Royal Wedding - Meg Cabot Page 0,1

I’m being held a prisoner in my current home by the paps. I had to move out of my old apartment last year on account of my stalker, RoyalRabbleRouser, who enjoys posting online about how he’s going to “destroy” me for writing a historical romance novel (years ago, under another name) featuring a heroine who has premarital sex (he claims this is proof of how “feminism has destroyed the fabric of our society”).

The consulate is the only building in Manhattan guarded 24/7 by military police specially trained in the protection of a royal.

And now lately on the limited occasions Michael and I do find time to get together, we mostly just order in, then watch Star Trek on Netflix, because leaving the consulate is such a pain, unless I want to hear all sorts of horrible questions hurled at me on my way to the car by the press:

“Mia, what’s it like to have a felon for a father?”

“Mia, is that a baby bump or did you just have too much of that falafel we saw delivered an hour ago?”

“Mia, how does it feel to know that seventy-four percent of those surveyed think Kate Middleton wore it better?”

“Mia, why hasn’t Michael put a ring on it?”

I tried to show Michael my twitch earlier on FaceTime, but he said my eye looked perfectly normal to him.

“If you’re twitchy, though, Mia, it’s probably in nervous anticipation at the prospect of going out with me, the world’s greatest lover.”

“I thought we agreed we weren’t going to read our own press,” I reminded him.

“How can I help it?” he asked. “Especially since my erotic powers seemingly extend all the way to the Upper East Side, where they’ve rendered you sex mad.”

“Ha ha ha. You probably planted that story yourself.”

“You’ve grown so jaded and cynical since I last saw you. But really, Mia,” he said, finally getting serious. “I think you’re just stressing too much about all of this. I’m not saying things aren’t bad—they are. But maybe all you need is to get away for a day or two.”

“Away? How am I possibly going to get away? And where am I going to go that the press can’t follow me and ask about my alleged baby bump or how my dad looks in his orange jumpsuit?”

“Good question. Let me work on it.”

I know he’s just trying to help, but really, how can I go away with Dad in so much trouble and the country in such an uproar and the election so close and Mom being a new widow and Grandmère as crazy as ever?

Plus my boyfriend having rendered me sex mad, of course.

No. Just no.

But of course I couldn’t tell Dr. Delgado any of this. It’s like my lips have been frozen into a permanent smile by all my media training (and compartmentalizing of my feelings).

“Well, that’s fine, then,” the doctor said, beaming.

Fine? It’s so not fine. Was it really so wrong of me to think that maybe, possibly, the palace physician might give me a little something to keep my eyelid from jumping around like a Chihuahua at dinnertime, or at least help me not lie awake all night?

And then when I do manage to fall asleep I have nightmares, like the one I had last night that I was married to Bruce Willis, and whenever Bruce got out of the shower, he would dry off his naughty parts while singing the song “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”

I can’t even tell Michael this. How do you explain it to the kindly old physician they found who is still willing to do house calls?

You cannot.

“I’ll make sure the lab gets the blood and urine samples you insisted I take, Your Highness,” Dr. Delgado said. “I should have the results in about a week. But I have to say that medically, I doubt they’ll find anything wrong. Your pulse is strong, your skin tone looks even, your weight is within the normal range for your height. Despite this twitch you say you have—which frankly I can’t see—and your fingernails, which I see that you bite, you seem to be glowing with health.”

Damn! He would notice my fingernails. I must be the only female left on the entire planet who doesn’t get manicures because there’s nothing left of my fingernails to file, let alone paint.

“Maybe,” I said, trying to keep the eagerness out of my voice so I wouldn’t sound like one of those crazed Oxy-addicts on Intervention, “I should be written a prescription for a