Forever Princess (28 page)

I tried to keep a solemn expression on my face as I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him.

“Good-bye, J.P.,” I whispered.

Then I hurried away before there was any chance he could start begging, which is so unattractive in a suitor (well, so Grandmère says. It hasn't happened to me…yet. But I had a feeling it was about to).

And as I was hurrying, I flipped open my cell phone and made a quick call to the Royal Genovian lawyers. Their offices weren't open yet, because it was only seven in the morning, Genovia time.

But I left a message asking them to put a cease and desist on J.P.'s play, or whatever they had to do in order to prevent it from ever getting made into a movie, or even a Broadway show.

I mean, I know I was princessy and gracious during our breakup. And I do completely forgive what J.P. did to me.

But for what he did to Lilly? He's going down.

He really ought to have remembered that several of my ancestresses are known for strangling and/or chopping off the heads of their enemies.

It was as I was putting my phone away that I crashed right into Michael.

Yes,
Michael.

I was totally flabbergasted, of course. What was
Michael
doing at the AEHS prom?

“Oh my God,” I cried. “What are
you
doing here?”

“What do you
think
I'm doing here?” he demanded, rubbing his shoulder where I'd banged into him, handheld plastic tiara prongs first.

“How long have you been standing there?” I was seized with a sudden panic he might have overheard what J.P. and I had been discussing, vis-à-vis Lilly. On the other hand, if he had, surely there'd have been a murder already. J.P.'s, to be exact. “Wait…what did you hear?”

“Enough to make me feel nauseous,” Michael said. “Nice move with the call to the lawyers, by the way. And is that really how you guys talk to each other?” His voice rose into a falsetto. “
You know what I think you should do? Call Stacey Cheeseman. I think she has a total crush on you.
” He lowered his voice again. “Cute. What does that remind me of, exactly? Hold on. Wait, I know…
Seventh Heaven
—”

I grabbed his arm and dragged him around the corner, well out of earshot of J.P. (who hadn't yet noticed a thing, because he'd already gotten on the phone with Stacey).

“Seriously,” I said, dropping Michael's arm when we were far enough away. “What are you doing here?”

Michael grinned. He looked so cute in his black Skinner Box T-shirt with his messed up hair, and his jeans fitting him just right. I couldn't help remembering all that making out we'd done yesterday. It came back as such a visceral memory, it was almost like a punch.

Of course, that might have been because I'd also gotten a big whiff of him when I'd crashed into him. That major histocompatibility complex is strong stuff. Strong enough to knock a girl out, practically.

“I don't know,” he said. “Lilly told me a couple of days ago I was supposed to show up here and meet you by the elevators at around midnight. She said she had a feeling you were going to need, er, my assistance. But you seemed to be handling the situation just fine, if that whole ceremonial giving-back-of-the-ring thing was any indication.”

I could feel myself turning bright red, realizing what Lilly must have meant. Having overheard my conversation with Tina in the girls' bathroom at school about my getting a hotel room with J.P. tonight, Lilly had sent her brother down here to stop me from doing something she knew I'd regret…

Only she hadn't told him exactly
what
he was supposed to be stopping me from doing. Thank God.

Lilly really
was
a friend, after all. Not that I'd ever doubted it. Well, very much.

“So are you going to tell me why Lilly felt my presence was so urgently needed here tonight, anyway?” Michael wanted to know, as he wrapped an arm around my waist.

“You know,” I said quickly. “I think it's because she knew I always wanted to spend my senior prom with you.”

Michael just laughed. Sort of sarcastically.

“Lars,” he called over the top of my head, to my bodyguard. “Tell me the truth. Do I need to go back over there and turn J.P. Reynolds-Abernathy the Fourth into cream of wheat?”

Lars, to my total mortification, nodded, and said, “In my opinion, most definitely.”

“Lars!” I cried, starting to panic. “No. No! Michael, it's over. J.P. and I just broke up. You don't have to hit anybody.”

“Well, I think maybe I do,” Michael said. He wasn't teasing, either. There was no smile on his face as he said, “I think maybe the earth would be a better place if somebody had turned J.P. Reynolds-Abernathy the Fourth into cream of wheat a long time ago. Lars? Do you agree with me?”

Lars looked at his watch and said, “It's midnight. I don't hit anyone after midnight. Bodyguard-union regulations.”

“Fine,” Michael said. “You hold him down, and I'll hit him.”

This was terrible!

