The palace's statement had been live for less than twelve hours when Queen Elena requested a private call with her son.
Not the King. Not the communications team. Not the ministers.
Just mother and son.
Carlo answered from his L.A. apartment, a silk robe loosely tied around his waist, the city’s haze dimming the late afternoon light. His phone buzzed once, and he answered immediately.
“Mamma.”
“Carlo,” she said, her voice warm and low, as it always was. “I didn’t want to call during the storm yesterday. I figured every voice in the kingdom was already in your ear.”
“You’re not wrong.”
There was a pause.
“I read the statement,” she said gently.
He rubbed his temple. “I know.”
“Is it true?”
The question sat in the air between them. Not accusatory, not dramatic - just plainly said.
Carlo hesitated. “Yes. He’s my trainer. We’ve become close friends. That’s all.”
A quiet sigh on the other end. Not disappointment. Something softer. Something more maternal.
“I see,” she said. “And does this close friend know you called him nothing more than a trainer?”
Carlo closed his eyes. “Mamma…”
“Does he know, Carlo?”
“I haven’t spoken to him properly,” Carlo admitted. “Not since the photo.”
Elena’s silence was louder this time.
“You haven’t spoken to him?” she repeated. “You let the world descend on him. You let the press dig into his life. And you didn’t even call?”
Carlo’s voice dropped. “It wasn’t safe to acknowledge anything.”
“For you?” she asked.
“For him.”
The Queen’s voice softened again, but it didn’t lose its edge. “And what do you think it feels like for him now? Alone. Targeted. Reduced to a whisper in your story.”
Carlo looked down at the floor, shame curling in his chest.
“You are not just a prince,” Elena said. “You are a man. You have feelings. So does he. And when we lie to protect ourselves, we leave those we care about in the cold. Is that what you meant to do?”
“No,” Carlo said quietly.
She let out a breath, long and deep.
“I won’t press you to tell me what’s really between you and Liam,” she said. “But I will say this: if there’s nothing to hide, why are you hiding him?”
Carlo didn’t have an answer.
“I know you’re afraid,” she continued, “but strength doesn’t come from hiding the truth. It comes from standing in it. If you care for him, even a little, you must not leave him alone in this storm.”
“I’m scared, Mamma.”
“I know you are, amore mio,” she said. “But don’t let that fear cost you someone who saw you - really saw you - long before any of us did.”
She paused. “You still have time to do right by him.”
The call ended quietly, but its weight lingered.
Carlo sat back on the couch, her words ringing through him. He stared at the phone, at the unsent message to Liam.
He hadn’t protected him.
Not really.
He’d chosen the easy way out.
But maybe - just maybe - there was still a way back.
Liam had never thought himself fragile. He was the guy who took hard hits on the rugby field and got back up with a grin. The trainer who pushed his clients to the brink of their endurance, then walked them through it again. Resilient. Steady.
But this was something else entirely.
The silence.
It ate at him in small ways: the unread message, the blank call log, the quiet corners of the apartment where he used to laugh with Carlo just days ago. The kitchen still smelled faintly of olive oil and herbs. The memory of those nights - of shared food and slow kisses - was now tangled in a sea of doubt.
Still, Liam got up, shaved, dressed, and walked back into the world.
The gym had turned into a media circus.
There were cameras camped outside, lights flickering like flies. Reporters elbowed each other for space, holding up microphones as Liam approached, sunglasses on, hoodie pulled low over his forehead.
“Liam! Is it true you’re the Crown Prince’s lover?”
“Is Bologna going to recognize the relationship?”
“Are you being paid to stay quiet?”
“Is this just a PR stunt?”
He kept walking, head down, earbuds in - no music playing, just static silence that gave him something to focus on.
He didn’t answer. Not once. Not even when someone shouted, “Did you seduce him, Liam? Is that how you landed a prince?”
Inside the gym, the staff looked uncomfortable. Some gave him sympathetic nods; others looked away quickly, unsure where to place their loyalties.
