Sorry, I forgot to upload the bonus chapter yesterday, so it's today.
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******
Seeing Marvin's eyes widen in mock alarm at the prospect of being a royal captive, Diana couldn't help but chuckle. Overcome by a sudden, maternal surge of affection, she reached out and gently pinched his smooth, aristocratic cheek.
'What is it with women and pinching my face?' Marvin thought, suppressing an internal sigh of annoyance while maintaining a perfectly polite, charming smile on the outside.
"Don't worry, I was just kidding about keeping you locked up," Diana laughed, pulling her hand back. "But seriously, Marvin. Have you ever thought about releasing a record? That way, I could buy it and actually listen to it every day."
"Release a record?" Marvin murmured, reaching up to casually touch his nose, his brilliant mind instantly shifting gears.
He had originally planned to wait until his human body went through puberty before flooding the music industry. While his Incubus magic allowed him to simulate almost any sound, projecting that kind of supernatural resonance through undeveloped, eleven-year-old human vocal cords for hours in a recording studio was risky. It wasn't sustainable, and he didn't want to cause permanent physical damage to his throat. After puberty, when his vocal cords were fully developed and thick, he could seamlessly weave his innate Incubus magic into his singing without any physical strain.
However, Diana's casual suggestion had just dropped a massive, golden opportunity right into his lap.
'Perhaps,' Marvin calculated rapidly, 'I don't need to wait for a full studio album. I can use her unparalleled global fame as a battering ram to break into the music distribution network early. It's just one more path to accelerating the capital.'
If he played this right, he could execute a devastating three-pronged assault on the global market: the novel, the Disney film premiere, and a debut musical EP, all hitting the zeitgeist before July of 1997. The synergistic profits would be great.
Marvin sat up a little straighter, his boyish demeanor vanishing as his face turned deadly serious. "Diana, is this a formal suggestion?"
Diana was taken aback for a moment by the sudden, intense shift in his aura. Then, she laughed, thoroughly charmed by his businesslike pivot.
She leaned over and playfully pinched his other cheek. "You can absolutely take it as a formal suggestion, Mr. Meyers."
"Oh. Well, in that case," Marvin said, gently rubbing his cheek, "I suppose I could consider releasing an EP. I've composed five distinct instrumental and vocal pieces. It isn't enough runtime for a full studio album, so packaging them as an exclusive Extended Play record would be much more appropriate."
Marvin certainly possessed more than five songs. His ancient memory bank contained countless, breathtaking classical symphonies, songs from the world of gods and demons, alongside decades of future Billboard chart-toppers from this current world. But he was a master of artificial scarcity. There was absolutely no need to flood the market all at once.
He wanted to keep the intellectual property flowing slowly, maintaining absolute control. It was the same reason his home room was currently filled with Billion-Dollar IPs and ideas that he hadn't fully copyrighted yet.
Marvin's ocean-blue eyes darted around the room, performing a perfect imitation of a calculating executive. He looked back at her.
"Diana, given your extensive involvement in the arts... do you happen to have any reliable, high-level music distribution companies you could recommend to me?"
Diana patted Marvin lightly on the shoulder, laughing a bright, ringing laugh. "Are you clinging to my coattails now to get a record deal? You little rascal! You just want to use my rolodex!"
"I don't want to use your rolodex," Marvin replied softly, looking up at her through his lashes. He suddenly reached into his soul, unleashing a carefully measured dose of raw magic and the Incubus's charm fully activated, washing over her in a wave of pure, undeniable warmth and affection. "I just trust my big, beautiful sister to protect me from the bad record executives."
Diana stopped laughing. She felt the word sister strike her directly in the heart. It wasn't just a charming line; it felt laced with a genuine, profound emotional safety that almost melted her on the spot.
"Oh... I see," Diana breathed, a soft, incredibly fond smile replacing her laughter. She looked at the antique clock. "Well, you brilliant little rascal, it is getting quite late today. Let me make a few discrete phone calls to my contacts at EMI and Virgin Records. I'll think about the best approach and give you a proper answer tomorrow, okay?"
"I'm perfectly fine with that," Marvin replied, his voice a soothing, polite hum. "You can take your time, Diana."
"No, no, we aren't doing that anymore," Diana said, her eyes sparkling with genuine warmth and a fierce, protective fondness. "Are you backing down now, you little manipulator? You opened this door. From now on, when we are in private, I expect you to call me your sister."
Marvin let out a bright, sharp laugh, his eyes dancing with wicked, calculating delight.
"I can certainly do that, Sister," Marvin grinned, leaning back into the velvet sofa. "But does that mean I am now officially William and Harry's uncle?!"
Diana gasped, completely caught off guard by the sheer audacity of the joke. The mention of her beloved boys—the absolute centers of her universe—didn't bring her the usual anxiety of the royal divide. Instead, paired with the image of this sharp-suited, eleven-year-old American boy bossing her teenage sons around as their "uncle," it brought her a wave of pure, unadulterated hilarity.
"Oh, my God! Can you imagine?!" Diana shrieked with laughter, clutching her stomach. "William is fourteen! He would be absolutely mortified to have an eleven-year-old uncle ordering him about!"
"I would be a very strict uncle," Marvin nodded sagely, maintaining a perfectly straight face. "I would require them to address me as 'Sir' at all times."
As Diana's laughter echoed through the opulent suite, completely drowning out the sound of the freezing London rain, Marvin smiled. The connection was forged in iron. The Princess of Wales was no longer just an audience member.
---
The antique grandfather clock in the corner of the Harlequin Presidential Suite chimed ten. The freezing London rain continued to batter the glass, but inside, the atmosphere was as warm and vibrant as a midsummer evening.
