Royal Wedding (The Princess Diaries 11)

“Michael, I was kidding,” I said. “We can’t name our twins Luke and Leia.”

“Well, we could—”

“No, we can’t. And don’t you think it’s a little early to be picking out names? We have a lot of bigger problems.”

“I’m already on it,” he said, growing serious. “I called my real-estate broker and told her we now need a classic six—” Three-bedroom, three-bath apartment, with a separate living and dining room in a prewar building, very difficult to come by in New York. “She’s got four viewings lined up.”

“That’s not what I mean, Michael. I meant—”

“Oh, I know what you meant. I think we should move to Genovia, and be settled there before the babies are born. I think it’s important we have a place here so our kids can get to know the city the way we did when we were growing up, but the rest of the time they should live in Genovia so they can go outside to play and not have to worry about being stalked by the paparazzi or some psychopath waiting for them outside the door.”

Every time he says the word babies I feel a little nauseous. (Could I actually have morning sickness after all? Probably it’s only the maple syrup I keep smelling from the table next to ours.)

“Michael, I totally agree with all of that. But we can’t just drop everything and move to Genovia. What about my community center? What about Pavlov Surgical?”

He shrugged. “I told you when we went out of town: Perin and Ling Su can run that center blindfolded. That’s why you hired them. They’re amazing. And I can run my company from anywhere. Eventually I planned on reincorporating it in Genovia anyway, like everyone was accusing me of wanting to do.”

I gave a mock scowl. “I knew you were only marrying me so you could take advantage of Genovia’s low tax rates.”

He reached for my hand across the diner table, then squeezed it, gazing lovingly into my eyes. “That was my scheme all along, baby. To knock you up with twins so you’d never be able to get away, then turn to the dark side. I mean, significantly lower my overhead.”

“I should have run the moment I first saw you.”

“You couldn’t,” he said. “Vice Principal Gupta would have given you detention for leaving school property during class.”

Now he’s poring back over his books, looking so worried, I’ve almost forgiven him for getting me into this situation. Although I do realize there were two of us there, and I’m the one who invented the whole fire-marshal thing.

It couldn’t have been Space Alien. I only came up with that one last weekend.

It’s very strange how things that used to really matter to me already don’t matter anymore. Like it doesn’t matter to me that Michael says he’s going to take over cleaning Fat Louie’s litter box from now on because of the risk of my getting toxoplasmosis and transmitting it to the babies. I’m not even going to argue with him that only cats who hunt and kill rodents—or are fed raw meat by their owners—get infected with this disease, and that it’s much more likely I’d get it from gardening (ha! Like I’ve ever gardened) or eating raw meat myself than from Fat Louie. He’s never fed raw meat and, as an ancient indoor cat, has never caught a mouse in his life (though he used to sit on the windowsill—back when he could fit on it—and stare wistfully at the pigeons on the fire escape).

I don’t even care what my ranking is anymore on Rate the Royals. Not that I ever cared, but I seriously do not care now. I can actually see Brian Fitzpatrick standing outside the window of this diner gesturing frantically to me (how? How do paparazzi always know where I am?) and it isn’t bothering me at all.

It’s like a great calm has come over me. I know exactly what I’ve got to do.

And that is go home with Michael, put up my bruised foot, then binge-watch every single episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in a row without stopping (except for meals) until I’m done.

Then maybe—just maybe—I’ll feel prepared for parenthood.

I can’t, though. We have too many other things we have to do. Such as break the news to our parents. And grandparents.

I know Grandmère is going to love the news that days after finding out she’s a two-time grandmother, she’s now also a great-grandmother (no. No, she is not going to love finding this out).

I don’t want to do this. Look what happened when Grandmère found out Michael and I were getting married.

But we don’t have a choice. Because this, unlike a royal engagement, isn’t exactly s

omething you can hide, especially since by the time the wedding rolls around—unless we change the date—I’ll be showing. Even Sebastiano is not a skilled enough designer to disguise the belly bump of a woman who is eighteen weeks pregnant with twins.

Oh, God! I can barely take care of myself. How am I going to take care of a baby, let alone two?

Oh, I forgot. I’m a princess. I have staff.

And if we move to the palace, we’ll have even more staff. Dad always complains that when he was a kid, he had a night nanny, a day nanny, and various tutors, and this was in addition to all his riding and fencing and language instructors. He said he saw his parents only twice a day, at breakfast and at teatime, and he thought this was normal and how all children lived until he was sent away to boarding school and the other boys immediately stuck his head in a toilet.

Thank God for Michael. When I pointed all this out to him just now, he said, “Well, that won’t happen to our children because we’re never going to send them to boarding school and they’re going to have only one nanny, who’ll be a lovable robot like the one on The Jetsons. I’m working up the plans now.”

“Michael,” I said, laughing, “be serious.”