Prince Harry Loses Control After Tom Bower Reveals the Truth About Lilibet

A Royal Fiction Story

The email arrived just after dawn in Montecito.

The house was quiet, wrapped in the soft California light that filtered through the tall windows. Outside, the hills were still, the air cool, the ocean a faint shimmer in the distance. Inside, the silence was broken only by the hum of the refrigerator and the slow ticking of an antique wall clock Meghan had insisted on shipping from London.

In his study, Harry sat at the long wooden desk he liked to call his “command center”. Two laptops were open. Three phones lay scattered between coffee cups and notebooks—one UK number, one US, one encrypted line that only a few people knew. He told himself he had all this technology for work, for “projects”, for “impact”.

The truth was uglier.

He had become addicted to watching himself burn.

The notification flashed on the screen: Tom Bower: New Investigation Drops Tonight.

Harry’s stomach tightened. He clicked before he could stop himself.

A familiar face appeared, frozen in a thumbnail: Tom Bower, the man Harry privately called “the undertaker of reputations”. An investigative biographer with a career built on peeling back the polished image of powerful men and women and showing the raw, uncomfortable tissue underneath.

Except this time, Bower wasn’t talking about Charles. Or Camilla. Or the Queen.

He was talking about Harry.

More specifically, about Archie and Lilibet.

Harry felt something cold move through his chest.

He pressed play.

 

1. The Man Who Digs

Bower’s voice came through calm, almost bored, like a surgeon explaining a procedure he’d done too many times to count.

“When I choose a subject,” Bower said on screen, “I prefer people who don’t want to be written about. People who hide their lives, who hide secrets. I love digging away, finding what they don’t want anyone to know.”

The video cut to old footage of royal weddings, crowded hospital steps, cheering crowds. Then to a still photo of Harry and Meghan leaving St. George’s Chapel. Radiant. Triumphant. The beginning of the story they thought they were writing.

“I spoke to very few of Meghan’s friends,” Bower continued. “She made sure of that. She put a kind of fatwa on anyone talking to me. Dozens of emails, no replies. You have to ask yourself—what exactly is she trying to keep buried?”

Harry stabbed the pause button.

For a moment, he stared at his own reflection in the dimmed laptop screen. The beard was flecked with more grey now. The eyes looked older than he ever remembered them being at thirty-something. He thought he had braced himself for everything.

He had not braced himself for this.

He reopened the video.

The timeline accelerated—clips of Meghan on the steps of the Royal Albert Hall, hand on bump; Meghan at a charity event in Morocco; Meghan in a cream coat, the fabric stretched over a pregnancy that social media had analyzed frame by frame.

The narration cut through.

“From the beginning, something about the pregnancies didn’t add up,” Bower said. “Not to everyone. To some.”

Images flicked past: her bump seeming larger at one event, smaller at another, shifting in strange ways when she bent.

“There were inconsistencies,” Bower said. “Not proof. But questions. And when someone works this hard to control a narrative, you must ask—what are they hiding?”

Harry’s jaw tightened.

He’d heard all of this before, in bits and pieces. Anonymous accounts on social media. Grainy screenshots. Conspiracy threads swirling around his children like smoke around a house that had already burned once twenty-five years ago, when another woman, another princess, had been hunted to her death.

Before, he could pretend it was noise.

Now it had a name.

Tom Bower.

2. The Accusation

The word came a few minutes later, dropped so calmly it almost passed him by.

“Surrogacy.”

Harry froze.

He replayed the sentence.

“We know that the surrogacy scandal,” Bower said, “has entered the mainstream conversation. What was once whispered is now being investigated.”

Bower’s voice did not rise. There was no gloating, no tabloid glee. That made it worse.

He spoke of royal succession, of centuries-old constitutional requirements. Children in the line of succession must be born “of the body” of a legitimate descendant. It was not merely tradition; it was law.

“If she hasn’t had the children herself,” Bower quoted a royal commentator, “or Harry hasn’t been involved, then they cannot be in the royal line. They have to have royal blood, those little ones. Otherwise, they are not legally entitled to their positions or their titles.”

Harry’s hand trembled on the mouse.

He felt anger first—a hot flare that rose too fast, too violently. Then fear spiraled up behind it.

Who had said that?

Who, on record, was now suggesting his children did not belong where the world thought they belonged?

