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So I hobbled over to her white couch (everything in her house is white. The marble floors. The Venetian plaster. The furniture. Everything. It’s hard to believe she has three kids—or at least, one niece and two stepkids—and manages to keep everything so clean. They must be very well trained, or she has an amazing cleaning service).
“I’m very sorry to have alarmed you, Mrs. O’Toole,” I said, after she’d brought us iced tea in tall highball glasses that were etched with the letters C and R . . . in white, of course. Lars had accompanied her to the kitchen on the pretense of “helping” (but really he’d gone to make sure she didn’t call the police, press, or her husband), and he’d brought out a little bowl of mixed nuts. The bowl was also white. “But all I want is to talk to you about your niece, Olivia. I think you’re aware that she’s my half sister.”
Mrs. O’Toole blinked at me through her crooked eyelash and said, “Oh. Yes. Yes, of course. Actually, I thought your father would be the one who’d show up. I never expected you.”
I had no idea how to respond to that despite my earlier claim to extraordinary powers of princess diplomacy.
So it was probably a good thing Lilly leaped in and introduced herself.
“Lilly Moscovitz, Mrs. O’Toole,” Lilly said, setting her iced tea down on the pricey—white—coffee table, and sticking out her hand. “Columbia Law School, Royal Attorney-at-Law to the Princess of Genovia—”
I elbowed Lilly in the gut, causing her to lower her hand with a cough, because Mrs. O’Toole had begun to blink very quickly at the word attorney.
“Never mind her, Mrs. O’Toole,” I said, hastily. “I’m here because, in spite of your sister’s wish that her daughter Olivia never know about her royal lineage, I’d very much like to meet her. Having been lucky enough to have had a sister yourself, you can probably understand that.”
Catherine blinked even more, rapidly, and I realized she was only trying to adjust her loose eyelash. “I suppose I can,” she said. “Though Elizabeth and I didn’t have all that much in common. I’ve never understood why she didn’t marry your dad when he asked. I’d have loved being a princess.”
Tina nearly dropped her iced tea. Her dark eyes had widened to approximately twice their normal size. “Prince Phillipe asked your sister to marry him?”
“Well, yes,” Catherine said. She’d got her eyelash back on, and was now blinking at Tina like she’d only just gotten a good look at her, and realized how gorgeous she is. Tina has her father’s dark coloring and soft roundness, but her mother’s British supermodel bone structure and fashion sense, which had caused Sebastiano to moon over her earlier in a manner that made me suspect he wished she were the royal bride.
“But Elizabeth always said she wasn’t the royal wedding type,” Catherine went on. “She liked flying those stupid jets. I don’t suppose they’d have let her keep doing that if she was a princess.”
“No,” I agreed. “That would be too dangerous a career for the wife of the Prince of Genovia.”
“I thought so,” Catherine said, knowingly.
Tina swung her bewildered gaze toward me. I could tell she was crushed. She wanted to believe my father had only ever loved my mother for his entire life.
But it’s possible for people to have more than one soul mate . . . even though if I ever lose Michael, I’ll probably don all black and sit around forever in mourning like Queen Victoria did after she lost her beloved Prince Albert.
“Your sister sounds like a wonderful woman,” I said to Catherine. “I wish I could have known her. But since I never had the opportunity, I’d like to get to know you, and of course my sister, before you and your family move to Qalif—”
Catherine O’Toole looked relieved. “Oh. So that’s really all you came here for?”
I exchanged glances with Tina and Lilly. “Uh, yes. Why?”
“No reason.”
Ha. She totally suspected another reason for my visit . . . that we’d found out the truth about her and her bohunk husband stealing all my sister’s money!
But of course I had no proof of this . . . yet. And as Tina kept insisting, maybe it wasn’t even true.
“Well, maybe one other thing,” I added, wickedly.
Was it my imagination, or did she appear flustered?
“Yes?”
“There’s actually a warning out from the State Department right now advising Americans not to travel to Qalif due to the civil unrest—”
Catherine O’Toole made a pooh-poohing gesture with one of her long-nailed hands. “Oh, that. I talked to a girl at the embassy, she said it’s all being overexaggerated. It’s perfectly safe so long as you stay in the American compounds.”
“Uh,” I said, watching as Tina’s eyes got rounder and rounder with astonishment. “Okay. Well, if it’s all right with you, my father and I were wondering if Olivia could stay with us for a while—” I was lying left and right now, so many lies I could hardly keep track of them. “Maybe for a few weeks this summer while you and your family get settled in to, uh, your new home in Qalif? How does that sound?”
Catherine O’Toole bit her lower lip. “Oh, well, I don’t know. I’d have to discuss it with Rick. . . .”
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about the oranges,” Lilly leaped in, breezily. “The rumors about the rats aren’t true.”
