American Riviera Orchard or ARO as Miss Meghan liked to call her satire brand was suffering. It had only just had its soft launch. It had launched a website and Instagram page while the vile Prince William was about to jump on stage for the Diana Awards. However, unlike her previous attempt, at social media fame, the Insta account got less followers than the Sussex Royal account, which broke records.
Within weeks of the launch of the satire that is ARO, the Instagram account only garnered over 600k followers. Though what Meghan hated were her critics claiming most of her subscribers were bots. She already had a cult who would argue her victimhood but she couldn’t use them this time justify her lackluster numbers, which is why she subtly uses bots, yet denies she uses them.
Harry leaned in the doorway of the office, watching his wife doomscroll. It was their favourite pasttime as they both enjoyed telling their underpaid staff to order the social media giants to remove all the ‘horrid’ yet true comments about them. He could hear their five-year-old, Archie, in a nearby room screaming at his 2-year-old sister, Lilibet, to leave him alone.
A pang pulled at Harry’s heart, yet he ignored it. His children’s sibling dynamic reminded him his former bond with his brother when they were young. He’d never admit it, but he had adored William growing up. Yet, through his drug-addled haze and Meghan’s needling, he saw his big bro, his ‘Willy’ as he had referred to the future king in his neaseating moan-a-thon of a memoir known as Spare, as his archnemesis.
What Harry did not know is that his late mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, was greatly concerned about how’d he turned out as an adult. In many ways, it was good she wasn’t alive to see the divide between her boys. It would’ve broke her heart. If she were still living, she would’ve loved seen her grandchildren running around playing with each other the way their fathers did with their cousins.
Also, Harry was unwilling to accept people’s opinions that his mother would not have approved of Meghan. She would have adored Catherine the way, her ex-husband does as she is loyal and loving and makes William light up whenever entered the room.
Once upon a time, Meghan did the same for Harry. She was the girl of his dreams, though it hadn’t stopped him from mentioning his ex-girlfriend, Chelsy Davy in his vendetta court case, over one hundred times, whereas he claimed he was suing the press for his wife, who was mentioned only a handful of times.
“Harry!”
The safe space is gone the second Meghan’s voice enters his ears. Harry tensions. “Yes, my love?” He has learned to keep the fear out of his tone when he’s speaking to her.
“I need to know when Kate’s next engagement is!” Meghan sounds desperate. She always does. She hates Kate with a burning passion.
“You have access to the royal calendar. You check it.”
“I did.”
Harry stares stupidly at her, defeated almost. “And?”
“It’s empty!”
Harry shrugs. “Not my problem. My family isn’t talking to me and we both know why. We’re not trusted. You’ve insisted that we wear mikes everywhere we go. Also, Kate has cancer.”
Meghan’s face goes deathly pale. “She hasn’t got effing cancer! She is just saying she does to get sympathy so she doesn’t have to work!”
Despite agreeing with her on the surface, even Harry knows deep down Kate’s cancer diagnosis is real, just as much as his father’s is. It’s clear that she is believing everything Chris Bouzy is saying about the video of Catherine and William walking through the Windsor market. He believes the video is AI too, but there is no way that Kate would fake something as serious as cancer. He knows her better than Meghan ever could. Though he knows someone who would and he’s looking straight at her.
“Your mom says that Kate deserves her ‘dianogsis!'” Meghan snarks.
Harry realises that he never asked why his beloved needed to know Kate’s next engagement. “Why do you need to know what Kate’s next engagement is?”
Meghan looked like she wanted to throw her notebook at Harry’s head, but she reframed from doing so as she said, “Because I need to plan the full launch of my satire ARO brand for that date.”
Harry knew all about how Meghan insisted they take over the media headlines by dropping their own news at the same time as the other royals. He had made the claim multiple times that his family leaked and planted stories in the press when he knew full well that this was not true. His true target was his stepmother who he claimed leaked a conversation to the media about her first meeting with him and William.
What he refused to hear was that it was not her fault. She had told an assistant who then told her husband and then he leaked it to a friend in the media. The assistant was horrified and quit her job. Though Harry refused to believe this and he still hated Camilla’s guts. However, this is not how he felt when his father had married so many years ago. Thanks to Meghan, he now believed that his mother should’ve been Queen, not his wicked, vile stepmother.
Meghan could see the cogs turning in her idiot husband’s head. “Your mom said this is the next thing. Kate isn’t a nice person. Diana said as much.”
Harry felt the fog close over his mind as it did every time Meghan mentioned Diana. “Yes,” he said in a total daze. “A horrible person.” Like a zombie, he straightened his back and marched out of the room, a smirking Meghan watching him go.
It took hours, but the ARO satire started to take shape. She had settled on American Riviera Orchard Montecito and proclaimed it was unique and authentically her.
Harry knew better than to argue.
