CHAPTER TWO With a resounding smack, Zahra slaps a stack of magazines down on the West Wing briefing room table. “This is just what I saw on the way here this morning,” she says. “I don’t think I need to remind you I live two blocks away.” Alex stares down at the headlines in front of him. THE $75,000 STUMBLE BATTLE ROYAL: PRINCE HENRY AND FSOTUS COME TO BLOWS AT ROYAL WEDDING CAKEGATE: ALEX CLAREMONT-DIAZ SPARKS SECOND ENGLISH-AMERICAN WAR Each one is accompanied by a photo of himself and Henry flat on their backs in a pile of cake, Henry’s ridiculous suit all askew and covered in smashed buttercream flowers, his wrist pinned in Alex’s hand, a thin slice of red across Henry’s cheek. “Are you sure we shouldn’t be in the Situation Room for this meeting?” Alex attempts. Neither Zahra nor his mother, sitting across the table, seems to find it funny. The president gives him a withering look over the top of her reading glasses, and he clamps his mouth shut. It’s not exactly that he’s afraid of Zahra, his mom’s deputy chief of staff and right-hand woman. She has a spiky exterior, but Alex swears there’s something soft in there somewhere. He’s more afraid of what his mother might do. They grew up made to talk about their feelings a lot, and then his mother became president, and life became less about feelings and more about international relations. He’s not sure which option spells a worse fate. “Sources inside the royal reception report the two were seen arguing minutes before the . . . caketastrophe,” Ellen reads out loud with utter disdain from her own copy of The Sun. Alex doesn’t even try to guess how she got her hands on today’s edition of a British tabloid. President Mom works in mysterious ways. “But royal family insiders claim the First Son’s feud with Henry has raged for years. A source tells The Sun that Henry and the First Son have been at odds ever since their first meeting at the Rio Olympics, and the animosity has only grown—these days, they can’t even be in the same room with each other. It seems it was only a matter of time before Alex took the American approach: a violent altercation.” “T really don’t think you can call tripping over a table a ‘violent—” “Alexander,” Ellen says, her tone eerily calm. “Shut up.” He does. “One can’t help but wonder,” Ellen reads on, “‘if the bitterness between these two powerful sons has contributed to what many have called an icy and distant relationship between President Ellen Claremont’s administration and the monarchy in recent years.” She tosses the magazine aside, folding her arms on the table. “Please, tell me another joke,” Ellen says. “I want so badly for you to explain to me how this is funny.” Alex opens his mouth and closes it a couple of times. “He started it,” he says finally. “I barely touched him—he’s the one who pushed me, and I only grabbed him to try and catch my balance, and—” “Sugar, I cannot express to you how much the press does not give a fuck about who started what,” Ellen says. “As your mother, I can appreciate that maybe this isn’t your fault, but as the president, all I want is to have the CIA fake your death and ride the dead-kid sympathy into a second term.” Alex clenches his jaw. He’s used to doing things that piss his mother’s staff off—in his teens, he had a penchant for confronting his mother’s colleagues with their voting discrepancies at friendly DC fundraisers— and he’s been in the tabloids for things more embarrassing than this. But never in quite such a cataclysmically, internationally terrible way. “T don’t have time to deal with this right now, so here’s what we’re gonna do,” Ellen says, pulling a folder out of her padfolio. It’s filled with some official-looking documents punctuated with different colors of sticky tabs, and the first one says: AGREEMENT OF TERMS. “Um,” Alex says. “You,” she says, “are going to make nice with Henry. You're leaving Saturday and spending Sunday in England.” Alex blinks. “Is it too late to take the faking-my-death option?” “Zahra can brief you on the rest,” Ellen goes on, ignoring him. “I have about five hundred meetings right now.” She gets up and heads for the door, stopping to kiss her hand and press it to the top of his head. “You’re a dumbass. Love you.” Then she’s gone, heels clicking behind her down the hallway, and Zahra settles into her vacated chair with a look on her face like she’d prefer arranging his death for real. She’s not technically the most powerful or 299