I don’t want to think of myself as predictable (who does?) but it almost seems as if he anticipated my response, he wrote back so quickly:

We both need to disconnect from work and the Internet. Don’t even try to tell me that you didn’t see RTR this morning. I know you check it every five minutes to make sure you’re in the top three.

This is a scurrilous falsehood! I check Rate the Royals no more than once a day.

But before I could protest, I received this:

I already asked Dominique to give your regrets about the gala and she said she’d be glad to. I know how anxious you are to rebuild what you consider your family’s “tarnished reputation,” but I think throwing your support behind every charity that asks for your help (such as a society hoping to reverse the “alarming decline of butterflies and moths in urban areas”) might not be the most effective way to do it.

He’d spoken to my publicist behind my back? How dare he?

But again, before I could text a word in reply, I received this:

And both your mom AND dad say they’ll be fine without you. They agree with me that you need a break after all the stress you’ve been through this past year. It’s making you physically ill.

Lilly would rightfully have accused her brother of being both patriarchal and controlling here, talking to my parents behind my back like I’m a child . . .

. . . though I sort of love it when he tells me what to do, especially in bed, like when we play Fireman, the game we invented where he’s the fireman and I’m the naughty resident who ignored the smoke detector and didn’t evacuate the building in a timely manner.

Then he finds me sprawled half conscious on my bed in my sexy lingerie, and has to give me mouth-to-mouth to revive me. Only when I get revived, we realize burning timbers have fallen across our only form of egress, so he has no choice but to spend his time waiting for rescue giving me a sexy lesson in fire safety.

Plus I ran the whole trip through the RGG and they cleared it. The youth of New York City, the women and children of Qalif, and the genetically modified oranges of Genovia will be all right without you for one weekend.

Now grab the bag and get downstairs. Are you even dressed? The clock is ticking, Thermopolis. The jet leaves from Teterboro at eleven.

Jet? He’s hired a private jet?

Who does he think he is all of a sudden, Christian Grey?

I am not okay with this. I’m not some shy virginal college student who only owns one shirt. I am a twenty-six-year-old woman fully in charge of making up my own mind about whether or not I want to go on vacation.

I do love it when Michael calls me Thermopolis, though. Even when it’s only in writing, it does something to me, something that normally only happens when he walks into the room after I haven’t seen him in a while and hugs me, and I get a whiff of his amazing, clean, Michael smell, or when he comes out of the shower wearing only a towel and his hair is all wet and plastered down darkly to the back of his strong, newly shaved neck, and he announces he smells smoke—

Maybe he’s right. Maybe I do need a relaxing vacation. Especially away from my crazy family, and the consulate, and the Internet, and . . .

Oh, crap. Might as well admit it: after all these years, I’m still disgustingly, revoltingly in love with him, exploding penguins and all. I’d even go on some kind of weird, wireless retreat with him.

Now, that’s love.

CHAPTER 14

10:00 a.m., Friday, May 1

Lobby, Consulate General of Genovia

Rate the Royals Rating: 5

Sitting downstairs, waiting for Michael to pick me up for the wireless meditation/yoga retreat, or whatever it is.

Everyone who comes in (quite a lot of people for a Friday morning in May, but they were probably put off coming yesterday by the crowd of orange-throwing protesters) is giving me the side-eye.

I suppose they weren’t expecting to see Princess Mia Thermopolis writing in her diary in the lobby of the consulate of Genovia when they popped by to get a visa or certificate of nationality. Most of them look quite pleased . . .

I wish I could say the same for the consulate staff. From the moment I set foot down here, I was immediately:

•   chastised by Madame Alain, the ambassador’s secretary, for entering the consulate staff kitchen (to steal tea bags, but she doesn’t know that), and

•   told to remove the four gold iPhones and dozens of other birthday cards and packages that arrived for me via the consulate’s address.

This was only slightly embarrassing since the Royal Genovian Guard opens all my packages/mail thanks to RoyalRabbleRouser, who pledged to “destroy my world.”

One of the packages sent to me today turned out to be a world destroyer, all right, but it was from my boyfriend’s sister (and soon-to-be ex–best friend), not my stalker. It consisted of a waterproof vibrator shaped like a dolphin with a note that said:

I’m FLIPPING out over your birthday!

XOXO Lilly

When Lars handed it to me just now (back in its wrapping paper, though not very nicely; apparently they’re out of Scotch tape in the security office, so he used blue medical tape from the first-aid kit), he didn’t even bother to wipe the smirk off his face.

“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.”*