need to force himself so much, and Charles knew that was precisely what made everything worse.
"It's beautiful," Max finally said, in a tone almost too low to be heard, still staring at the fountain, trying to appear very interested in the lighting design.
Charles smiled, but it was a small, tired, almost sad smile.
"I didn't want to come see it last time." He turned his head, looking at Max intently. "You were… busy."
Max swallowed hard in a way so subtle that anyone else would have missed it. But not Charles.
"There were a lot of people at that party, Mr. Leclerc," Max replied, also looking into the distance, choosing each word carefully. "I had to be… careful."
"I needed to keep an eye on who you were kissing," seemed to echo in the silence between them, even if Max didn't say it.
The cold intensified, but not because of the temperature. Max adjusted his posture - shoulders back, chin slightly raised. Keeping his emotions locked away in a steel box, as always.
Charles moved a little closer. Not close enough to break boundaries, but enough to enter the gravitational field that Max was desperately trying to keep empty.
"Lando told me," Charles began, firm yet gentle. "That you saw me that night."
The rigidity in Max's body spoke before the words. His fingers gripped the edge of his own coat behind his back, as if holding something that threatened to escape.
"It's irrelevant, Mr. Leclerc," he replied, professionalism piercing every syllable.
Mr. Leclerc...
It never sounded so false.
It never sounded so distant.
Charles let out a weak, almost humorless laugh, turning his face to the fountain for a moment before looking at it again.
"You should be the last person to call me that."
Max chuckled through his short, almost invisible nose, as if he'd been caught off guard.
"I'm Prince Oscar's bodyguard tonight. It's protocol for his acquaintances."
"We're not in the dining room."
"We're still at the event."
"We're alone."
Max took a deep breath, a very deep breath, as if trying to push something into his chest, hold it in, suffocate it, hide it - something that wanted to get out.
His eyes finally met Charles's, direct, without flinching.
A mistake... Because they both knew exactly what that look meant. Max looked away first. He ran a hand through his hair, visibly frustrated with himself.
"I just... needed to make sure you were alright that night, Mr. Leclerc," he said, lower, more real, without the professional safety mask.
Charles took another step closer. Now they were half a meter apart.
"You got angry."
"No," Max answered too quickly. Too quickly. "I didn't."
"Max..." Charles raised an eyebrow, delicately.
The name spoken like that made something in the Dutchman's body freeze. He closed his eyes for a moment, his breathing irregular, almost imperceptible. When he opened his blue eyes, there was something raw there. Something he hated to show. Something he'd avoided for years.
"You could have been an easy target," Max said finally. "Kissing someone so… exposed, in the middle of the chaos, wasn't smart."
Charles blinked slowly.
It wasn't a professional reprimand - not entirely. There was jealousy hidden within that rigidity. A little genuine concern at the edges. And a frustration that had nothing to do with politics or security.
Charles noticed. And Max noticed that he noticed.
A heavy silence fell between them. The fountain continued to glow. The garden pulsed with soft light. A few firefly lights moved like tiny, trembling stars among the foliage.
Max took a step back, as if suddenly remembering where he was.
"We need to go back, Mr. Leclerc," he said, but his voice was hoarse, almost failing. "Mr. Sainz and Prince Oscar must have already left the… red room."
The name of the room seemed difficult to pronounce.
Charles almost smiled. Almost.
"And you?" he asked softly. "Will you be able to come back?"
Max lifted his face, the cold mask trying to return to its place. But his breathing still betrayed him. The tension still betrayed him. His eyes still betrayed him.
"I always manage," he replied firmly.
A blatant lie.
Charles didn't answer. He just stared at him for too long, too deeply, too intimately - in a way that left Max completely still.
Then Charles did the improbable. He turned to leave, but slowly, almost inviting Max to follow him, as if testing an invisible line between them.
Max followed. He always would. Even when he shouldn't. Even when it hurt. Even when it didn't make sense.
And they both knew it.
Mary0055OP on Chapter 1 Sun 07 Dec 2025 08:47PM UTC
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Christhemantis on Chapter 1 Sun 07 Dec 2025 10:27PM UTC
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Gmasap on Chapter 1 Mon 08 Dec 2025 05:19AM UTC
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mariwinns on Chapter 3 Thu 11 Dec 2025 04:40AM UTC
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Under_The_Sunset on Chapter 6 Fri 12 Dec 2025 05:53AM UTC
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