Forever Princess (The Princess Diaries 10)

Seriously. Not to sound common—as Grandmère would say—but I am pretty much screwed right now.

Because I can’t give my book to Michael. He invented a robotic arm that saves people’s lives. I wrote a romance novel. One of these things is not like the other.

And I really don’t want the guy who just got an honorary master’s degree in science from Columbia (and who’s had his hand down my shirt on numerous occasions) reading my sex scenes.

Talk about embarrassing.

Saturday, April 29, 7 p.m., the loft

I decided that Dr. K is right.

I really have to stop lying so much. I mean, if I’m going to meet Michael tomorrow for this newspaper interview thing (which there’s no way I can get out of, because if I don’t do it then I have to admit that I wasn’t there today to interview him for the Atom, and there is absolutely no way I’m fessing up that I was really there to ask him for a CardioArm…or, worse, to spy on him with my giggling girlfriends), then I’m going to have to give him a copy of my senior project.

I’m just going to have to. There’s no way I can get around it. He totally remembered—don’t ask me how, when he’s obviously the busiest man in the universe.

And if I’m going to come clean with my ex-boyfriend regarding the truth about my senior project, well, that means I have to tell the truth about it to the people in my life who are more important than he is. Such as, my best friend, and my actual boyfriend.

Because otherwise, it’s just not fair. I mean, for Michael to know the truth about Ransom My Heart, but not Tina or J.P.?

So I decided that I’m just going to bite the bullet and give ALL of them a copy. This weekend.

In fact, I e-mailed Tina hers just now. I’ve got nothing but free time tonight, since J.P. is at rehearsal, and I’m babysitting Rocky while Mom and Mr. G are at a community meeting to discuss NYU’s rampant expansionism and what they can do to stop it before the only people who can afford to live in the Village are twenty-year-old Tisch film students with trust funds.

I sent Tina a copy of my manuscript with this message:

Dear T,

I hope you won’t be mad, but remember when I said my senior project was about Genovian olive oil presses, circa 1254–1650? Well, I was sort of lying. Actually, my senior project was a four-hundred-page medieval romance novel called Ransom My Heart set in 1291 England about a girl named Finnula who kidnaps and holds for ransom a knight just back from the Crusades, so she can get money for her pregnant sister to buy hops and barley to make beer (a common practice in those days).

However, what Finnula doesn’t know is that knight is really the earl of her village. And Finnula has some secrets the earl doesn’t know, as well.

I’m sending Ransom My Heart to you now. You don’t have to read it or anything (unless you want to). I just hope you’ll forgive me for lying. I feel really stupid for that. I don’t know why I did it, I guess because I was embarrassed because I wasn’t sure if it was any good. Plus, there are a lot of sex scenes in it.

I really hope you’ll still be my friend.

Love,

Mia

I haven’t heard back from her, but that’s because the Hakim Babas usually have dinner all together this time of day, and Tina’s not allowed to check her messages at the table. It’s a family rule that even Mr. Hakim Baba follows now that his doctor warned him about his high blood pressure.

I kind of feel sick—sick and excited at the same time. About sending Ransom My Heart to Tina, I mean. I can’t imagine what she’s going to say. Will she be mad at me for lying to her? Or stoked, because romance novels are her favorite thing in the whole world? It’s true she prefers contemporary romance novels, and usually ones with sheiks in them.

But it’s possible she might like mine. I put a ton of references to the desert in it.

More importantly, what’s J.P. going to say about it when I tell him? I mean, he knows I love writing, and that I want to be an author someday.

But I’ve never actually mentioned romance writing to him before.

Well, I guess I’m going to find out what he thinks soon enough. I’m sending him a copy, too.

Although, who knows when he’ll actually open it up and read it. His play rehearsals have been known to go on until midnight.

And now Rocky is begging me to watch Dora the Explorer with him. I understand that millions of kids love Dora and have learned to read or whatever from her show. But I wouldn’t mind if Dora fell off a cliff and took her little pals with her.

Saturday, April 29, 8:30 p.m.

I just got a text from Tina!