The footage moved through the familiar controversies: the missing hospital steps photo; the confusion over birth times; the unusual secrecy around both births; the strange absence of hospital staff speaking publicly, as they had done for William and Kate’s children.

Then came the still frames: Meghan crouching during pregnancy, her belly folding in a way critics claimed was impossible.

Medical experts appeared on screen—some with real names, some disguised—commenting in carefully hedged phrases.

“That movement would be very difficult late in the third trimester,” one obstetrician said. “Highly unusual.”

Unusual.

Not impossible. Not proof.

But when repeated often enough, Harry knew, “unusual” became “obvious” in the minds of people who already wanted to believe the worst.

3. The Missing Photos

The video moved on from pregnancy to something darker.

“Consider the royal grandchildren,” Bower said. “We have endless images of George, Charlotte, and Louis. With their grandfather, now King Charles. With their great-grandmother, the late Queen. At Sandringham, at Trooping the Colour, at Easter services, at balcony appearances.”

Photos flashed across the screen: Charles bending down to greet George; the Queen smiling at little Charlotte; Louis making faces from a balcony, the crowd roaring with laughter.

Then the screen went black.

“With Archie and Lilibet,” Bower said, “we have nothing.”

A single photo appeared—Harry and Meghan beneath a tree, Archie’s face turned away, Lili a blur of motion.

“Not one image,” Bower continued, “of either child in their grandfather’s arms. None with the late Queen. None with William and Catherine. Not even a distant shot at a family gathering. This, we are told, is due to privacy.”

He paused.

“Or is there another explanation?”

Harry whispered to the empty room, “Shut up.”

But the video did not stop.

“The palace’s distance speaks volumes,” Bower said. “If the royal family were fully confident about these children’s place in the line of succession… would they not wish to show it? To embrace them publicly? Instead, there is a silence. And silence, at this level, is never neutral.”

Harry’s thumb hovered over the power button.

He should stop. He knew he should. This was gasoline on a fire that was already eating through whatever piece of his life still felt manageable.

Instead, he watched.

4. Montecito, Cracking

Meghan found him an hour later.

He was still in the same chair, the same position, the laptop now closed but his eyes fixed on nothing. A half-finished coffee sat cold beside him.

“Harry?” she said softly from the doorway. “You’re up early.”

He didn’t answer.

Meghan stepped into the room, barefoot, wrapped in a pale robe. Her hair was loose, falling over her shoulders in dark waves. For a moment, the sight of her pulled him out of the spiral—reminding him of another morning, another house, when everything had seemed full of promise.

“Harry,” she tried again. “What’s going on?”

He blinked, forced himself to move.

“Tom Bower,” he said.

Meghan went still.

“What about him?”

“He’s done… something. Another special. It’s everywhere. About us. About the kids.”

She felt the now-familiar coldness wash through her. For two years, their names had been attached to every possible narrative—heroes, villains, victims, narcissists. She had hardened herself against it, one interview, one lawyer letter at a time.

But the children were different.

“What exactly did he say?” she asked carefully.

“That we lied,” Harry snapped. “That you lied. About the pregnancies. About the births. That there was a cover-up. That we used a surrogate.”

The last word came out like an accusation, though he didn’t mean it that way.

Meghan’s face didn’t move. Only her eyes changed, sharpening.

“Of course he did,” she said. “He couldn’t resist. That man only exists when he’s tearing someone else apart.”

“He’s talking about succession,” Harry continued, his voice rising. “About whether Archie and Lili belong in the line. He’s talking about DNA tests. He’s talking about—”

He stopped.

Meghan heard what he hadn’t said: he’s talking about whether they’re truly ours.

She crossed the room, placed a hand on his shoulder, then pulled it back when she felt how tense he was.

“Harry, look at me.”

He looked up.

“This is what they do,” she said, her voice low, controlled. “This is what they’ve always done to you. To your mother. To us. They want you rattled. They want you spiraling. They want you off-balance so you make mistakes.”

He swallowed hard.

“Are we going to do anything?” he asked.

She exhaled slowly.

“Yes,” she said. “We’re going to call the lawyers.”

5. The War Room

By mid-morning, Meghan’s “war room” was active.

Screens lit the dining table—legal briefs, PDFs, social media dashboards, interview transcripts, privately commissioned reports on media sentiment.