“I have a better idea,” I said, taking Michael by the arm again. “Lars, why don't you take the rest of the night off? And Michael, why don't we go back to your place?”

Just as I'd hoped, this completely distracted Michael from his Kill J.P. Death Mission. He stared down at me in shock for nearly five seconds.

Then he said, “That sounds like a completely excellent idea.”

Lars shrugged. What else could he do? I'm eighteen and a legal adult now.

“I am fine with this idea, too,” he said.

And that's how I ended up in this limo, speeding downtown to SoHo, and to Michael's loft.

And now Michael has suggested that I stop writing in my journal, and pay attention to him for a little while.

You know what? This sounds like a completely excellent idea to me, too.

An excerpt from
Ransom My Heart
by Daphne Delacroix

“Finnula,” he said, again, and this time she recognized the need in his voice. It matched the need she felt in her own heart, in the thrum of her own pulsing veins. “I know I gave you my word I wouldn't touch you, but—”

Finnula wasn't at all certain how what happened next transpired. It seemed as if one minute she was standing looking up at him, wondering if he'd ever stop talking and just do it, for heaven's sake…

And the next, she was in his arms. She didn't know if he'd moved or she had.

But suddenly, her arms were around his neck, drawing his head down toward hers, her fingers tangled in his soft hair, her lips already parted to receive his.

Those strong golden arms, the ones she'd longed to have round her, imprisoned her, clasping her so close to his broad chest that she could hardly breathe. Not that she could catch her breath anyway, since he was kissing her so deeply, so urgently, as if she might at any moment be torn away from him. He seemed to fear that they'd be interrupted again. Only Finnula realized, with a satisfaction that surely would have shocked her brother, had he known of it, that they had all night long. Accordingly, she lengthened the kiss, conducting a leisurely exploration of those arms she'd so admired. Why, they really were every bit as perfect as she'd imagined.

Abruptly, Hugo lifted his head, and looked down at her with eyes that had gone an even deeper green than the emerald around Finnula's neck. She was panting from lack of breath, her chest rising and falling quickly, color bright over her high cheekbones. She saw the question in his glance, and understood it all too well. He didn't know that she had already made her decision, that it had been irrevocably made for
her the second she'd seen him without that beard, and her heart—or something very like her heart, anyway—had been lost for good.

Well, maybe her decision had been made the second that bolt had slid into place. What did it matter? They were strangers in a strange—well, strange enough—place. No one would ever know of it. Now was no time for his oddly misplaced sense of chivalry.

“Not
now,”
she growled, knowing full well why he'd stopped kissing her, and what his questioning look implied. “God's teeth, man, it's too late—” Whatever Hugo had been planning to say, her impatient cry silenced him upon the subject forever. Tilting her body back in his arms, Hugo rained kisses upon her cheeks and the soft skin beneath her ears, his mouth tracing a fiery path down the column of her throat to the neckline of her gown. Finnula, still anxious for the taste of his lips on hers, drew his head toward hers again, then gasped as his fingers closed over first one firm breast, and then the other.

The sensation of his mouth devouring hers, his hands on her straining breasts, was threatening to overwhelm Finnula. It was everything she'd suspected it would be…only so much more. The room seemed to sway around her, as if she'd drunk too much ale, and Hugo remained the only stationary, solid mass within her line of vision. She clung to him, wanting something…she was only just beginning to understand what that something was.

Then, when his knee slipped between her weakening legs, and she felt his hard thigh against the place where her legs joined together, the resulting spasm that shot through her was like nothing she'd ever experienced before.

Suddenly, she understood.
Everything.

Sunday, May 7, 10 a.m., Michael's loft

I HAVE MY SNOWFLAKE NECKLACE BACK.

It turns out when I dropped it in that hotel room that horrible night so long ago, Michael found it where it fell.

And he's kept it ever since.

Because (he says) he's never stopped loving me and thinking of me and hoping…

…just like I was hoping, that tiny ember I was keeping alive inside.

It turns out Michael was keeping one alive inside, too. He knew things had gone horribly wrong between us, but he thought time apart—for both of us to come into our own—might help.

He never thought another man would come along and split us permanently asunder. (Okay, he didn't put it quite like that, but it sounds more dramatic than saying he never thought I'd start going out with J.P. Reynolds-Abernathy IV.)

And that's when he
did
ask Boris to keep an eye on me (
not
spy on me. Just keep him informed).

