Royal Wedding by Meg Cabot Page A

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:
    â€¢Â Â Â 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
    â€¢Â Â Â 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;