On a Zoom call, three lawyers appeared in small boxes: one in Los Angeles, one in London, one in New York. Each specialized in a different kind of battle—defamation, privacy, reputation management.

Meghan took the head of the table. Harry sat off to the side, arms folded tight across his chest.

“You’ve all seen the Bower broadcast?” Meghan began.

“We have,” said the London lawyer. “It’s… extensive.”

“And defamatory,” Meghan pressed.

“There are certainly statements that could be challenged,” the New York lawyer replied cautiously. “He frames them as questions, theories, opinions. That makes it harder. Not impossible, but harder.”

“He’s accusing us of lying about the births of our children,” Meghan said. “He’s inviting the world to question whether I gave birth. Whether Harry is their father. You don’t get more defamatory than that.”

The Los Angeles lawyer adjusted his glasses.

“Legally, the most effective response is not always the most emotionally satisfying one,” he said. “Suing could keep the story alive for years. Discovery. Depositions. Headlines every day. And any lawsuit would invite the other side to demand evidence.”

Harry stiffened.

“Evidence of what?” he asked.

“Of what you’re claiming,” the lawyer said gently. “Their case, in blunt terms, is: If you want these children to hold titles, to stay in the line of succession, and you say they were born in a certain way, then prove it. Medical records. Hospital staff. Photographs. Testimony.”

Meghan’s jaw set.

“We are not putting our medical records into some circus,” she said. “Absolutely not.”

The London lawyer nodded.

“I understand,” she said. “But as your colleague says, that’s precisely the trap they’ve laid. As long as you refuse that level of transparency, they will say your privacy is proof of deceit.”

Harry leaned forward.

“What about a statement?” he asked. “Can’t we just say again what we’ve said? That these conspiracy theories are hurtful and false? That this is harassment?”

“You can,” the New York lawyer said. “But Harry, with respect—we’ve done that before. The impact diminishes each time. The people who want to believe you will. The people who don’t will see your refusal to provide ‘proof’ as confirmation.”

He didn’t say the next part.

You cannot win this on words alone.

6. The Palace Watches

Thousands of miles away, in a quieter, older house, another screen glowed.

Clarence House was not what it had been when Harry was a boy. Renovations, redecorations, the slow creep of modern security infrastructure had changed its interior. But in Charles’s private sitting room, some things remained stubbornly old: a worn armchair, a desk scarred by decades of papers, a lamp that buzzed faintly when turned on.

The King—still getting used to the word, even in his own head—watched the Bower segment with a face that betrayed nothing.

Beside him, an aide waited, tablet in hand.

Bower’s allegations unfolded just as the daily briefing had predicted. Questions about succession. Surrogacy. Constitutional law. DNA.

When it ended, Charles turned off the sound, but left the screen lit.

“Is there any indication,” he asked quietly, “that Harry has… responded?”

“Not officially, sir,” the aide replied. “Privately, we’ve heard he’s… distressed.”

Charles pressed his fingers to his temple.

“In what way?”

“Obsessively monitoring coverage,” the aide said. “Arguing with staff. Insomnia. Friends say he’s fixated on the idea that this will ‘break’ the children.”

Charles closed his eyes briefly.

He remembered another boy, younger than Archie now, pacing the corridors of Kensington, red-eyed and furious, insisting that the press had killed his mother. He remembered trying to comfort him with words that felt heavy and useless, while cameras jostled outside.

The aide hesitated, then continued.

“There is another concern, sir,” he said. “This story is bringing the rules of succession into public debate. The more it spreads, the more people will ask questions we have never had to answer in the modern era.”

Charles opened his eyes.

“Questions like,” he said softly, “what happens if…?”

He didn’t finish the sentence.

The aide nodded.

“Yes, sir.”

There was a pause.

“Do we know,” Charles asked, choosing his words, “whether the allegations have any basis at all?”

The aide shifted.

“Sir,” he said, “the palace has never been given access to medical documentation. There were… unusual choices. Non-standard announcements. Limited access. At the time, given the desire to modernize, to accommodate the Sussexes’ wishes, it was… permitted.”

He did not say the word mistake.

“We cannot confirm or deny anything with certainty,” he added.

Charles looked back at the darkened screen.

“Very well,” he said. “For now, we say nothing. We do nothing. We observe.”

“And the children, sir?” the aide asked quietly. “Archie and Lilibet’s places in the line of succession?”