Michael thought (because of what Boris reported back to him) that J.P. and I were madly in love. And I guess for a time, we might have looked that way. To an outsider (especially to Boris, who doesn't understand actual live human beings, including—and perhaps especially—his girlfriend).

But still, Michael wouldn't give up hope. That's why he kept the necklace—just in case.

It wasn't until Michael saw me at the Columbia event that day and I acted so shy that he says he began to dare to
dream that maybe Boris was wrong.

But then when J.P. gave me the ring for my birthday, he knew drastic measures were called for.
That's
why he'd left my party—to get busy making arrangements to send my dad the CardioArm (and also, as he put it, “Because I knew I had to leave before I wiped the floor with that guy's face”).

It's all just so romantic! I can't wait to tell Tina.

Someday. Not now, though. For now, I'm keeping it a secret, just for Michael and me to share—at least for a little while.

He told me if I want, he'll get me a diamond snowflake necklace as a replacement for the old silver one I have on now. But I said no way.

I love this one, just the way it is.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

Anyway, I don't want to go into too much detail about what happened between us here in his loft last night, because it's private—too private even for this journal. Because what if it were to fall into the wrong hands?

But I do want to say something important, and that is this:

If Dad thinks I'm spending this summer in Genovia, he's totally nuts.

Oh my God,
DAD
! I forgot to check and see how the election is going!

Sunday, May 7, 1:30 p.m., limo on the way to
Central Park

Okay, so Dad WON THE ELECTION!

Yeah, I'm still not sure how that happened. I accused Michael, on top of all the many other wonderful things he's done for me lately, of rigging the Genovian voting machines.

But he swears that, although he is a computer genius, he is not capable of rigging voting machines in a small European country many thousands of miles from where he lives.

Besides, in Genovia they use Scantron.

It actually turned out Dad won by a significant majority. The problem was that they're unaccustomed to voting there, so it took them a long time to count them all. Voter turnout was quite a bit higher than expected.

And then René couldn't believe he didn't win, and demanded a recount.

Poor René. It's okay, though. Dad's promised a place for him on the cabinet. Probably something to do with tourism. Which I think is very decent of Dad.

I found all this out from Dad on the phone. It wasn't a transatlantic call, though. He was phoning from Grandmère's. Dad's back here for my graduation ceremony. Which is in half an hour.

It's too bad he doesn't fly commercially because he could really rack up the frequent flyer miles with all the time he's put in, jetting between New York City and Genovia this past week. I've already spoken to him about
his carbon footprint.

Anyway, everyone acted totally cool when I showed up at the loft wearing my prom clothes with Michael in tow. Like, nobody said anything to embarrass me, like, “Oh, hey, Mia, how was it at the all-night bowling alley?” or “Mia, didn't you leave the house last night with a
different
guy?”

Mom seemed pretty pleased to see Michael, actually. She knows how much I've always loved him, and she can tell how happy Michael makes me, which, in turn, makes
her
happy.

And she never made it much of a secret that she couldn't stand J.P. At least she doesn't have to worry about
Michael
being a chameleon.
He
has an opinion about everything.

And he's not shy about expressing it, either,
especially
when it's opposite of my own, since that gets us arguing, which gets us…well, in the mood for kissing. That's major histocompatibility complex for you.

Sadly, I'm not sure Rocky actually remembers Michael at all. Which makes sense, since the last time he saw him was almost two years ago, and Rocky's barely three.

But Rocky seems to really like him. He right away showed Michael his drums, and how adept he is at pulling out tufts of Fat Louie's fur if Fat Louie doesn't run away fast enough.

Anyway, we're all headed uptown to the graduation ceremony now, where we're going to meet Dad and Grandmère. I've got on the dress everyone chose for me to wear today (another one of Sebastiano's creations, exactly like the one I wore last night, only pure white) under my graduation gown. I'm trying to ignore the 80,000 text and
phone messages I've gotten from Tina and Lana, most of which, I'm pretty sure, have to do with where I disappeared to last night. Well, okay, Lana's are probably all about her Westpointer.

But, come on. A girl's got to have
some
privacy.

One of my text messages, I see, is from J.P. But I'm not opening it with Michael in the car.

Another one is from Lilly. But whatever. I'm going to see all these people in, like, five minutes! So whatever it is, they can just tell me in person.

And now I have to go, because Rocky's discovered the buttons that control the moonroof. My little brother has a lot in common with his cousin Hank.