After a full two hours of brilliant, slow conversation, it was time for the curtain to fall on the evening's performance. Marvin stood up, smoothing the front of his tailored tuxedo. He had successfully planted the seeds for his music distribution, completely charmed the most famous English Rose on the planet, and absorbed enough joyful, adoring, shocking and more types of emotions to keep his mana pool satisfied from this trip.
"It has been an absolute privilege, Sister," Marvin smiled, his eyes sparkling with a mix of boyish charm and ancient knowing.
Diana stood, her crimson evening gown rustling softly. She looked years younger than she had at eight o'clock; the heavy, haunted shadows beneath her eyes had entirely vanished. "The privilege was entirely mine, Marvin. You have brought so much light into this dreary city for me tonight. I will make those phone calls to the record executives first thing tomorrow morning."
Marvin stepped forward and, executing a flawless, traditional English farewell, took her hand. He bowed slightly, pressing a polite, gentlemanly kiss to the back of her knuckles.
Diana beamed, her heart completely melting at the chivalrous gesture. Mary, standing by the door, quickly wiped a stray tear of happiness from her eye before opening the heavy mahogany doors to let the young gentleman out.
The moment the doors clicked shut, the warm, golden glow of the suite was replaced by the sterile, quiet chill of the hotel corridor.
Waiting awkwardly by the elevator bank was Gordon, the lead security contractor. Gordon was a massive, terrifying wall of muscle—a former SAS operative who had seen action in three different war zones. Yet, as Marvin approached, the giant man looked incredibly nervous, shuffling his feet on the expensive carpet.
"Evening, Gordon," Marvin said cheerfully, stepping into the elevator. "Let's head down."
The ride down to Marvin's suite was brief and silent. But the moment Marvin pushed open the door to his own sprawling room, the cheerful facade instantly evaporated.
The lights were dim, save for a single brass reading lamp illuminating the velvet sofa in the center of the living area. Sitting directly under the cone of light, her arms crossed tightly over her chest and her foot tapping a lethal, impatient rhythm against the floorboards, was Nancy.
"Aunt Nancy," Marvin noted smoothly, stepping into the room and unbuttoning his tuxedo jacket. "To what do I owe the pleasure of a late-night ambush?"
Nancy didn't laugh. She stood up, her eyes sweeping over his pristine Savile Row tuxedo, her expression hardening into a mask of pure, unadulterated fury.
"Marvin, you are entirely too reckless!" Nancy snapped, her voice vibrating with a terrifying mix of anger and panic. "How could you just run off and disappear like that in a foreign city? No one on the crew knew where you were! I had half the production assistants searching the lobby!"
Before Marvin could formulate a soothing words, Nancy pivoted on her heel. She locked her fierce, director's glare onto the massive bodyguard standing in the doorway.
"And you!" Nancy barked, pointing a furious finger at Gordon. "Gordon, you are a highly-paid, tier-one security professional! As a bodyguard, do you not understand the fundamental, basic requirement that you must always keep the principal you are protecting in your direct line of sight?!"
Gordon physically flinched, his broad shoulders slumping. He looked utterly dejected, like a massive guard dog being scolded with a rolled-up newspaper.
"I... I apologize, Ms. Meyers," Gordon stammered, his deep voice cracking slightly. "I escorted him to the top floor, but..."
"It is not Gordon's fault, Aunt Nancy," Marvin interrupted, stepping smoothly between his enraged aunt and his towering bodyguard. "I explicitly insisted on him staying in the hallway."
Nancy completely ignored Marvin, her maternal protective instincts overriding everything else.
She stepped closer to Gordon, refusing to back down. "As a bodyguard, you do not listen to every single whim of the person you are protecting! Especially when the person you're protecting is an eleven-year-old child! Where is your own professional judgment? What if there had been a threat up there?"
To be entirely honest, Gordon was currently experiencing a profound, internal existential crisis.
'She's right. Why did I stay in the hall?' Gordon thought frantically, his mind spinning. 'I wasn't like this before! I've dragged grown executives out of boardrooms for their own safety. Yet, two hours ago, when the boy had looked up at him with those terrifyingly deep blue eyes and softly commanded, "Stay here, Gordon," the veteran soldier's brain had simply shut down. The command had bypassed his logic, his training, and his survival instincts. He had obeyed the child with the absolute, unquestioning submission of a thrall. It deeply unsettled him.
Marvin, sensing the bodyguard's internal panic, gently placed a hand on Nancy's arm to ground her.
"Alright, alright, Aunt Nancy, please breathe," Marvin said, his voice lowering to a calming frequency. "This time, it truly isn't Gordon's fault. I take full responsibility. It's just that the guest who invited me upstairs has a highly sensitive, special status. It would have been entirely inappropriate to bring a hulking, armed man into her private sanctuary."
Gordon shot Marvin a look of profound, desperate gratitude, silently thanking the boy for throwing him a lifeline.
Nancy's tirade ground to a sudden halt. She looked at Marvin, her eyes narrowing as her sharp, Hollywood-honed intuition kicked in. The anger drained away, instantly replaced by a deep, icy dread.
"Wait," Nancy said, her face turning grim. "Her private sanctuary? How 'special' is this identity that our little Marvin would risk his safety to go up and meet her alone?"
Nancy's imagination immediately sprinted to the darkest corners of the entertainment industry. She was a veteran of Los Angeles; she knew exactly how treacherous, perverse, and exploitative high society could be. The idea of a wealthy, powerful older woman inviting her beautiful, eleven-year-old nephew to a private hotel suite in a tuxedo made her stomach violently churn.
*****
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