Forever Princess (The Princess Diaries 10)

Tearing her mouth away from his and placing a restraining hand against his wide chest, Finnula brought accusing eyes up to his face and was startled by what she saw there. Not the derisive smile or the mocking eyes she’d become accustomed to, but a mouth slack with desire and green eyes filled with…with what? Finnula could not put a name to what she saw within those orbs, but it frightened as much as it thrilled her.

She had to put a stop to this madness, before things went too far.

“Have you lost your reason?” she demanded, through lips that felt numb from the bruising pressure of his kiss. “Release me at once.”

Hugo lifted his head, his expression as dazed as a man who’d just roused from sleep. Blinking down at the girl in his arms, he gave every indication of having heard her, and yet his hand, still anchored upon her breast, tightened, as if he had no intention of releasing her. When he spoke, it was with a hoarse voice, his intonations slurred.

“I rather think it isn’t my reason I’ve lost, Maiden Crais, but my heart,” he rasped.

Friday, May 5, 4 p.m., limo on the way to therapy

I suck.

I am a horrible, terrible, awful person.

I don’t deserve to be in J.P.’s presence, let alone wear his ring.

I don’t know how it happened! How I let it happen.

Also, it was completely my fault. Michael had nothing to do with it.

Well, maybe he had a little bit to do with it.

But mostly it was me.

I’m the world’s worst, most disgusting girl.

And I know now that Grandmère and I DO come from the same bloodline. Because I’m just as bad as she is!

Maybe all of this really is from hanging out so much with Lana. Maybe she’s rubbed off on me!

Oh, God. I wonder if I have to give back my Domina Rei membership now? Surely a Domina Rei wouldn’t have done what I did?

It all started out so innocently, too. I got to the Boathouse, and Michael was there, waiting for me. And he looked fantastic (no big surprise), in a sport coat (but no tie), with his dark hair kind of messy like he’d just gotten out of the shower.

And the very first thing that happened—the very first thing!—was that he came over to lean down to greet me with a kiss on the cheek.

And even though I tried to back away, crying, “Oh, no, I have a cold!”

He just laughed, and said, “I like your germs.”

And that’s when it happened. Well, the first time. I got a great big whiff of him, his fresh clean Michael smell, all those dissimilar molecules smacking me in the olfactory senses all at the same time. I swear, it was so much I nearly fell over, and Lars had to reach out and lay a hand on my elbow and go, “Are you all right, Princess?”

No. The answer was no, I was not all right. I nearly got knocked out. Knocked out by desire! Desire for forbidden dissimilar molecules!

But I managed to pull myself together, and laughed like nothing had happened. (But something had! Something had happened! Something very, very bad!)

Then we were being led to our sun-dappled table (Lars took up a seat at the bar so he could keep one eye on some sporting event, and one eye on me. Oh, why, Lars, why? Why did you sit so far off????), and Michael was chatting away, I had no idea about what, I was still all dazed by the pheromones or whatever that were tweet-tweeting around my head, and we had a table RIGHT BY THE LAKE, so I had to start keeping an eagle eye out for Lana and Trisha, in case they happened to row by.

But also I think I was dazzled by the sun twinkling on the water, it was all so beautiful and fresh and not like we were in New York at all, but in…well, Genovia, or something.

I swear, I felt as if I were on drugs.

Finally Michael was like, “Mia, are you all right?” and I shook my head like Fat Louie does when I’ve scratched his ears too much, and I went, laughing all nervously, “Yes, yes, I’m fine, I’m sorry, I’m just a little distracted.” But I couldn’t tell him WHY I was so distracted, of course.

Then at the last minute I remembered my excellent news, and I gushed, “I got a phone call this morning from an editor—she wants to publish my book.”

“That’s great!” Michael said, his face breaking out into this big smile. That wonderful smile that I remembered from back in my freshman year, when he used to slip into Algebra to help me with Mr. G’s assignments during class, and I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. “We’ve got to celebrate!”