Chapter 6: Compensation with a Compliment
The silence after Leona left had a new quality. It wasn’t just empty; it was articulate. It repeated his words, his excuses, the final click of the door. Vil moved through the afternoon like a ghost in his own home, the fragrance shoot a blur of bright lights and sharp directions that he performed with robotic precision. His mind kept looping back to the blanket, folded with military neatness on the sofa.
It was a transaction. A mutually beneficial arrangement. He had to remember that.
Back in his apartment that evening, routine offered a flimsy anchor. He ordered in, something light and expensive that he barely tasted. He scanned the coverage from the premiere. His publicist was right. The photos were electric. There was one, caught just as Leona was turning away from the twisted sculpture at the afterparty, his eyes on Vil across the room. The caption read: ‘Intense gaze alert! Prince Leona only has eyes for his date.’ Vil zoomed in. Leona’s expression wasn’t the possessive smolder the internet was swooning over. It was frustration. A raw, weary frustration that Vil now understood was directed inward, at his own inconvenient feelings.
He closed the browser tab. The apartment felt too large, too quiet. He decided to do something mundane, something that belonged to his real, un-pretended life. He logged into his banking portal. Paying bills, transferring funds, reviewing the automatic deposits from his various contracts—it was a numbing, administrative balm.
His eyes skimmed past the usual deposits: the modeling agency, the film residuals, the brand ambassador retainer. Then he saw it. The weekly deposit from ‘L. Kingscholar Holdings.’ The amount was different.
He blinked. Scrolled back up. Did the math again.
It was exactly forty-seven percent larger than the previous payments.
A cold, sharp clarity cut through the fog in his head. This wasn’t a random adjustment. This was deliberate. The number sat there on the screen, glowing with sterile finality. An apology rendered in cold, hard data. A settlement for emotional damages incurred. For the jealousy, for the confusion, for the blanket. A prince’s way of balancing the ledger.
For a full minute, Vil just stared at the figures. A part of him, the professional part, nodded in grim understanding. It was clean. Efficient. It reaffirmed the nature of their deal. Another part, the part that had kissed a sleeping forehead, recoiled. It felt like being tipped.
His phone was in his hand before he’d fully decided to act. He opened his messages, to the thread with Leona. Their last exchange was his ‘Just doing my job’ text from that morning. Leona hadn’t replied.
His thumbs hovered over the screen. He typed, deleted, typed again. He couldn’t sound wounded. He couldn’t sound grateful. He had to sound… unaffected.
> Vil: Just saw the deposit. You didn’t have to do that.
He hit send before he could overthink it. He placed the phone face down on the marble kitchen island and walked to the window. The city twinkled, indifferent. He counted thirty-seven floors down to the tiny, moving specks of light.
His phone buzzed. A single, sharp vibration against the stone.
He waited. Counted to ten. Then, casually, he walked back and flipped it over.
> Leona: It wasn’t a big deal.
Vil exhaled a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. Of course. Dismissive. Aloof. He started to type a bland ‘Alright, thank you,’ when a second message popped up.
> Leona: The original rate was for airport paparazzi and the odd dinner. Last night was a tier-two event. Red carpet, prime media, sustained performance under scrutiny. With… additional variables.
Additional variables. The kiss. The jealousy. The emotional labor.
Vil’s lips pressed into a thin line. He typed, his fingers tapping with more force than necessary.
> Vil: I see. So this is a performance bonus. Should I expect hazard pay for the burnt toast incident?
He saw the three dots appear. They lingered. Disappeared. Reappeared.
> Leona: Call it a talent fee. You’re convincing. More than I bargained for. That’s worth the adjusted rate.
Vil read the message. Then he read it again. The words seemed to shift on the screen. You’re convincing. That was professional. That was about the act. But more than I bargained for… That could mean trouble. Inconvenience. Or it could mean something else entirely.
His heart, traitorous and stupid, gave a soft, single thud. It wasn’t a compliment on his beauty or his fame. It was an acknowledgment of his skill, of his effect. From a man who valued cunning above all else. It was, in Leona’s emotionally stunted language, surprisingly sweet.
The hollow ache in his chest from that morning didn’t fill, but it… warmed. Just a degree. He leaned against the island, the cold marble seeping through his thin sweater.