But work was work.
Liam trained his first client with the same intensity as always. He adjusted posture, counted reps, offered quiet motivation. He didn’t mention the headlines. He didn’t mention Carlo. He didn’t mention anything at all.
Each hour passed like a marathon. His body ached, but he welcomed the ache - it kept him grounded. Kept him from spiralling.
That night, when he returned home, he scrolled through X, then closed it. Opened Instagram, then closed it. Checked his messages.
Still nothing.
Carlo hadn’t called. Hadn’t texted. Hadn’t even liked one of his posts.
It hurt. God, it hurt.
But Liam was beginning to understand something, even if the silence made it no easier to bear: Carlo hadn’t lied out of malice. He hadn’t denied him because he didn’t care. He had done it to survive - to shield Liam from the brutal light that now followed him everywhere.
And Liam was surviving. Bruised, but upright.
Somewhere, he still hoped - stupidly, maybe - that Carlo would reach out. That he’d say something. Anything.
Because Liam was still standing. He hadn’t run.
He was still there. Waiting.
It was just after sunset when the knock came.
Not urgent. Not hesitant. Just... sure.
Liam had just stepped out of the shower. He’d almost ignored it - assuming it was another reporter, another neighbour with questions they had no business asking. But something about the rhythm of it made him pause.
He pulled on a t-shirt and opened the door, cautiously at first.
And froze.
She stood there, not as a figurehead or icon, not as the Queen of Bologna - but as a woman, tall and elegant, wrapped in a simple beige coat, sunglasses tucked into her collar, and a silk scarf tied loosely around her neck.
“May I come in?” she asked gently.
Liam stepped aside without a word.
Inside, he gestured toward the small kitchen table. She declined with a soft smile and instead walked to the window, looking out at the city.
“I’m staying at a villa nearby,” she said. “Private, well-guarded. I’d like you to join me there for dinner - no press, no questions. Just you and me.”
Liam hesitated. “Your Majesty - ”
“Elena,” she interrupted, turning back to him. “Tonight, I’m not a queen. I’m Carlo’s mother. And I need to understand what happened. Not from the newspapers. Not from palace aides. From you.”
Something in her eyes disarmed him. Not authority. Not strategy.
Humanity.
Liam nodded.
The villa was tucked into the hills of Malibu, hidden behind ancient olive trees and thick wrought iron gates. Inside, everything was quiet, warm, and gently lit. It didn’t feel like royalty; it felt like family.
Dinner was simple. Grilled vegetables, pasta, fresh bread, wine. She poured it herself. No staff in sight.
They ate slowly. She asked about his training, how long he’d been in L.A., what sports he played in school. He found himself talking, surprisingly easily.
“You don’t present as gay,” she said quietly, not unkindly, just observantly.
Liam smiled. “I played rugby. Dated girls in high school. My parents were shocked when I came out. But they came around. They always loved me.”
Elena nodded. “And they still do?”
“Every day.”
She took a sip of wine, then folded her hands.
“Tell me about my son.”
Liam looked up. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything,” she said, “but I’ll settle for this: was it ever just friendship?”
He didn’t answer right away. The wine made the silence feel softer, though still weighted.
“I think,” Liam said finally, “we tried to pretend it was. For a while. We fought it. He fought it harder. And we still haven’t put any labels on what we have. We’re not there yet.”
“Because he didn’t want to?” she asked.
“Because he wanted to control the narrative in coming out - if he ever wanted to - to be on his own terms. After having spoken to yourself and the King.”
Her brow furrowed, but she didn’t speak.
“He never looked at me like a man afraid of love,” Liam continued. “He looked at me like someone afraid of consequence. He’s been carrying that fear for a long time. I saw it shortly after meeting him.”
Elena’s eyes softened.
“And you love him?”
Liam paused. “Like I said, we haven’t labelled anything yet. But yes, I do.”
It was the first time he’d said it out loud.
“And Carlo? Do you think he could be in love with you – some day?”
