Royal Date (32 page)

It was Nico.

I knew it. I felt it. He was calling me.

A rapturous joy exploded inside me, quickly followed by an icy panic that gripped my heart. Why was Nico calling me? What did he want?

I stood there, frozen, unable to make a decision. Should I answer? What would it do to me to hear his voice? What would I say to him? So many things had changed since I last saw him. I’d figured out so much. I didn’t blame him the way that I had.

My failure to act became my decision. The call flickered away, and my phone sent him to voice mail. I sat watching my phone, praying.
Please leave a voice mail. Please leave a voice mail
.

I almost shouted with glee when my phone dinged and the voice mail icon appeared at the top of the screen.

But then I was too scared to listen.

I put the phone back in my pocket and returned to the class. I didn’t hear a single word said the rest of the hour.

Nico called me. Nico called me.

Nico called me.

I wondered how he’d got my number, and I knew Lemon was probably to blame. I finished up my other fieldwork for the day, drifting through the motions. I stood at my bus stop, willing the bus to arrive faster. Once the bus dropped me off, I ran to my apartment. I fumbled badly with my keys, but I finally got inside. I dropped my book bag, shook off my coat, and sat down on the couch. I called my voice mail and put it on speakerphone.

Nico’s rich, warm tones came over the line. I smiled and my heart swelled. Until I realized what he had done.

The entire frakking message was in Italian. Italian! This could potentially be the most important voice mail of my entire life, and I didn’t understand a single word of it.

I could call him back and ask him what he’d said. But I wasn’t ready for that.

I could take this phone over to the Italian Club and they could translate it for me right away.

Or I could get on Google and hit up the translator.

I was worried that if he said anything remotely nice, I would have no shame and I’d put all my credit cards together to come up with enough money to jump on a plane and go back to him.

I reminded myself that there was no future there.

And if Nico had changed his mind, if he wanted a future, he knew where to find me.

I was working on my thesis, getting it ready. Only one more month to go until I would present. I needed to make sure my PowerPoint presentation was running as smoothly as I wanted it to. Lemon was in her room working. She had been doing a lot of that lately, and it usually meant that she was doing stuff for Nico’s family and she was considerate enough to keep me out of it.

I could hear her voice, and I got up and turned the television on so that I wouldn’t wonder. Nico had never called me again, and I just couldn’t call him. I didn’t know what to say. And with every day that had followed in the next two months, I grew more and more despondent. He wasn’t going to call me again. He had given up. I really had destroyed us.

I heard the words “On this season’s
Marry Me
, this summer twenty-five single women will compete for one lucky bachelor. With one surprising and shocking twist . . . our bachelor is a real-life prince!”

I stood up and walked over to the TV. I had totally forgotten about that stupid reality show that Nico was supposed to be on. I sank onto the couch, watching previews of catty women fighting and sniping at one another. The show promised drama and romance. My heart sank as one beautiful woman after another appeared, all saying how much they loved him. He really would forget all about me. The narrator explained what was coming up and how difficult the decision would be for the prince.

And then at the end, he said, “And introducing our newest bachelor, Prince Dante of Monterra.”

I saw Dante’s picture on the screen, and my mouth dropped. It was Dante. Dante was doing the show. Not Nico.

I started crying. Loud, ridiculous sobs that drew Lemon out of her room.

“What is it, darlin’?”

I pointed at the television, hiccupping loudly and unable to speak. But the advertisement had changed.

“You don’t like adult diapers?” she asked.

I hiccupped/laughed. “No. Dante’s doing
Marry Me
. Not Nico.” I started crying again.

“Okay, just tell me this. On a scale of one to Adele, how bad is it?”

“Full-on Adele,” I told her through my tears. “I miss him, Lemon. You were right. I love him. And I’m so relieved that he’s not doing that stupid show that I can’t stop crying.”

“Dante said Nico’s completely miserable. That he’s never seen him like this about any girl. The whole family thinks he’s in love with you.”

“You talk to them about me?”

She nodded.

“Do you ever talk to Nico?” I asked the question tentatively, afraid of her answer.

“I don’t, I’m sorry. He’s avoiding me the same way you avoid talking about him. Personally, I think y’all are stupid and should just get together and work this out. Now stop crying and get back to work. The end of the semester will be here before you know it.”

I went and sat back at the table, knowing my night was now shot. The thesis would have to wait until tomorrow.

My cell phone rang and it surprised me. No one called me at night except for Lemon, and she was in the next room.

I looked at the screen. “Unknown.”

This time I eagerly clicked the acceptance button, my heart pounding wildly in my chest. “Hello?”

There was a long pause. “Kitty-Kat?”

It was the last voice I ever expected to hear. “Mom?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

How did she get this number? Why was she calling me?

“Are you there?”

“I’m still here.” A rush of strong emotions fought within me. I wanted to hang up on her. I didn’t owe her a thing. I didn’t have to talk to her. She had done nothing but make my entire childhood miserable. But some morbid curiosity made me stay on the line.

She let out a big sigh. “I’m sorry for just calling out of the blue, and I know I can never make up for what I’ve done to you. But I wanted to let you know that I’ve been in rehab for the last three months, and I am now ninety-three days sober.”