> Vil: High praise, coming from you. I’ll try not to let it go to my head.
> Leona: Wouldn’t notice if it did. Your head’s always in the clouds anyway.
A faint, genuine smile touched Vil’s lips. There he was. The familiar, abrasive charm.
> Vil: It’s called having vision. You should try it sometime. Look beyond the next council vote.
> Leona: Vision gives me a headache. I prefer concrete problems.
> Vil: Like malfunctioning toasters.
> Leona: Exactly. Solved it, by the way. Unplugged it.
Vil laughed, a short, surprised sound that echoed in the quiet kitchen. He could see him doing it. Treating a small appliance with the same strategic finality as a political rival.
> Vil: A brilliant, if terminal, solution. My kitchen is in your debt.
The three dots pulsed. The conversation stretched, becoming something softer, lighter. The tension of the morning began to unravel, not with a dramatic resolution, but with this quiet, texting détente.
> Leona: Don’t mention it. The council drained me today. Four hours arguing about water rights for the northern plateau. Drier than the damn plateau itself.
It was an offhand comment. A sliver of his real day, offered without preamble. Vil felt that warmth again, spreading slowly.
> Vil: Sounds thrilling. I spent three hours having perfume misted at me while a man in black whispered words like ‘enigma’ and ‘decadence.’
> Leona: Which one were you supposed to be?
> Vil: Both, apparently. It was a confusing brief.
> Leona: Sounds like it. Get some rest, Schoenheit. Your enigmatic decadence needs its beauty sleep.
Vil stared at the message. The dismissal was there, but it was wrapped in something almost… gentle. Or maybe he was just reading into it. Maybe he was a better actor than he thought, even fooling himself.
> Vil: You’re one to talk. I saw the photos. You look like you haven’t slept in a week.
> Leona: Royalty. It’s not a look, it’s a lifestyle choice. Goodnight.
> Vil: Goodnight, Leona.
Vil placed the phone down, screen dark this time. He looked back at his laptop, at the banking portal still open. The larger number didn’t feel like a tip anymore. It felt like an acknowledgment. A recalibration. You’re worth more than I initially thought.
He closed the laptop.
Walking back to the living room, he paused by the sofa. He picked up the folded blanket, shook it out, and draped it properly over the back cushions. An ornament, not a relic.
The apology had been monetary. The forgiveness had been a text exchange about toasters and water rights. Their relationship was a series of bizarre, crooked transactions, a balance sheet of insults and unexpected softness. It made no sense.
But as Vil headed to his bedroom, the lingering stiffness in his shoulders was gone. The silence in the apartment no longer echoed with that final, definitive click. It just was. Quiet, and waiting.
He climbed into bed, the city’s glow painting faint stripes across the duvet. His last thought before sleep was not of payments or performances, but of three glowing dots on a screen, and the gruff, unlikely sweetness of a man who solved problems by unplugging them.
The softness from the text exchange lasted precisely sixty-eight hours. It evaporated at 10:17 AM on a Wednesday, as Vil scrolled through a gossip column’s side-by-side photos. On the left, he and Leona at the premiere, a masterpiece of staged tension. On the right, a blurry shot of a rival actor and his new girlfriend sharing laughably oversized ice cream cones in a park. The headline smirked: ‘Real vs. Reel: Who Knows How to Date?’
A cold splash of professional clarity hit him. They had forgotten the foundation.
Public events were theater. Pressured, formal, scripted. But the sustaining myth of a relationship lived in the mundane spaces between. It was coffee walks and casual lunches, the unguarded moments that seemed stolen, not staged. They had none of that. Their entire archive was black-tie and flashing bulbs. It was a set with no backstage, a performance with no rehearsal dinner.
It felt, suddenly, like a glaring structural flaw. The narrative was all pinnacle and no valley. Anyone looking closely would see the artificial scaffolding.
He waited until the afternoon, a calculated delay to avoid sounding frantic. He called. The phone rang five times before connecting with a muffled, sleep-rough grunt.
“What.”
“Good morning to you too,” Vil said, perched on the edge of his sofa. “Did I wake you from a coma or a council briefing?”
“Sleep. It’s called sleep, Schoenheit. Some of us need it after dealing with the kingdom’s logistics all night.” Sheets rustled. “This better be an emergency. Like a fire. Or you’re trapped in the freezer again.”
