My heart dropped.

“Mia? Are you still there?” Michael asked in my ear.

“Of course I’m still here,” I said.

“Have you and your father ever considered coordinating your efforts?” he asked. “Because if you teamed up, you might possibly be able to take over the world.”

A little harsh, but not totally off base. “Point taken. In my own defense, though, I never meant in a million years for any of this to happen—”

“Of course you didn’t,” he said, his tone softening. “You never do. So, what’s she like?”

I glanced at Olivia, who was still bent over her fractions, the tip of her tongue sticking out slightly from between her teeth.

“Amazing,” I said warmly.

“Good. Why don’t I try to make a few phone calls and see if I can reach your dad? There’s a guy who plays World of Warcraft who works in the IT department at the courthouse. I think I can get your message delivered.”

“Oh my God, could you? That would be great—”

My heart got the rosy glow in it that it always did when Michael did or said something particularly wonderful—or even when he simply walked into the room. He really is the most spectacular man on earth.

Then I remembered something.

“Oh, but if you do reach his lawyers and they ask you about signing a prenup,” I added in a whisper, “just ignore them. I told them we weren’t doing that.”

“I will do no such thing,” he said, sounding offended. “A prenup makes good fiscal sense.”

“Michael!”

“What? It’s a good idea for both of us to protect our personal assets.”

“Oh, God.” I dropped my head into one of my hands. “Your mother was right.”

“My mother? About what?”

“She said we marry our parents. ‘A good idea for us to protect our personal assets?’ You sound exactly like my dad.”

“Well, your dad’s not always wrong, Mia. And you are always trying to help people. Who does that sound like?”

I flung a glance across the length of the limo at Lilly, who was now bathed in sapphire blue from the fiber-optic lights while she bent over Olivia’s homework.

“Not your sister,” I whispered in a horrified voice.

“No, you nut,” he said. “My parents, who are psychotherapists, one of the ultimate helping professions. You always want to help everyone. It’s one of the many reasons I fell in love with you, but also one of the reasons you’re always getting yourself into trouble.”

“Well, I can assure you,” I said, “after today, I’m quitting.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it. Look, I’ll text you as soon as I hear anything. In the meantime, if you get pulled over by the cops, don’t let Lars show off his gun to them.”

“Obviously,” I said.

After we’d hung up and I crept back to my original seat, Tina looked at me worriedly and mouthed, “Everything okay?”

I gave her a reassuring smile. Of course everything’s okay. It’s me! When hasn’t everything been okay?

•  Found out I’m a princess of a country no one’s ever heard of, but everyone wants to move to? Check!

•  Getting married in less than three months on live international television and don’t yet have a dress, or anything else ready? Check!

•  Discovered I have a long-lost sister? Check!

•  Exposed her identity to the entire world by showing up at the wrong time, getting my picture posted on every website in the world, and ruining her life? Check, check, and check!

CHAPTER 54

5:32 p.m., Wednesday, May 6

Traffic jam on Houston Street

Rate the Royals Rating: 1

When I phoned just now to say that I was on my way to her apartment with her long-lost grandchild, Grandmère’s reaction was unsurprising but still not satisfactory.

“But I don’t even have my eyebrows on! I can’t meet my only other grandchild with no eyebrows.”

I told her that we still have to drop off Tina and Lilly at their respective domiciles, which should give her plenty of time to draw on her eyebrows.

Olivia, who’d been eavesdropping, asked brightly, “Our grandmother likes to draw, too? That’s so great!” and held up her notebook. “We have something in common already!”

When she finds out all Grandmère likes to draw are eyebrows (and from her Swiss bank account, of course), she’s going to be crushed, but I tried to sound encouraging. “Yeah! It’s great!”

“Is that her?” Grandmère demanded. “I cannot believe you’ve done this, Amelia. It’s going to ruin all my careful plans.”

“Yes, it’s her,” I said, then switched to French. Never in a million years did it occur to me I’d be using my ability to speak French—learned over the many summers I spent visiting my grandmother, then perfected with Mademoiselle Klein in high school—to keep my secret sister from knowing what I was saying about her over the phone to our grandmother. “And that’s a nice attitude to take about your grandchild. Why don’t you have your eyebrows on? It’s cocktail time.”

“I, er, had an afternoon visitor, and somehow they must have become smudged—”

“Oh, sure, somehow. Who was it this time? Please don’t say Chris Martin. You have got to leave that poor man alone.”