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Oh, Lord, now someone’s pounding on the door. Who on earth would they even let up here? It can’t be Michael. The hotel staff let him right up, and all the agents on the RGG staff know him . . .
CHAPTER 56
7:20 p.m., Wednesday, May 6
The Plaza Hotel
Rate the Royals Rating: 1
OMG. It’s my mother.
And she is not happy.
CHAPTER 57
7:45 p.m., Wednesday, May 6
The Plaza Hotel
Rate the Royals Rating: 1
Grandmère’s staff didn’t recognize my mom because she never comes here, so that’s why they wouldn’t let her up at first.
I can’t really blame them, since she doesn’t look anything like her normal self (even herself in her ID photos). She’s still wearing her clothes from the studio—paint-spattered overalls and a man’s T-shirt—and she’d piled her hair on top of her head with a bungee cord.
I was the first one to reach the door, despite my limp, and the crazed look in her eye startled even me.
“Do you know this woman?” the Royal Genovian Guards who had her by the arms asked.
“Mia,” Mom said acidly. “Tell them you know me.”
“Of course I know her,” I said, shocked. “She’s my mother.”
Beside her, Rocky said, “Hi, Mia. Mom’s really mad.”
“Mom,” I said, opening the door wider to allow them both to come in, “what’s wrong?”
I should have known, of course.
“Oh, nothing,” she said. There were tears sparkling at the corners of her large dark eyes. “I just heard on the radio that you have a half sister, that’s all. God forbid I should have heard this news from your father himself. Or you. You went to New Jersey to look at bridesmaid dresses today, Mia? Really?”
Uh-oh. I guess National Public News does occasionally report things not necessarily of national or cultural importance.
“Mom,” I said, my eyelid beginning to throb uncontrollably. “Look. I can explain—”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Mom said. “You’re not the one I’m angry with. None of this is your fault. He’s the one I’m going to kill for leaving that poor child parentless in New Jersey.”
“She wasn’t parentless,” I said, even though of course I’d been thinking pretty much the same thing ever since I’d found out. “She has an aunt—”
“Mia,” Mom said, her mouth shrinking to the size of a dime, a sure sign she was about to blow. “You know what I mean.”
“Helen,” my dad said, suddenly appearing in the foyer. I guess he’d heard all the knocking and fina
lly come to investigate. “What are you doing here?”
“What do you think I’m doing here?” Mom demanded, her eyes flashing wetly. “How could you, Phillipe? How could you?”
She shouted this with such explosive force that the door to the study flew open, and J.P. and his uncle, along with the Royal Genovian legal team, all stepped out into the foyer in alarm.