Charles hesitated.

“Do not move too quickly,” he said. “Changing the succession will raise more questions than it answers. And whatever else is true or untrue… those children did not ask for any of this.”

 

7. The Crack in the Marriage

In Montecito, the argument began late that night.

Not with shouting. Not at first.

With a single sentence.

“We can’t keep pretending this will blow over,” Harry said.

They were in the bedroom, but neither was preparing to sleep. Meghan sat on the edge of the bed with a laptop open, scanning legal updates. Harry stood near the window, the curtains half-drawn, staring out at a night too bright with security lights to feel truly dark.

Meghan didn’t look up.

“I’m not pretending,” she said. “I am managing it.”

“Managing it how?” he pressed. “With lawyers and silence? It’s not working, Meg. It’s making it worse. People think we’re hiding something. Every time we say nothing, every time we refuse… proof… it’s like we’re confirming it.”

She closed the laptop gently.

“Proof of what?” she asked, her tone cool. “That I carried my children? That you’re their father? That these pregnancies were real? You want to reduce our family to test results for the sake of people who already hate us?”

“It’s not about them,” he said, his voice rising. “It’s about the institution. About the line. About… the truth. The more this goes on, the more likely it is that someone will force the issue. Courts. Parliament. The palace. Do you want our kids in the middle of a constitutional case?”

Meghan’s face hardened.

“What I want,” she said, “is for our children not to be dissected by the same machine that killed your mother.”

“That’s not what this is,” he shot back. “This isn’t just about press. This is law. This is the monarchy. You may not care what that means anymore, but I—”

He stopped.

Her eyes flashed.

“But you what, Harry?” she asked. “But you still do? You still want their approval? You still care what they think more than what I live through? Than what our children face?”

He ran a hand through his hair.

“It’s not that simple,” he said weakly.

“It never is with you,” she replied. “Whenever you’re cornered, you go back to them. To the idea of them. To the fantasy that if you just do the right thing, tell the truth the right way, they’ll finally… what? Love you? Accept you?”

“That’s not fair,” he said.

“What’s not fair,” she countered, “is you even entertaining this ‘DNA test’ madness. Do you know what that would do? To me? To the kids? To the story of how they came into this world?”

He flinched.

“Story,” he repeated. “You hear yourself? You sound like one of your PR meetings. ‘The story.’ I’m talking about reality, Meghan. I’m talking about removing any doubt, permanently, so our children don’t grow up under this cloud.”

She stood now, facing him fully.

“I will not be bullied,” she said. “Not by Bower. Not by the palace. Not by racists on the internet. And not by you.”

The last word landed between them like a stone dropped in shallow water.

He stared at her.

For a moment, he saw not the composed woman who had navigated red carpets and talk shows, but the frightened, furious woman who had once confessed to him that she had wanted to end her life in palace walls because no one listened.

He took a breath.

“I’m not the enemy,” he said softly.

“Then stop acting like I’m the problem,” she shot back. “The problem is not what we did or didn’t do. The problem is that they think they own our truth. And every time you panic, every time you spiral, you feed that belief.”

He felt something inside him crack.

“You think I don’t know I’m spiraling?” he asked, his voice shaking. “You think I enjoy waking up at four in the morning to watch some old man dissect whether my children should exist?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it.

The silence stretched.

“I’m… drowning here, Meg,” he said finally. “And it feels like your answer is always the same: call the lawyers, shut the blinds, keep control. But what if control is the thing killing us?”

For the first time that night, her expression softened.

“Harry,” she said quietly. “What are you saying?”

He sank down into the chair by the window.

“I don’t know,” he whispered. “I just know I can’t keep doing… this. Obsessing. Watching. Pretending we’re fine while the world decides whether my kids are… real.”

He laughed once, a small, broken sound.

“Do you know what it’s like to read strangers saying your daughter is AI?” he asked. “To see edited photos of her face, framed as ‘evidence’ she doesn’t exist? To hear that the Queen never met her ‘because she wasn’t real’? How am I supposed to live with that?”

Meghan sat back down slowly.

“We fight,” she said. “Like we always have.”

He looked at her, and for the first time, he wondered if their definitions of “fight” were no longer the same.

8. The Line of Succession

In Whitehall, in a room with no windows and a long, polished table, a group of people who were not supposed to exist in public consciousness met in secret.

