Paris

Paris, the City of Light, becomes the clandestine stage for the first true rendezvous between Alex Claremont-Diaz and Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor. After weeks of flirtatious, increasingly explicit email exchanges, the city provides the backdrop where their carefully maintained public rivalry collapses into private, unguarded intimacy. It is here that the two young men, both bound by the impossible constraints of their public roles, first spend an entire night together, crossing a threshold from which there is no easy return. Paris, with its romantic allure and relative anonymity, functions as the perfect sanctuary for a secret that must never be exposed, and it is here that the rules of their hidden relationship are first established.

The Invitation and the Excuse

The Paris encounter is set in motion by a seemingly casual email from Alex, who asks Henry whether he will be attending a Paris fundraiser for rainforest conservation. The exchange, dated March 3 and 4, 2020, crackles with their signature banter: Alex deliberately botches Henry's royal title, calling him "Prince Henry of Whatever," and Henry retaliates with mock offense, threatening to have Alex made into a "royal settee cushion" for lèse-majesté. Henry initially declines, citing a prior engagement—a summit in Germany on wind power, where he expects to be "lectured by old men in lederhosen and posing for photos with windmills." But the real purpose of the correspondence is transparent: Alex admits he has been "thinking about your mouth on me all week," and Henry, despite his protestations, ends his reply with a single, loaded line: "Hate you. Will try to get out of Germany." The Paris fundraiser is thus a pretext, a socially acceptable cover for what both men clearly intend to be a private meeting.

The Rendezvous at Place du Tertre

Henry does get out of Germany, and the two meet near a herd of crêpe-eating tourists by Place du Tertre, the famous square in the Montmartre district. Henry arrives wearing a sharp blue blazer and a wicked smile, a visual that Alex will later remember as the embodiment of effortless charm. After two bottles of wine, they stumble back to Henry's hotel, where the evening takes an irrevocable turn. In the hotel room, Henry sinks to his knees on the white marble floor and looks up at Alex with "big, blue, bottomless eyes," a moment so overwhelming that Alex finds himself without words in any language to describe it. The scene is saturated with French atmosphere—the wine, the marble, the softness of Henry's mouth—and Alex, drunk and disarmed, forgets to send Henry back to his own hotel. He forgets that they are not supposed to spend the night together. And so, for the first time, they do.

The Morning After and the Discovery of Intimacy

The night together reveals a new, tender dimension of Henry that Alex has never seen. He discovers that Henry sleeps curled up on his side, his spine poking out in little sharp points that are actually soft to the touch. Alex reaches out carefully, not wanting to wake him, because Henry is "actually sleeping for once"—a phrase that hints at the prince's usual restlessness and the rarity of such peace. In the morning, room service brings crusty baguettes, sticky tarts filled with fat apricots, and a copy of Le Monde, which Alex makes Henry translate out loud. The domesticity of the scene is striking: two young men, both accustomed to the rigid protocols of their public lives, sharing a quiet breakfast in a Parisian hotel room. Alex vaguely remembers telling himself they weren't going to do things like this, but the memory is hazy, already dissolving in the warmth of the moment.

The Cheese Shop Note and the Public Facade

When Henry leaves, Alex finds a piece of stationery by the bed: Fromagerie Nicole Barthélémy, a Parisian cheese shop. The note is Henry's way of leaving directions to a cheese shop, a gesture that Alex interprets as perfectly in keeping with Henry's "personal brand"—elegant, witty, and unexpectedly thoughtful. The detail underscores the peculiar nature of their relationship: even in the aftermath of their most intimate night, they communicate through oblique references and inside jokes. Later, Zahra Bankston, Alex's handler, texts him a screencap of a BuzzFeed article about his "best bromance ever" with Henry. The article is a mix of photos: the state dinner, shots of them grinning outside the stables in Greenwich, and one picked up from a French girl's Twitter showing Alex leaning back in his chair at a tiny cafe table while Henry finishes off the bottle of red between them. Beneath the screencap, Zahra has begrudgingly written: "Good work, you little shit." The message is clear: the world sees their relationship as a charming friendship, and that perception is exactly what protects them. Alex realizes that this is how they will do this—the world will keep thinking they are best friends, and they will keep playing the part.

The Significance of Paris in Their Story

Paris is more than a backdrop; it is a catalyst. The city's romantic mythology—its wine, its marble floors, its cheese shops—becomes the stage on which Alex and Henry first allow themselves to be fully present with each other, without the armor of their public personas. The overnight stay marks a turning point in their relationship, transforming a series of flirtatious encounters into a genuine, if secret, intimacy. It also establishes the central tension of their story: the need to hide a love that is real and profound behind a facade of platonic friendship. Paris, with its associations of passion and secrecy, is the perfect setting for this first act of their hidden romance, and the memory of that night—the baguettes, the apricot tarts, the soft points of Henry's spine—will linger as a touchstone for everything that follows. The city thus becomes a symbol of the private world they create together, a world that exists in stark contrast to the public one they must perform for the cameras and the headlines.