Liam didn’t pause this time. “I’m certain of that.”
She exhaled quietly, almost like she’d been holding her breath for days. “I thought so.”
“Your Majesty – Elena - he didn’t mean to hurt me,” Liam added quickly. “I think he believed lying was the only way to protect us both.”
“He’s always been too willing to hurt himself to spare others,” she said.
They sat in a shared silence. Outside, the trees rustled under the coastal wind.
“I asked him if it was true,” Elena said. “He lied to me. And I let him. But I knew. A mother always knows.”
Liam blinked fast, pushing emotion down his throat.
“He’s still afraid,” Elena continued. “Afraid of what his father will say. What the ministers will demand. What Bologna will think of the prince in love with a man.”
Liam met her eyes. “What do you think?”
“I think,” she said slowly, “that I came here tonight for answers. And I’ve gotten them.”
“Not from my son, but from the man who loves him. Even if he doesn’t admit to it yet.”
Liam lowered his gaze, humbled.
She stood and walked to him, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“You have nothing to prove to anyone,” she said. “Not to me. Not to Bologna. But if you’re willing to be patient… I believe Carlo will find his way back to you.”
Liam’s voice cracked slightly. “I just want him to be free.”
Elena smiled - not as a queen, but as a mother who saw two hearts fighting to be together.
“So do I.”
After Liam left the villa, Queen Elena remained seated at the long dining table, fingertips brushing the rim of her wineglass. The flicker of candlelight danced across the etched crystal. Outside, the waves whispered against the California shore. But inside, the silence held a different weight - a slow, simmering reflection that began the moment Liam told her: “I just want him to be free.”
She exhaled softly, turning her gaze toward the window.
Royalty.
Duty.
Bloodlines.
These were not abstract ideals to her. They were the very bones of her life. From the moment she was born - daughter of a noble Sicilian family - Elena had known the weight of expectations. At thirteen, she was taught how to walk for the camera and curtsy with dignity. At sixteen, she had learned four languages, how to read a room without speaking, and how to lie with grace. At twenty-one, she had married a prince she barely knew.
She had cried on her wedding night. Silently. Because she had been taught that queens do not fall apart. She didn’t love her husband at first – she didn’t know him properly - but over time she grew fond of him. And only then did she start loving him.
That was the life she had inherited. The crown came with invisible chains - some made of gold, some of iron. And she had borne them all.
So yes, she understood what was being asked of Carlo. What the crown expected. What the kingdom might fear. She understood it in her bones.
But she also remembered holding him for the first time - the tiny fists, the dark lashes fluttering against his cheeks. She remembered his first fall, his first heartbreak, the time he’d gone quiet for three weeks after overhearing the king say “boys don’t cry.” He’d been seven.
She had sat beside him, wiping his tears in secret.
In her heart, she had always known he was different - gentler, more intuitive, more burdened by the weight of his title than his siblings had ever been. He was the one who read novels late at night, who sketched in secret, who flinched when staff raised their voices. He was the one who asked, “What if I don’t want to marry a woman?” when he was sixteen - and who never asked again after the silence that followed.
Back then, Elena had thought she was protecting him by staying silent.
But now… she wasn’t so sure.
Liam’s words had cut through all of it.
Not with sharpness, but with clarity.
“He didn’t mean to hurt me. He believed lying was the only way to protect us both.”
“He didn’t look at me like someone afraid of love. He looked at me like someone afraid of consequence.”
Elena knew that fear. It had lived in her for years.
But it didn’t have to live in him.
Maybe it was time to ask what the crown really meant. Not what it demanded, but what it could become. A crown that could shift, that could bend without breaking. A monarchy that could accept a future shaped not just by duty, but by truth - and yes, by love.
She rose slowly, smoothing the lines of her coat.
She had her answer now. Not from a report. Not from an aide. Not even from her own son.
But from the man who loved him.
And for the first time in a very long time, Elena felt like a queen who could be proud of what came next.
