The room was quiet, but the silence had teeth.
Heavy rain tapped against the tall windows of the old estate in the countryside, muffling the rising voices inside. Shadows danced across the marble floor, split by the low light of the fireplace and the flash of distant lightning.
“You don’t understand what you’re asking me to be!”
Alexia’s voice cracked as she paced across the room, hands trembling at her sides.
Her mother stood still, arms crossed, her expression a brittle mask of composure.
“I’m asking you to survive,” Aurelia said firmly.
“No. You’re asking me to be a lie.”
Alexia turned sharply, eyes burning. Her chest rose and fell like someone drowning in plain air.
“A man who doesn’t exist. A name that doesn’t belong to me. A father’s legacy I’ll never be allowed to feel, let alone carry with truth.”
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
“You’re asking me to erase myself.”
Aurelia closed her eyes for a moment, as if steadying herself against the weight of her daughter’s words.
“It’s not about erasing. It’s about protecting. If the world finds out what you are—”
“What I am?” Alexia cut in, her laugh bitter. “You make it sound like I’m a virus.”
“I didn’t mean it like that—”
“But you did. Because that’s how the world sees women, right? Weak. Disposable. Pretty when convenient. But never worthy of command. Never the face of power. And I have to play by their rules?”
Aurelia stepped forward, her voice low and urgent.
“If you reveal the truth, they’ll tear you apart, Alexia. The monarchy will fall. You’ll be arrested—or worse. And everything your father gave his life for will vanish.”
Alexia turned away, biting her lip to keep from screaming.
“I didn’t ask for this.”
“No one ever does,” Aurelia said softly. “But the crown doesn't care who you are. It only cares who the world believes you are. And right now, they believe you’re Alexander Bailiff.”
She placed a hand gently on her daughter’s shoulder. “You don’t have to like it. But you do have to survive it.”
Alexia didn’t speak. Her body trembled, her eyes filling faster than she could blink.
She hated the lie.
Hated the world that required it.
Hated the mirror that showed her a face she could never show the world.
And most of all, she hated the fact that part of her agreed.
She broke.
The tears came suddenly, without permission—sharp, hot, and silent at first. Then louder, uglier, as she collapsed into her mother’s arms.
Aurelia said nothing. She just held her. Rocked her.
Until the storm outside quieted.
Until Alexia fell asleep, curled in her mother’s lap like the child she was never allowed to be.
And in the flicker of firelight, a mother whispered to the daughter she knew she'd one day lose:
“You were never the lie, my love. The world is.”
YOU ARE READING
MR.PRESIDENT
ActionCameron Bailiff, President of the United States, was being blackmailed over a long-held secret about his family. Rather than submit to the demands, he made a shocking announcement to the world: his only child, long believed to be a son, was in fact...
