“New Jersey?” I shouted. “Are you telling me that I’ve had a half sister living across the river since I was fourteen years old, and no one ever told me?”
“Us, Amelia,” Grandmère said, looking annoyed. “Your father never told us. And must you shout so? It’s hardly regal. And that is precisely what I asked José to find out, which he did. He said he’s shocked that no one—such as your insufferable cousin Ivan, or that blackguard Brian Fitzpatrick—had discovered it sooner. Your father has been making the payments in his own name from an account here at Chase Manhattan Bank. The fool!”
I couldn’t believe it. Not the part about Dad having had a secret love—he’s a prince, after all, who’d never married after my mom refused his proposal in college, choosing instead to “wander the globe in search of a woman who might be able to provide the balm to soothe his wounded heart,” as Tina liked to put it (although really he’d simply had dozens of short-lived relationships with supermodels, actresses, television news journalists, and the occasional high school English teacher).
It was the part about my having a little sister that I couldn’t believe . . . and the fact that my father had never told me about it. Not telling Grandmère I could understand. Though underneath her flamboyant exterior, she has a warm (well, warmish) heart. How else has she tolerated her horrible dog all these years?
But there is no doubt that she disapproves of nearly everything her only child (my father) does.
This is most likely why he’d fallen for the one woman in the world he couldn’t have—my mother, his own mother’s exact opposite (in complete defiance of Dr. Moscovitz’s theory about him).
But I’d always thought my father and I were close.
Now I realized I knew nothing about him at all.
This stings a little. Actually, a lot.
I leaped to my feet. “Well, what are we waiting for?” I said to my grandmother. “Have your driver bring the car around, and let’s go meet her.”
“Certainly not, Amelia,” my grandmother said. “According to Lazarres-Reynolds, that’s the worst possible thing we could do. We can’t risk exposing this story to the media, especially after all the trouble we went to today in order to provide the perfect distraction for them, in the form of your wedding.”
“What are you talking about? Who on earth is Lazarres-​Reynolds?”
“The crisis management firm I hired to handle this affair, of course. Why do you think I announced your engagement this morning?”
I sank back down onto the couch, stunned. “I thought you did that to distract the press from Dad’s arrest.”
“Well, of course I did, Amelia. Have you seen his most recent numbers in the polls for prime minister? He’s five points behind your cousin Ivan—who just today announced that, if elected, he’ll make genetically modified fruit illegal and deny all humanitarian entry visas into Genovia. But if news of this latest debacle of your father’s gets out—well, he’ll be crushed in the election. Crushed.”
I shook my head. “Grandmère,” I said. “This little girl’s existence isn’t a political scandal you can hire a publicity firm to cover up. She’s a human being. She’s family.”
“I’m aware of that, Amelia. But Lazarres-Reynolds really is very good. Do you remember that incident last year with the son of the Sultan of Brunei and the monkey?”
“No.”
“Exactly. Do you know why you don’t remember it? Two words: Lazarres-Reynolds.”
“But, Grandmère,” I said desperately, “do you really think if people found out Dad had another kid, they’d think badly enough of him to vote against him?”
“For keeping it a secret so long? Yes. No one likes a liar. Think about it, Amelia. How do you feel about your father right now?”
“I . . . I . . . I guess I feel a little confused.”
She snorted. “Nonsense. What you feel right now, Amelia, is hurt. Personally, I’d like to hack off his testicles—the one he has left, anyway—but that would only give Lazarres-Reynolds another crisis to manage. And they may have one anyway, because according to José, this uncle who’s helping to raise her has accepted a lucrative contracting job overseas and is planning on moving the whole family—”
“What?” I didn’t care about Grandmère possibly cutting off my father’s remaining testicle. I was more concerned about the welfare of my newly discovered sibling. “Why is the uncle helping to raise her? Where is her mother?”
“Her mother, Elizabeth Harrison, passed away ten years ago in a tragic Jet Ski accident—”
“What?” I yelled. Every time my grandmother opened her mouth, it seemed, the news got more terrible.
“If you would allow me to finish, Amelia, instead of constantly interrupting, you’d understand. The girl’s mother was a private charter jet pilot—that’s how your father met her. You know how he is about hopping on a private plane every time the fancy strikes him, and he can’t always be bothered to wait for the royal jet. Anyway, apparently they were quite hot and heavy for a time, but then it fizzled out and the woman died while on vacation. I never did agree with personal watercraft, so dangerous, I’m glad we had them banned from Genovian waters.”
I sat there, completely shocked. My father had been in love—in love enough to have a child with someone other than my mother? I was going to have to go back and reread every page of my diaries from that time period to see how I’d missed it. There must have been a clue, some indication of Elizabeth Harrison’s existence. Otherwise, my father was the greatest actor who had ever lived.