They were constitutional lawyers, palace liaisons, government officials from the Cabinet Office. Together, they formed an informal working group whose remit had expanded quietly in recent years.

The monarchy crisis group.

On a screen at the end of the room, an organizational chart glowed: The Royal Line of Succession.

George. Charlotte. Louis. Then Harry. Then Archie. Then Lilibet.

One of the lawyers leaned forward.

“Our concern,” she said, “is not the validity of the rumors. Our concern is the public perception of them. The longer these questions circulate without resolution, the more we risk the legitimacy of the succession being undermined in the court of public opinion.”

A civil servant adjusted his tie.

“Are we seriously contemplating,” he asked, “intervening in the private family life of the King’s son, based on speculation from a biographer and social media hysteria?”

The lawyer didn’t flinch.

“We are contemplating scenarios,” she said. “That is our job. One scenario is that this fades. Another is that it doesn’t. That Parliament is petitioned to investigate. That foreign governments raise questions about treaties and Commonwealth structures if the future of the line is seen as unstable.”

Pages shuffled.

“What are the options?” the chair asked.

The lawyer spoke carefully.

“Option one: do nothing. Hope the story collapses under its own weight.”

“Option two: encourage the King, privately, to request voluntary clarification from his son and daughter-in-law. Medical evidence. Statements from practitioners. Documents.”

“And if they refuse?” the chair asked.

“Then we remain where we are,” she said. “But at least we have tried.”

“Option three?” another official pressed.

There was a small pause.

“Option three is statutory,” the lawyer said. “Parliament could, theoretically, legislate new requirements regarding proof of lineage for those in the line. That would be… unprecedented. And politically explosive.”

The room went quiet.

No one said the words that hovered unspoken.

Remove the children.

Finally, the chair exhaled.

“For now,” he said, “we remain with option one and partial two. The palace will… sound them out. Discreetly. Politely. We will not escalate.”

Another voice, quieter, spoke from the end of the table.

“And if they still refuse?”

The chair looked at the chart again.

“Then we keep planning,” he said. “Because history has taught us one thing: when succession is in doubt, the entire system trembles.”

9. The DNA Question

The first time someone said the words directly to Harry’s face, it came not from an enemy, but from someone who once loved him dearly.

His uncle.

They met not in London, not in some grand room with crests and footmen, but in a neutral place—an estate in the countryside owned by an old family friend who knew how to keep secrets.

The journey there was arranged quietly. Private jet. Unmarked car. No press. No leaks.

Harry arrived reluctantly, Meghan staying behind in California.

In a small drawing room, his uncle stood by the fireplace, looking older, heavier, but with the same sharp eyes.

“Thank you for coming,” the uncle said.

“Did I have a choice?” Harry asked.

“Not much of one, no,” came the blunt reply.

They sat.

Small talk died quickly.

“We are in a difficult position,” the uncle said. “Your father. The institution. All of us. You must know that.”

Harry laughed bitterly.

“Welcome to my world.”

“This is not about feelings,” the uncle said. “This is about the Crown. About centuries of law. About what holds this country together when everything else falls apart.”

“Is that what we still are to you?” Harry asked. “Glue?”

“Among other things,” the uncle replied. “Look. You know I’ve always thought you were… impulsive. Hot-headed. But I don’t think you’re a liar. Not about your children.”

Something inside Harry warmed for a brief, painful second.

“But the longer this goes on,” the uncle continued, “the more others will. And at a certain point, their doubt becomes more dangerous than any private discomfort you might feel now.”

There it was.

“Private discomfort,” Harry repeated. “Is that what you think this is? Comfort?”

The uncle met his eyes.

“Harry,” he said plainly, “would you ever consider a private DNA test? Not for the press. Not for public release. Just… so that certain people can sleep at night. So that no one can ever say we did not do our duty in verifying the line.”

Harry stared at him.

“You want me to swab my children,” he said slowly, “like crime suspects.”

“No,” the uncle said. “I want you to swab them like heirs.”

The words hit like a slap.

Harry stood abruptly.

“Do you even hear yourself?” he demanded. “Do you know what that sounds like? After everything I’ve lived through with you people, now you want me to hand over my kids’ DNA like… like pedigreed horses?”

The uncle didn’t flinch.