“That’s great,” I said, not sure why she was telling me.

“I’m part of a program that paid for all of my rehab, and they’re renting an apartment for me to live in. Part of the reason I could never get clean was I kept being around the same people in the same place. But now I have a new place to live, and they’ve promised to help me get started in training as a hairdresser. I’m going to have a place to live and a job.” She sounded genuinely happy and excited.

“That’s great,” I said again, not sure what else I should say. I worked with social workers every day. I knew the federal and local government programs and private funding inside and out. I had never heard of one that did what she was describing. It made me a little uneasy.

“I just wanted to let you know that I’m trying to get better. And maybe in a few months when I’m settled in Boulder, you can come visit me?”

There was so much hope in her voice that I couldn’t just tell her no. “We’ll see,” I said. “I’m glad you’re getting better.”

An awkward silence started, and then she said, “Okay, well, I need to go. You can call me at this number if you ever want to talk.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Bye,” she said and hung up.

I put my phone down on the kitchen table and noticed my hands were shaking. I couldn’t believe that had just happened. I literally hadn’t spoken to my mother in ten years. I hadn’t even known whether or not she was alive. Not only was she alive, but she was happy. And she was off of drugs. The thing I had spent my whole childhood hoping and praying for.

The cynical part of me knew it was unlikely she’d stay that way, reminding me that I couldn’t ignore the recidivism rate for addicts. The odds were that she would relapse and go right back to her old way of life. Most addicts had to go through rehab multiple times before they could get better. This was only her first time, as far as I knew.

But there, in the deepest part of me, was a small spark of hope.

It made me turn my laptop on and reconnect to the Wi-Fi. I usually kept off the Internet so that I wouldn’t be tempted to look up pictures of Nico and his family. If he was dating Scarlett Johansson or Zoe Saldana, I didn’t want to know about it.

Boulder was about forty minutes away by car. I didn’t know how long it would take by bus. I logged on to my banking site to see if I would have enough money to make the bus ride over to her and still pay my bills.

My account came up, and it said my balance was over forty thousand dollars.

I sat there with my mouth open, like I was trying to catch flies with it. Had the bank screwed up? I’d heard about this happening to other people, the bank making errors and then taking the money back.

I clicked on my account link, and it brought me to my statement. I scanned through it and there was a deposit from Amazon. For thirty-eight thousand dollars.

That had to be wrong. It had to be. I opened a new browser and went to my Amazon author account. I’d never sold more than three books in a month. The number of books I would have to sell to make up this amount was astronomical.

There was no mistake. I had sold tens of thousands of books. I looked at the dates and opened yet another browser window. I had a suspicion and entered the title of my book, my pen name, and told Google to look for it.

Some images came up. It was Violetta, and it was Fashion Week in Paris. She looked wonderful, her eyes bright and alive. And in her lap was a hard copy of my book,
Once Upon a Time
. There were interviews of her talking about my book, praising it. The book was everywhere. Other celebrities and royals were pictured with it, title side out so that everyone could see. She’d made me that week’s fashionable accessory.

Had Nico been behind this? The tears returned, and I picked up my phone, more tempted than ever to call him.

Instead I listened to his message again. I knew it by heart, as I listened to it at least three times a day.

I was ready to see pictures. I was ready to remember. I opened up the camera’s gallery and realized that Serafina had stolen the phone again after the snow polo match. There was one of Nico and me laughing. One of us kissing. Another of us at dinner, and him looking at me like he loved me.

I ran into my bedroom and opened my closet. I pulled my necklace off the shelf, putting it around my neck. Once I had clasped it closed, I adjusted the pendant and wrapped my hand around it. I put the Barbie on top of my dresser, where I could see it every day.

I had to fix this. After my thesis was done and presented and defended, I would take some of my book money and go back to Monterra and find a way to fix this. Even if we only ended up friends, and regardless of what I’d said to him in Milan, I didn’t want him to stay away from me.

I needed him. I loved him. He had to be in my life in some way.

I focused all of my energy on making sure my thesis was flawless. I practiced my presentation over and over again. I figured the best way to keep myself from being nervous was to be well prepared. I made up my own mock questions, trying to anticipate what the committee might ask. Lemon would quiz me, and I quizzed her as well. I just had to not think about her content as it all related to Nico’s family.

My countdown now was not just to finishing my thesis and graduating, but getting to see Nico. He became my reward, my incentive to work my hardest so that I could be with him again.

Two days before my presentation, Lemon and I went clothes shopping. I wanted to spend all of the time I had left preparing, but she convinced me that I needed something professional to wear. I would need a whole new professional wardrobe when I started my job. Fortunately, I now had the money to do something about it.

I did kick myself for leaving those dresses in Monterra. One of them would have worked perfectly for the presentation.

We picked up some pantsuits, skirts, and dresses, along with matching shoes. I even picked out some pretty underwear to give me that extra boost of confidence.

The morning finally arrived, and I sat outside the committee’s room, trying to breathe normally. This was it. Everything rested on the next one to two hours.