Royal Wedding (10 page)

“From Miss Moscovitz, Your Highness,” he said gravely, “with her best birthday wishes.”

The thing is, she knows that Lars opens everything sent to me. So this was her way of birthday-pranking me and also titillating my bodyguard.

Happy birthday to me again.

He must have seen my expression since he asked, “What?” over his shoulder as he walked back to the security office (he has to pack, too, since he's coming with me wherever Michael is taking me). “I think it's a highly thoughtful, creative gift. Much more original than a gold iPhone, which you can't even keep.”*

*I'm not allowed to have Apple products—aside from my laptop—let alone post anything to the “Cloud” due to how easily they're hacked/traced, which is why all the iPhones I've received today will have to be returned for store credit. But it's all right, since the products we buy instead will be donated to Mr. Gianini's after-school vocational program.

But see, this kind of thing could have happened no matter where I was living (the part where the Royal Genovian Guard has to go through all my mail). Even if I moved back in with Mom and Rocky (which I'll never do because what if the death threats turn out to be serious after all? I wouldn't want to put their lives at risk. Also, I love my mom and my half brother, but I don't want to move back in with them. Rocky sailed through his toddler years to turn into what's charitably called “a challenge,” and not because his dad passed away either. He was “challenging” before that happened).

Mom doesn't even have a doorman (neither does Michael. His loft is in a condo building). RoyalRabbleRouser could get himself buzzed right into Mom's building, walk up to the door of her loft, knock, and then shove a pie in her face . . . or worse. Sandra Bullock found her gun-owning stalker
inside
her bathroom after she stepped out of her shower, and Queen Elizabeth once woke to find hers sitting on the edge of her bed in Buckingham Palace, wanting to chat (he got in through an open window—twice—after shimmying up a drainpipe).

•   
Note to self:
Dominique says it's best not to dwell on these things, or let them decide for you how to live your life, but that's easier said than done, especially when you're the one getting the threats about how much better off the world would be “without you in it.”

Oh, God. Madame Alain just walked over and said, “Your Highness, do you think you could write in your diary somewhere else? You are distracting the staff.”

“I'm so very sorry, Madame Alain,” I said. “And don't worry, I'm going to be picked up any minute, and then I'll be out of your hair all weekend.”

Is it my imagination, or does she look relieved?

“Oh, I see. All right, then.”

I know it's wrong since she's a civil servant and has devoted her whole life (practically) to promoting economic development and tourism in Genovia, but I
would
like to have a serious talk with the ambassador about transferring Madame Alain to a different office where I wouldn't have to see her as much. I think she'd be sublime as the headmistress of the Genovian Royal Academy.

•   
Note to self:
See if this can be arranged.

I tried to get Marie Rose to tell me where Michael is taking me, but she only giggled and said, “I can't, Princesse. I promised. But I'll make sure to feed Fat Louie while you're away.”

Fat Louie! I almost forgot about him. I hope he'll be all right. He's getting on in years, which is why it's easier to forget about him than it used to be, as all he does now is sleep and eat. He hasn't eaten a sock in ages, he has no interest in them at all anymore as food, he only eats actual food.

Oh, what am I saying? He's so old he probably won't even notice I'm gone.

Don't even ask me when Marie Rose had time to pack for me without my noticing.

Oh, here's a birthday text from Tina Hakim Baba:

Aw. She's so sweet.

So Tina's in on Michael's surprise, too? How did—

HE'S HERE!

CHAPTER 15

3:00 p.m., Saturday, May 2

Sleepy Palm Cay, The Exumas, Bahamas

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I will admit when Michael suggested a vacation, especially in a place with no television, Wi-Fi, or cell service, I was like “No way, how am I going to know what's going on with
NCIS
work and world affairs? I'm the heir to the throne of a small principality and founder of a new nonprofit, my dad just got out of jail, I have to be in close touch with my people and family at all times. I can't
leave
.”

But then when we flew into the Exumas (which are a string of little islands off the Bahamas), and I saw the clear turquoise water stretching so far around us, and the blue sky overhead like a giant overturned robin's-egg-blue bowl, I began having second thoughts.
Maybe I can deal with this. It's only for a couple of days, after all
.

When the limo from the airport pulled up to a
marina,
not the driveway to a hotel, and there was a speedboat waiting, I knew something very unusual was going on.

Michael still wouldn't tell me where we were going, though. “It's a surprise,” he kept saying, waggling those thick black eyebrows, which I love so much, especially when they get messy and I have to smooth them down with my fingertips.

Then the speedboat took us across the sometimes blue, sometimes green, sometimes aquamarine water to
our own island,
complete with a private dock leading to a thatched-roof cabana, inside of which is a king-sized bed so massive, you need a footstool to climb onto it (at least I do, anyway. Michael is tall enough not to need one).

There are two full his-and-hers baths (with teak shutters that open from the clawed-foot tubs to a spectacular view of the sea, so while you're soaking in there, reading a book, you can also watch the waves, like in a commercial for erectile dysfunction). There's a dining and sitting room, decorated to look like one of those old-timey beach houses from the movies where people wore safari suits and drank gin and tonics to prevent malaria and said things like “I'm terribly worried about the volcano, Christopher.”

And of course there's an outdoor shower and hot tub, but you don't need to worry about anyone spying on you using them naked, because the whole place is surrounded by a completely private beach, and there are
no other living beings for miles around,
except exotic seabirds and the occasional flash of silverfish leaping from the water against the pink sunset and a pod of dolphins that live nearby and come nosing around, curious about what we're doing.

Dolphins. DOLPHINS.

