*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:
<Tina HBB “TruRomantic”
HRH Mia Thermopolis “FtLouie”>
Happy birthday, Mia! I hope you have a great time. I wish I were going. But that would be weird, ha ha! Plus, I have exams.
P.S. Don’t worry about what it says on RTR. You’re #1 to me!
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
Rate the Royals Rating: Who cares?
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.”