“Your children,” he said quietly, “were born into a system. You might hate it. You might have left it. But the fact remains: they are in a line that leads to the throne. That comes with obligations as well as privileges.”

Harry shook his head.

“No,” he said. “DNA is the line. I draw it there. You don’t get that. They don’t get that. No one gets to sample my children to prove they belong.”

The uncle sighed.

“I thought you might say that.”

“Then why ask?” Harry snapped.

“Because now, when this escalates—and it will—I can say I tried,” the uncle replied. “I can tell your father we reached out. That we offered a way to end this cleanly, quietly. That you refused.”

“Of course,” Harry said, bitter. “You’re already thinking about how it looks on paper.”

“In this family,” the uncle said, “everything is paper in the end.”

10. The Breaking Point

Back in Montecito, the stories multiplied.

More YouTube videos. More “analysis”. More threads dissecting every pixel of every photograph that included Archie or Lilibet. Media personalities demanded “proof”. Panelists debated whether the public had a “right to know”. Commentators invoked constitutional law and centuries of precedent.

Through it all, the children remained blissfully unaware—for now.

Archie, curious and bright, loved cars and animals and the ocean. Lilibet—Lili—laughed easily, her hair curling in the humidity, eyes watching everything.

Harry watched them, too, but now there was a crack in every moment. A whisper beneath every laugh: They’re coming for you. I can’t stop them. I don’t know how.

One night, after everyone had gone to bed, he found himself back in the study. The screen glowed again, casting his face in a pale light.

He typed his own name into the search bar.

Then his children’s.

Hours passed.

He barely noticed.

Eventually, a soft voice broke the trance.

“Harry.”

He turned.

Meghan stood in the doorway.

“Come to bed,” she said.

“I can’t,” he murmured.

“You have to,” she replied gently. “You can’t fight this at two in the morning on a laptop.”

“I’m not fighting,” he said. “I’m watching myself lose.”

Her expression flickered.

“Harry, please,” she said, stepping closer. “This isn’t… healthy.”

He laughed, a harsh sound.

“Healthy,” he repeated. “I’m sorry, did you just say that to me? The mental health guy? The ‘reach out, seek help, be open’ guy? The one who told the world to talk about their trauma while I can’t even talk to my own family without it turning into a war?”

She knelt beside him.

“Then talk to me,” she said. “Not them. Not the comments. Me.”

He looked at her.

For a moment, all the anger drained away, leaving only fear.

“What if they win?” he whispered.

“Who?” she asked.

“Bower. The palace. The press. The people who think they can decide whether my kids are real. Whether they belong. Whether I’m… a father.”

She reached for his hand.

“They can’t change reality,” she said firmly. “Only your belief in it.”

He squeezed his eyes shut.

“I watched them do exactly that to my mother,” he said. “They turned her into whatever they needed her to be. Mad. Fragile. Savage. Saint. Sinner. Now they’re doing it to me. And I can take it. I can. I’ve taken worse. But I don’t know if I can stand by and watch them do it to Archie and Lili.”

Meghan’s voice softened.

“Then we hold the line,” she said. “We double down. We protect them. We don’t explain our family to people who don’t deserve to know it.”

He opened his eyes.

“And if that protection,” he asked, “becomes the very thing that keeps them trapped in this story forever?”

She didn’t answer immediately.

“Sometimes,” she said finally, “there is no way out of the story, Harry. Only a way through.”

11. The Public Verdict

Months passed.

Bower moved on to another subject. Other scandals bloomed in the never-ending royal ecosystem—an ill-phrased speech here, a leaked memo there. The public’s attention shifted, as it always did.

But the questions did not disappear.

They sank deeper, embedding themselves in forums, in comment sections, in quiet conversations around dinner tables.

Every time Harry and Meghan appeared in public, someone asked, “Where are the children?” Every time a blurred Christmas card photo emerged, someone zoomed in, circled shadows, produced “enhanced” images. News anchors mentioned “lingering questions” about the Sussex children as casually as they did weather updates.

In Britain, support for the monarchy wavered, then steadied, then wavered again. Among older generations, sympathy for Charles’s battle with cancer translated into renewed affection. Among younger ones, frustration with privilege and opacity hardened into skepticism.

The Sussex children became symbols to many, long before they were old enough to understand what a symbol was.

Symbols of opacity. Or of persecution. Of a broken system. Or a desperate couple. It depended who you asked.