“That was one time, and the latch was faulty.” Vil took a breath. “This is a strategic emergency. We have a problem. Our timeline is all grandeur and no grit. We’ve done the premieres, the parties. But we’ve never just… been seen out. Together. Doing nothing.”
A long, dead silence stretched over the line. Vil could almost hear the gears turning, sluggish with sleep.
“So?” Leona finally said, the word thick with disinterest.
“So, it doesn’t look real,” Vil pressed, impatience sharpening his tone. “Real couples go to gardens. They get lunch. They’re photographed looking bored waiting for a table. We look like we only exist in V.I.P. sections. It’s a tells the whole game.”
Another sigh, deeper this time, a sound of profound cosmic inconvenience. “Fine. You’re the narrative expert. Schedule an outing. Put it on the calendar.”
Vil’s grip tightened on the phone. He’d hoped, perhaps foolishly, for a flicker of initiative. A ‘I’ll take care of it,’ or even a grumbled suggestion. “You could… plan something. A thought. A single, solitary idea.”
“Why?” Leona’s voice was fading, like he was already rolling back over. “You’ve already got it figured out. You’re calling me to inform me, not to consult me. Just tell me when and where to show up. And make sure there’s actual food. Not those tiny leaf arrangements you call meals.”
The line beeped, dead. Vil pulled the phone away and stared at it, a wave of pure, undiluted exasperation heating his face. He’d just been professionally, politely, dumped back into the role of sole event planner for his own fake relationship. Of course. Initiative required effort. Leona conserved effort like a scarce resource.
Vil leaned back, pressing his palms to his eyes. This, he thought, the clarity both annoyed and amusing, is exactly why you were single. The man could secure water rights for an arid plateau but couldn’t conceptualize a reservation for two.
The annoyance, however, was a familiar fuel. It was less draining than the confusion of jealousy and blanket-folding. This was a problem with a solution. He opened a search browser on his laptop, his movements efficient. Something public but not a circus. Somewhere they could be seen walking, talking, without a script.
He settled on the city’s botanical conservatory. It was vast, full of winding paths through different climate zones. Plenty of photo opportunities for lurking paparazzi, but also enough space to breathe. Followed by lunch at Maison Aubert, a bistro with a walled garden patio—visible, elegant, but not overtly flashy. It was a believable date for a prince and an actor: cultured, calm, a quiet interlude.
He texted the details to Leona: Saturday, 11 AM, conservatory entrance. He added the lunch reservation time and address. He received one character in reply.
> Leona: K.
Saturday dawned clear and bright. Vil dressed with deliberate casualness: dark, tailored trousers, a simple ivory sweater, sunglasses perched on his head. He looked effortlessly polished, which of course took an hour to achieve. Leona was already leaning against a low stone wall when the car pulled up, a study in contrasting aesthetics.
He wore faded, well-fitting jeans and a plain black t-shirt that did nothing to conceal the muscular frame beneath. He looked less like a prince and more like a disgruntled model for a premium athletic brand. His arms were crossed, his eyes scanning the crowd with detached boredom until they landed on Vil.
“You’re late,” he said, pushing off the wall.
“I’m exactly on time. You’re just chronically early to avoid small talk with your security.” Vil nodded to the two discreet men standing a few yards away. “Shall we? Or would you like to critique my punctuality further?”
Leona fell into step beside him as they entered the humid, green-scented air of the first greenhouse. “The conservatory. Of course you’d pick a place where the plants are more curated than you are.”
“It’s called having an appreciation for cultivated beauty,” Vil said, slipping his hands into his pockets. “You should try it. It might loosen the permanent scowl.”
They walked in silence for a while, past towering ferns and delicate orchids. The space was quiet, punctuated by the drip of water and the distant chatter of other visitors. It was strangely peaceful. The performative part was minimal here; there was no immediate audience, no script to follow beyond walking side-by-side.
“So,” Leona said, glancing at a spiky, vicious-looking succulent. “This is what normal people do.”
“Allegedly,” Vil replied. “Though I’d argue normal people don’t have discrete security details memorizing the taxonomy of cacti.”
A corner of Leona’s mouth twitched. He stopped before a massive, steam-shrouded pool where giant lily pads floated, broad and flat as tabletops. “These are ridiculous. They look like they could hold a small child.”
