Forever Princess

This was a complete and total lie. But whatever, I lie so much, what difference could one more lie make?

Mamaw hadn’t mentioned J.P. at all, though she’d asked me if I had ever thought of asking out “that cute boy from that show High School Musical. Because, as a princess, I’m sure you could get him to go out with you.” Um…thanks, Mamaw, but I don’t date boys who wear more makeup than me!

“Besides,” I said to J.P., “I miss you. It seems like I hardly ever get to see you anymore, you’re so busy with your play.”

“Aw. But that’s what happens when two creative people get together,” J.P. reminded me. “Remember how busy you were when you were working on what I now know was your novel?” His reluctance to set foot in the horror that is the Times Square Applebee’s was palpable. Also, may I just add, perfectly understandable. Still. “And you’ll see me in school tomorrow. And all night at your party tomorrow. I’m just really zonked from rehearsal. You don’t mind, do you?”

I looked down at the squashed fry beneath my shoe.

“No,” I said. What else could I say? Besides, is there anything more pathetic than a nearly eighteen-year-old girl in a bathroom stall begging her boyfriend to come meet her and her parents and grandparents at Applebee’s for dinner?

I don’t think so.

“See you later,” I said, instead. And hung up.

I wanted to cry. I really, really did. Sitting there, thinking how my ex-boyfriend was maybe—probably—reading my book and thinking it was about him…and my current boyfriend hadn’t read my book at all…well…

Honestly, I think I must be the most pathetic night-before-her-birthday girl in all of Manhattan. Possibly on the entire East Coast.

Maybe in all of North America.

Maybe in the whole world.

An excerpt from Ransom My Heart by Daphne Delacroix

Hugo lay beneath her, hardly daring to believe his good fortune. He had been pursued by a great many women in his time, women more beautiful than Finnula Crais, women with more sophistication and worldly knowledge.

But none of them had ever appealed to him as immediately as this girl. She boldly announced that she wanted him for his money, and she wasn’t going to resort to seductions and stratagems to get it. Her game was abduction, pure and simple, and Hugo was so amused, he thought he might laugh out loud.

Every other woman he’d ever known, in both the literal and biblical sense, had a single goal in mind—to become the chatelaine of Stephensgate Manor. Hugo had nothing against the institution of marriage, but he had never met a woman with whom he felt he wanted to spend the rest of his life. And here was a girl who stated, plain as day, that all she wanted from him was money. It was as if a gust of fresh English air had blown through him, renewing his faith in womankind.

“So it’s your hostage I’m to be,” Hugo said to the stones beneath him. “And what makes you so certain I’ll be able to pay your ransom?”

“Do you think I’m daft? I saw the coin you tossed Simon back at the Fox and Hare. You oughtn’t be so showy with your spoils. You’re lucky ‘tis me that’s waylaid you, and not some of Dick and Timmy’s friends. They have rather unsavory companions, you know. You could have come to serious harm.”

Hugo smiled to himself. Here he’d been worried about the girl meeting up with trouble on her way back to Stephensgate, never suspecting that she was sharing the same concern for him.

“Here, what are you smiling at?” the girl demanded, and to his regret, she slid down from his back and prodded him, none too gently, in the side with a sharp toe. “Sit up, now, and stop sneering. There isn’t anything amusing about me abducting you, you know. I know I don’t look like much, but I think I proved back at the Fox and Hare that I truly am the finest shot with a short bow in all the county, and I’ll thank you to remember it.”

Sitting up, Hugo found his hands well tied behind his back. There was certainly nothing lacking in the girl’s knot-tying education. His bonds were not tight enough to cut off the circulation, yet not loose enough to give way.

Lifting his gaze, he found his fair captor kneeling a few feet away from him, her elfin face pale in a halo of wildly curling red hair, hair so long that the ends of it twined amongst the violets below her knees. Her lawn shirt was untucked and sticking to her still-wet body in places, so that her nipples were plainly visible through the thin material.

Quirking up an eyebrow, Hugo realized that the girl was completely unaware of the devastating effect her looks had on him. Or at least, aware only that naked, she made a fetching distraction.

Monday, May 1, 7:45 a.m., limo on the way to school

I got up this morning when the alarm rang (even though I hadn’t slept a BIT, wondering if Michael had read my book—I KNOW!!! All I could think, all night, was, “Has he read it yet? What about now? Do you think he’s read it now?” And then I’d freak out, going, “What do I care if my EX-boyfriend has read my book? Pull yourself together, Mia! It doesn’t matter what HE thinks! What about your CURRENT boyfriend?” and then I’d lie awake freaking out about J.P. Had HE read it? What had HE thought about it? Had HE liked it? What if he hadn’t?), and pulled Fat Louie off my chest and staggered to the bathroom to shower and brush my teeth, and as I was staring at myself in the mirror (and the way my hair was sticking up in funny clumps—thank God I finally got more phytodefrisant), it suddenly hit me.