Royal Wedding - Meg Cabot Page 0,42
course, the very best, and quite experienced in this kind of thing. He used to work for Interpol. The terrorism unit.” She got a faraway look in her eyes that I recognized. It was the same one she’d worn around the time of the James Franco affair. “José is surprisingly gentlemanly for a man skilled in the use of torture.”
This was getting worse and worse.
“Oh, Grandmère,” I said. “Please tell me you didn’t send José to waterboard this little girl’s family!”
“Of course not, Amelia,” she said in disgust. “What do you take me for? I sent José to Cranbrook, New Jersey, to collect DNA from the child for a paternity test.”
“New Jersey? Why New Jersey?”
“Because that’s where your father’s been sending the monthly support payments for nearly twelve years now, Amelia. Are you dense? I thought it would be nice to know he’s not been doing so unnecessarily—”
“New Jersey?” I shouted. “Are you telling me that I’ve had a half sister living across the river since I was fourteen years old, and no one ever told me?”
“Us, Amelia,” Grandmère said, looking annoyed. “Your father never told us. And must you shout so? It’s hardly regal. And that is precisely what I asked José to find out, which he did. He said he’s shocked that no one—such as your insufferable cousin Ivan, or that blackguard Brian Fitzpatrick—had discovered it sooner. Your father has been making the payments in his own name from an account here at Chase Manhattan Bank. The fool!”
I couldn’t believe it. Not the part about Dad having had a secret love—he’s a prince, after all, who’d never married after my mom refused his proposal in college, choosing instead to “wander the globe in search of a woman who might be able to provide the balm to soothe his wounded heart,” as Tina liked to put it (although really he’d simply had dozens of short-lived relationships with supermodels, actresses, television news journalists, and the occasional high school English teacher).
It was the part about my having a little sister that I couldn’t believe . . . and the fact that my father had never told me about it. Not telling Grandmère I could understand. Though underneath her flamboyant exterior, she has a warm (well, warmish) heart. How else has she tolerated her horrible dog all these years?
But there is no doubt that she disapproves of nearly everything her only child (my father) does.
This is most likely why he’d fallen for the one woman in the world he couldn’t have—my mother, his own mother’s exact opposite (in complete defiance of Dr. Moscovitz’s theory about him).
But I’d always thought my father and I were close.
Now I realized I knew nothing about him at all.
This stings a little. Actually, a lot.
I leaped to my feet. “Well, what are we waiting for?” I said to my grandmother. “Have your driver bring the car around, and let’s go meet her.”
“Certainly not, Amelia,” my grandmother said. “According to Lazarres-Reynolds, that’s the worst possible thing we could do. We can’t risk exposing this story to the media, especially after all the trouble we went to today in order to provide the perfect distraction for them, in the form of your wedding.”
“What are you talking about? Who on earth is Lazarres-Reynolds?”
“The crisis management firm I hired to handle this affair, of course. Why do you think I announced your engagement this morning?”
I sank back down onto the couch, stunned. “I thought you did that to distract the press from Dad’s arrest.”
“Well, of course I did, Amelia. Have you seen his most recent numbers in the polls for prime minister? He’s five points behind your cousin Ivan—who just today announced that, if elected, he’ll make genetically modified fruit illegal and deny all humanitarian entry visas into Genovia. But if news of this latest debacle of your father’s gets out—well, he’ll be crushed in the election. Crushed.”
I shook my head. “Grandmère,” I said. “This little girl’s existence isn’t a political scandal you can hire a publicity firm to cover up. She’s a human being. She’s family.”
“I’m aware of that, Amelia. But Lazarres-Reynolds really is very good. Do you remember that incident last year with the son of the Sultan of Brunei and the monkey?”
“No.”
“Exactly. Do you know why you don’t remember it? Two words: Lazarres-Reynolds.”
“But, Grandmère,” I said desperately, “do you really think if people found out Dad had another kid, they’d think badly enough of him to vote against him?”
“For keeping it a secret so long? Yes. No one