Caught by the Mad Alpha King-Chapter 283: Babysitting (2)

Chapter 283: Chapter 283: Babysitting (2)
Heather frowned, clearly offended by the implication she hadn’t prepared an answer for. Her brows drew together, indignation gathering like a storm that had never once checked the weather forecast.
"That is irrelevant," she declared. "Power isn’t bound by age. A king is a king. His age is a trivial detail compared to his duty to his country... and to me."
Chris inclined his head slightly. "So you do want to marry a man who could have reasonably parented you."
Several nobles nearby coughed into their drinks. One lady turned away entirely to hide a hysterical smile. Rowan looked at the ceiling like he was asking whatever divine authority existed why he had to witness this.
Sahir approached as if he were looking for popcorn to accompany the scene.
Heather opened her mouth, no doubt to deliver some grand declaration about destiny and royalty and how the universe would simply adjust to her demands, but Chris continued first, gently, reasonably, and devastatingly calm.
"You’re fifteen," he said, not unkindly. "You’re not meant to be choosing husbands yet. You’re meant to be choosing favorite desserts, or hobbies, or which terrible fashion decision you’ll regret in two years. You’re still growing."
He didn’t say it cruelly. If anything, his tone held that quiet patience adults should probably have around teenagers but rarely do.
Heather recoiled like he’d implied she still needed help crossing the street.
"I am perfectly mature," she insisted, chin lifting, shoulders coming up, every inch of her body bracing for a fight she was absolutely certain she could win.
Chris only smiled a little, the sort of smile that took all the wind out of tantrums without ever once mocking them.
"You got bored on a two-hour flight and threatened to sue the sky because the clouds weren’t
’aesthetically pleasing,’
" he reminded gently. "I’m not saying that makes you childish. I’m saying it makes you young. Which is fine. It’s allowed."
Heather opened her mouth. Nothing came out. It was deeply offensive how reasonable he sounded.
"And think about it this way," he went on, his hand making a slow, open gesture toward the golden, glittering room. "Do you really want to be... here... three years from now? Attending charity galas, memorizing political names, being evaluated like an investment portfolio, while His Majesty gets older and more terrifying... instead of screaming your lungs out at a concert with your friends or skipping boring ceremonies to eat fast food in a car somewhere? Do you honestly want to trade being eighteen for this permanently?"
Heather’s jaw shut. Her brain stalled.
She hadn’t... actually considered that. No one ever asked her what she wanted at eighteen. They asked what she was willing to become.
Her hand curled slightly around her clutch.
"I..." she tried.
Chris didn’t press. He softened instead.
"There’s no rush," he said. "You don’t need to sprint toward adulthood like it’s going to vanish if you don’t catch it right now. And you don’t need to anchor your future to the first crown someone points you toward. You deserve time to figure out who you are before you decide whose life you want to stand beside."
Heather stared up at him.
He was calm without being cold. Warm without being soft. Firm in a way that made the room feel calmer just because he was breathing inside it. His voice wasn’t harsh. It wasn’t patronizing. It carried reassurance, like it was normal to give it.
Something fluttered painfully in her chest.
"Oh," she whispered, eyes wide and shining in a way that spelled disaster for at least seven nations. "You’re... unbelievably wonderful."
Rowan shifted behind Chris like a man witnessing a slow-motion car crash.
Sahir, ten meters away, very gracefully turned his back so he would not be visibly entertained.
And because she was fifteen, catastrophically romantic, utterly unreasonable, and now emotionally compromised beyond hope... She took a breath like she was accepting a divine revelation.
"Very well," she declared solemnly, chin lifting again in renewed dignity. "The king is too old. You are not. I have made my decision."
Chris blinked.
There was a feeling in his chest very similar to resignation.
And the distinct awareness that somewhere in the universe, fate was laughing itself sick.
Heather smiled, radiant with self-confidence
"I shall marry you instead."
Chris inhaled slowly.
Rowan made a noise under his breath that sounded suspiciously like a prayer.
Somewhere nearby a diplomat choked on their champagne, and a general pretended to study a decorative column with intense interest.
Chris opened his mouth, ready to gently redirect this before it spiraled into something the newspapers would title a crisis, when the atmosphere shifted.
Heather felt it too but didn’t step back. That would have required instinct. Instead, her chin tilted higher in the gloriously suicidal confidence of a child who had never once been denied oxygen, sweets, or emotional delusions.
Chris exhaled and turned, already resigned to reality.
Dax stood behind him.
He looked relaxed, almost casual even, but the room knew better. The room could feel it. His gaze went first to Chris, because it always did, checking, and only after that to the girl who had just declared an engagement nobody had signed off on.
Heather stared at him like a pilgrim presented with a god she did not fully believe in until this exact second.
Behind him, Marianne arrived.
"My prayers," she muttered to no one in particular, "have never been heard less than in this exact moment."
Chris almost smiled.
Heather gathered courage as if it were oxygen and declared with triumphant solemnity, "I have made my decision."
Marianne shut her eyes in visible despair. "Of course you have."
Dax watched patiently, as one might watch a very small child trying to explain taxation. There was no irritation in it. Just quiet, razor-edged interest.
"I see," he said. "You’ve decided."
Heather nodded, confidence blazing bright and blameless. "You are too old to marry me. You are... extremely frightening. And your priorities are clearly inefficient for a future romantic partnership." She lifted her chin in the way of royalty who have never experienced consequences. "But your consort is not. He is reasonable. Kind. And almost age appropriate. Therefore..." And she delivered it like a decree carved into marble: "I shall marry him instead."
Silence. Heavy enough to bow the chandeliers.
Sahir didn’t even bother to hide his face this time; he sighed into his palm like a tired god.
Marianne glanced upward with the exact expression of someone appealing personally to fate.
Chris blinked once.
Then twice.
There was no panic in him. Just the calm acceptance of a man who had prepared extensively for diplomatic sabotage, assassination attempts, treason plots, and foreign manipulation and had nevertheless forgotten to prepare for the experience of being unironically proposed to by a catastrophically delusional teenager.
He started to speak.
Dax got there first.
"No," he said.