“Or a very disgruntled prince,” Vil mused, leaning over the railing. The warm, damp air curled the fine hairs at his temple. “They’re called Victoria amazonica. They can support up to forty-five kilograms if the weight is distributed.”
Leona looked at him, a slow, sideways glance. “Why do you know that?”
“I played a botanist in a limited series. The one who solved murders using pollen spores.” Vil kept his eyes on the monstrous plants. “It was critically acclaimed but tragically underwatched.”
“Hn.” Leona leaned on the railing next to him, their shoulders not quite touching. The heat from his arm was a palpable line in the humid air. “Sounds tedious.”
“It was. The director had a fetish for extreme close-ups of dirt.” Vil straightened. “This way. The rose garden is supposed to be spectacular this time of year.”
They moved outside into the dappled sunlight of the formal gardens. The rose beds were a riot of color and scent, a deliberate, breathtaking chaos. For a few minutes, there was no conversation at all. Vil found himself actually looking, noting the variations in crimson and peach, the way the light filtered through petals. He wasn't thinking about angles or observers.
He was, he realized, on a date. A fake one, but his feet were on gravel paths, the sun was warm on his neck, and a quiet, complicated man was walking beside him. The simplicity of it was disorienting.
“This is the part,” Leona said abruptly, his voice low, “where we’re supposed to be seen holding hands or something, right?”
Vil glanced around. A few people were strolling nearby, but no obvious cameras. “Only if you’re feeling particularly committed to the bit. I wouldn’t want to overexert you.”
Leona made a noncommittal sound. His hand, however, brushed against Vil’s as they walked, a fleeting, accidental contact. He didn’t move away. The back of Vil’s hand tingled.
They exited the gardens and drove the short distance to the bistro. The patio was half-full, buzzing with the soft clatter of cutlery and lunchtime conversation. They were shown to a corner table beneath a twisted wisteria tree, granting a measure of privacy within the public view. A photographer across the street, lens pointed their way, was the only reminder of the stakes.
A waiter poured water. Leona scanned the menu, his brow furrowed. “What’s the croque-monsieur like here?”
“It’s a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, Leona. It’s like a grilled ham and cheese sandwich everywhere, just with a French accent and a ten-dollar upcharge.”
“I’m checking if they use béchamel,” Leona muttered, defensively. “It’s important.”
Vil hid a smile behind his own menu. This was new. This was Leona, not at a state function or a film premiere, but debating the merits of cheese sauces. It was unnervingly… ordinary.
They ordered. The food arrived, simple and expertly prepared. The conversation meandered—a dry comment from Leona about a council member’s hideous tie, a story from Vil about a co-star’s disastrous allergy to prop food. It wasn't flirting. It wasn't intense. It was easy. The sun moved across the tablecloth.
As they finished, Leona looked at him, really looked, for the first time all afternoon. His green eyes were lighter in the sunlight, the cynical glint softened to something more contemplative. “This wasn't terrible.”
“High praise,” Vil said, sipping his sparkling water. “Should I have that engraved?”
“I’m serious.” Leona leaned back, his gaze drifting to the photographer now packing up his gear, mission apparently accomplished. “It felt less like a performance. More like a… ceasefire.”
The word hung between them, accurate and delicate. A ceasefire in their private, undefined war. A temporary suspension of hostilities and hidden payments and bitter jealousy.
Vil’s phone buzzed with a notification. He glanced down. It was an alert from a gossip site. The preview image was already live: them at the table, leaning slightly towards each other, a faint, unguarded smile on Vil’s face. The caption was guessing about the menu.
He showed the screen to Leona. “Mission accomplished, it seems.”
Leona looked at the photo, then back at Vil. His expression was unreadable. “Yeah. I guess it is.”
He signaled for the check, handling it before Vil could move. They walked out to the waiting car, the afternoon sun now sloping long shadows behind them. The car door closed, returning them to the familiar, quiet capsule of the backseat.
Leona didn’t stare out the window this time. He sat back, eyes closed, but the line of his body was less rigid. The quiet wasn't a void. It was the echo of a ceasefire, fragile and new, and the unspoken question of what, exactly, happened when the agreed-upon truce was over.