Meanwhile, inside the palace, contingency plans multiplied quietly like files in a locked cabinet no one wanted to open.

In Montecito, Harry tried to step back.

He cut his screen time. Deleted some apps. Handed one of his phones to a security guard and told him not to return it unless Meghan said so.

He devoted himself to what he could control. School choices. Bedtime stories. Walks on the beach. Therapy sessions. Charity work that still felt real.

But the crack remained.

Some nights, when the house was quiet, he would wake from a dream in which men in wigs and robes sat around a table in London and calmly voted his children out of existence.

He would lie there, listening to Lili’s soft breathing in the next room, and wonder what kind of father he would have to become to protect them from a story that no longer belonged to him.

12. No Easy Ending

There was no single moment when anything ended.

No dramatic showdown in Parliament. No televised DNA reveal. No final, definitive statement from the palace declaring the matter closed.

Instead, the story settled into a kind of uneasy equilibrium.

The monarchy continued.

The line of succession remained unchanged—at least in public.

Bower’s book sold well, then slipped down the charts.

Harry and Meghan gave fewer interviews. Focused more on safe topics—charity, climate, mental health—careful to avoid specifics about their children’s births. Their lawyers remained on retainer, their war room ever-ready but increasingly unused.

The public divided into camps and stayed that way.

Some believed the Sussexes utterly, seeing in them a couple persecuted by a racist, classist, archaic system that wanted them punished for daring to break away.

Others believed Bower’s insinuations, convinced that Harry and Meghan had constructed not just a narrative but an entire family around deception and ambition.

Between those extremes, a quiet majority shrugged and got on with their lives, occasionally glancing at a headline about royal grandchildren and wondering, very briefly, what the truth really was.

But the truth, Harry was slowly learning, was not a single object you could hold up to the light and examine. It was a field where battles were fought, and sometimes no one remembered what they had started fighting for in the first place.

One evening, months after the Bower storm had passed its peak, Harry sat in the garden, watching the sun sink behind the hills. Archie played in the grass with a toy helicopter. Lili toddled back and forth between them, determined not to be left out of anything.

Meghan brought out two mugs of tea and sat beside him.

“Do you ever think,” she asked quietly, “about what would’ve happened if we’d told everything? Every detail. Every appointment. Every contraction. Every moment?”

He watched Archie lift the toy helicopter and spin in circles, arms outstretched, making engine noises.

“Yes,” Harry said honestly. “All the time.”

“And?” she asked.

“And I think,” he said slowly, “they would’ve just demanded more.”

She nodded.

“Probably.”

He took a sip of tea.

“Do you regret anything?” he asked.

She considered.

“I regret underestimating how far they would go,” she said. “I regret believing there was any version of this story that would leave us entirely in peace.”

She reached for his hand.

“But I don’t regret them,” she added, nodding toward the children.

“Never them.”

He squeezed her hand back.

“I just wish…” he began, then stopped.

“Wish what?” she pressed.

“I wish I could give them a world where their existence isn’t a question,” he said. “Where no one ever argues about whether they belong. Where their reality isn’t negotiated in newspaper columns and YouTube videos.”

Meghan was quiet for a long moment.

“We can’t give them that world,” she said finally. “But we can give them this garden. This family. This truth, whatever anyone else believes.”

He looked at her.

“Is that enough?” he asked.

“It has to be,” she said.

In the fading light, Archie ran toward them, Lili stumbling after him, laughing.

Harry opened his arms.

The children collided with him, warm, solid, real.

For a fleeting moment, the noise of the world faded. The speculation, the accusations, the constitutional debates—all of it retreated to a distant, muffled hum.

Here, in this small patch of earth far from royal palaces and Westminster corridors, reality needed no verification.

It was in the weight of two small bodies in his arms.

In the sound of their voices calling him “Daddy”.

In the knowledge that no test, no broadcast, no book could ever fully capture or erase what that meant.

The storm beyond the garden would continue.

But inside the broken, complicated heart of Prince Harry, something resembling peace settled—for now.

Not because he had silenced his critics.

Not because he had proven anything to the world.

But because, as he held his children and felt them breathe, he finally understood the only truth that mattered:

They were his.

And whatever anyone else chose to believe, he would spend the rest of his life fighting, imperfectly, painfully, sometimes foolishly, to protect that truth—even if he could never entirely control it.