Chapter 36 Chapter thirty six
AANYA
Afterward, we lay tangled together on Dev's sofa bed, both of us breathing hard, the street sounds of Brixton filtering through the window.
I had expected it to be awkward. I had expected not to know what I was doing. I had expected to feel self-conscious or uncertain or afraid.
Instead, I felt certain. Grounded. Real.
This was what it felt like to choose someone completely. To give yourself to another person not because protocol demanded it or duty required it, but because you wanted to. Because you loved them. Because you trusted them with the most vulnerable parts of yourself.
"Are you all right?" Dev asked quietly.
"I am more than all right. I am perfect."
"No regrets?"
"None. You?"
"Only that my sofa bed is terrible and you deserve better than this."
I laughed. "I have slept in palaces on beds that cost more than this entire flat. None of them felt like this."
"Like what?"
"Like home."
He pulled me closer, and I rested my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat slow gradually back to normal.
"Tomorrow is going to be difficult," he said.
"I know."
"The media is going to tear us apart. People are going to question whether this is real. Whether you were manipulated. Whether I used you."
"I know."
"And I need you to know that none of that matters to me. What matters is this. Us. The fact that we chose each other despite everything. That is the only truth I care about."
"Me too."
We lay in comfortable silence for a while. Then his phone buzzed. He reached for it, checked the message, went tense.
"What is it?"
"Williams. Crown Estate's filing leaked early. It is already on the Guardian's website. The headline is 'Crown Estate Claims Princess Was Manipulated By Activist Researcher.'"
My stomach dropped. "Let me see."
He handed me the phone. I read the article, feeling sicker with every paragraph.
The article quoted extensively from Crown Estate's filing. My lack of expertise. My romantic interest in Dev predating the forum. The suggestion that I had validated his research without critical analysis. The implication that I had been manipulated.
The comments section was already filling with speculation.
"I mean, she kept his waistcoat. That's pretty clear evidence she was interested in him before she made those statements."
"Classic case of a woman's judgment being clouded by attraction. She should have recused herself."
"The researcher's father died in a Crown Estate accident. Obviously he has an axe to grind. His whole research agenda is revenge, not scholarship."
I handed the phone back to Dev.
"This is what I was afraid of," I said. "They are making it sound like I validated your research because I fancied you, not because it was accurate."
"The research is accurate. That is what matters."
"But will anyone believe that now? When they are saying I had no professional basis for my statements? When they are suggesting I was romantically compromised?"
"The evidence will speak for itself."
"Will it? Or will people always wonder if I was just a naive princess who fell for an attractive researcher with a tragic backstory and let my emotions override my judgment?"
Dev sat up, looked at me seriously. "Do you believe that is what happened?"
"No. Of course not."
"Then what does it matter what Crown Estate's lawyers claim or what internet commentators speculate? You know the truth. I know the truth. The families we are fighting for know the truth. That is enough."
"Is it? Because right now it feels like the truth is whatever story people want to believe. And Crown Estate is very good at telling stories."
"So we tell a better story. We show the evidence. We bring the witnesses. We prove that this was not about romance or manipulation or revenge. It was about institutional accountability."
He was right. I knew he was right. But the weight of it was crushing.
"I am so tired," I said. "Of fighting. Of being scrutinized. Of having every decision questioned. Of waking up every morning knowing that people are analyzing my relationship and my choices and my credibility. I just want to live, Dev. I want to work and love you and build a life without it being national news."
"I know. Me too." He pulled me back down beside him. "But we do not get that luxury right now. Right now we have to fight. And when the fight is over, when we have won or lost or settled or whatever happens, then we get to just live. Deal?"
"Deal."
We fell asleep like that, wrapped around each other on a sofa bed in Brixton, the leaked article still making its way through the internet, tomorrow's battle already beginning.
But for those few hours, in the dark, with Dev's arms around me, I felt safe.
And I knew that whatever Crown Estate threw at us, whatever the media said, whatever judgm
ent the public made, this was real.
We were real.
And that was the only truth that mattered.