And then there's Mo Mo, the personal room-service butler assigned to us by the resort, who brings us succulently prepared meals three times a day by boat, and then also restocks the minibar and cleans our snorkel masks, before leaving us completely to ourselves. He rings the bell on his boat very loudly whenever he's approaching to let us know he's coming so we can put on our clothes.

Not that I don't
always
have on clothes when I'm outside of the cabana, because I'm not about to pull another
Me-Ah-My-Ah!
and get spotted topless by a passing Google satellite or camera-equipped drone copter (though I know Lars and the rest of the security squad are stationed on the closest island with long-range sniper rifles, looking to take any of those out. This has become Lars's favorite new hobby).

At first when I got here, I was like “Michael, this is insane. This is
way over the top.
How much is this costing you? You are spending
way too much money
. It's not that I don't appreciate the thought, but at least let me split the—”

Michael stuffed a rum-soaked piece of pineapple into my mouth and asked, “Can't you relax for five minutes?”

So then I concentrated very hard on relaxing, which it turns out isn't that hard to do when the sand is so white and soft and the waves so small and mild that you can simply walk a few steps out onto the beach, lie down, and let the warm water lap gently around you while the sun and sand sweetly embrace you until you finally fall asleep (fortunately having remembered to put on SPF 100).

When I woke up the tide was coming in, so the waves were a bit stronger and the beach had gotten a little smaller and Michael was leaning over me without his shirt on asking if I liked it (and also if I wanted to reapply my sunscreen), and I said sleepily, “Okay, Michael, I guess I can do this . . . just for the weekend.”

And he laughed and said, “I thought so,” and kissed me.

Then he asked if I thought I smelled smoke . . .

CHAPTER 16

7:00 p.m., Saturday, May 2

Sleepy Palm Cay, The Exumas, Bahamas

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It is
amazing
here. We are doing
nothing
. Nothing except kissing and eating and sleeping in the sun and playing Fireman and snorkeling (which is quite easy to do once you get the hang of it) and looking at birds and dolphins through the binoculars.

Although you don't even need the binoculars, that's how close the dolphins swim up.

I'm so relaxed, my eye has even stopped twitching. It could be because of the massive doses of magnesium I've been taking, or it could be because of leaving all that stress behind . . . or it could be because of love.

I'm voting for love.

But the most amazing thing is the sight I'm looking at right now, and I don't need the binoculars to see it either: Michael wearing nothing but board shorts as he lies in the hammock across from mine, reading a book on microprocessing (I do hope the micros and the processors end up happily ever after at the end).

I know how lucky I am, so I shouldn't brag, and of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but was there ever such a stunning piece of masculinity in all of history? I don't think so. I happen to like dark-haired men (we won't talk about that brief unhappy period in my past when I was attracted to a fair-haired boy since thankfully I soon came to my senses), the darker the better.

And while I know some girls who like guys without hair on their limbs and bodies, I frankly find that very odd. Fortunately Michael has quite a lot. If he ever started waxing it (like Boris, who, the less said about
him,
the better), I think we would have to have a serious talk.

But the best thing about him isn't his looks; it's that he is someone around whom I can be totally myself. When I'm with Michael, I don't ever have to worry about saying the wrong thing, because to him, everything I say is funny or interesting.

And no matter what I have on (or don't have on), he thinks I look beautiful. I know because we've been together for so long, he can't be faking it when I worry that I don't have any makeup on and he goes, “You actually look better without makeup on.” (I don't, without mascara I look like a lashless marsupial left too long in an experimental government lab, but amazingly, even in my lashless marsupial state, he's still quite interested in pursuing carnal relations with me.)

Plus, when we snuggle our bodies fit together perfectly, almost as if they were made for each other.

And he never complains when Fat Louie climbs up onto the bed and snuggles with us, even though Fat Louie has gotten quite smelly in his old age, having completely given up bathing (I have to dip him in the bathtub every once in a while or he'd simply never get clean).

Fat Louie, I mean. Not Michael. Michael takes two to three showers a day, depending on whether or not he's done yoga.

Fortunately we no longer have to deal with Michael's dog, Pavlov, climbing into the bed at Michael's place anymore, since Pavlov passed away in his sleep after a long and happy life. Dogs generally don't live as long as cats, except Grandmère's miniature poodle, Rommel, whom she will never allow to die. Rommel's gotten a little dotty in his old age, but because Grandmère never got him fixed, he still has a very active sex drive.

This means in recent months he's been caught attempting to make somewhat aggressive love to: an ottoman; an umbrella stand; other dogs of all breeds (and sexes); Dominique; my father; Michael; me; Lilly; Grandmère; the mayor of New York City; Clint Eastwood (in town for a movie premiere); an $84,000 Persian carpet; sofas of too large a number to name; numerous women's purses; multiple room-service waiters; and almost all the bellmen at the Plaza Hotel.

I told Grandmère that we should write a book—
What Rommel Humped
—and donate the profits to the ASPCA. I'm positive it would make a fortune.

She didn't find the idea very funny, though. Nor did she like it when I suggested that she should get Rommel fixed. She said, “I suppose when I get old and am still interested in sex, you'll have
me
fixed. Remind me not to appoint you my health-care proxy, Amelia.”

Oh, dear. Michael just asked what I'm writing about. I couldn't tell him the truth, of course.

So I told him I'm writing about how much I love him. It's
sort
of true . . . it's how I got started on this topic, anyway.

He put down his book and looked at me with those big brown eyes of his (such beautiful long lashes! Totally wasted on a man. If only I had them, I'd never need mascara again) and said, “I love you, too.”