Royal Wedding (The Princess Diaries 11)

When I woke up the tide was coming in, so the waves were a bit stronger and the beach had gotten a little smaller and Michael was leaning over me without his shirt on asking if I liked it (and also if I wanted to reapply my sunscreen), and I said sleepily, “Okay, Michael, I guess I can do this . . . just for the weekend.”

And he laughed and said, “I thought so,” and kissed me.

Then he asked if I thought I smelled smoke . . .

CHAPTER 16

7:00 p.m., Saturday, May 2

Sleepy Palm Cay, The Exumas, Bahamas

Rate the Royals Rating: Don’t know/don’t care

It is amazing here. We are doing nothing. Nothing except kissing and eating and sleeping in the sun and playing Fireman and snorkeling (which is quite easy to do once you get the hang of it) and looking at birds and dolphins through the binoculars.

Although you don’t even need the binoculars, that’s how close the dolphins swim up.

I’m so relaxed, my eye has even stopped twitching. It could be because of the massive doses of magnesium I’ve been taking, or it could be because of leaving all that stress behind . . . or it could be because of love.

I’m voting for love.

But the most amazing thing is the sight I’m looking at right now, and I don’t need the binoculars to see it either: Michael wearing nothing but board shorts as he lies in the hammock across from mine, reading a book on microprocessing (I do hope the micros and the processors end up happily ever after at the end).

I know how lucky I am, so I shouldn’t brag, and of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but was there ever such a stunning piece of masculinity in all of history? I don’t think so. I happen to like dark-haired men (we won’t talk about that brief unhappy period in my past when I was attracted to a fair-haired boy since thankfully I soon came to my senses), the darker the better.

And while I know some girls who like guys without hair on their limbs and bodies, I frankly find that very odd. Fortunately Michael has quite a lot. If he ever started waxing it (like Boris, who, the less said about him, the better), I think we would have to have a serious talk.

But the best thing about him isn’t his looks; it’s that he is someone around whom I can be totally myself. When I’m with Michael, I don’t ever have to worry about saying the wrong thing, because to him, everything I say is funny or interesting.

And no matter what I have on (or don’t have on), he thinks I look beautiful. I know because we’ve been together for so long, he can’t be faking it when I worry that I don’t have any makeup on and he goes, “You actually look better without makeup on.” (I don’t, without mascara I look like a lashless marsupial left too long in an experimental government lab, but amazingly, even in my lashless marsupial state, he’s still quite interested in pursuing carnal relations with me.)

Plus, when we snuggle our bodies fit together perfectly, almost as if they were made for each other.

And he never complains when Fat Louie climbs up onto the bed and snuggles with us, even though Fat Louie has gotten quite smelly in his old age, having completely given up bathing (I have to dip him in the bathtub every once in a while or he’d simply never get clean).

Fat Louie, I mean. Not Michael. Michael takes two to three showers a day, depending on whether or not he’s done yoga.

Fortunately we no longer have to deal with Michael’s dog, Pavlov, climbing into the bed at Michael’s place anymore, since Pavlov passed away in his sleep after a long and happy life. Dogs generally don’t live as long as cats, except Grandmère’s miniature poodle, Rommel, whom she will never allow to die. Rommel’s gotten a little dotty in his old age, but because Grandmère never got him fixed, he still has a very active sex drive.

This means in recent months he’s been caught attempting to make somewhat aggressive love to: an ottoman; an umbrella stand; other dogs of all breeds (and sexes); Dominique; my father; Michael; me; Lilly; Grandmère; the mayor of New York City; Clint Eastwood (in town for a movie premiere); an $84,000 Persian carpet; sofas of too large a number to name; numerous women’s purses; multiple room-service waiters; and almost all the bellmen at the Plaza Hotel.

I told Grandmère that we should write a book—What Rommel Humped—and donate the profits to the ASPCA. I’m positive it would make a fortune.

She didn’t find the idea very funny, though. Nor did she like it when I suggested that she should get Rommel fixed. She said, “I suppose when I get old and am still interested in sex, you’ll have me fixed. Remind me not to appoint you my health-care proxy, Amelia.”

Oh, dear. Michael just asked what I’m writing about. I couldn’t tell him the truth, of course.

So I told him I’m writing about how much I love him. It’s sort of true . . . it’s how I got started on this topic, anyway.

He put down his book and looked at me with those big brown eyes of his (such beautiful long lashes! Totally wasted on a man. If only I had them, I’d never need mascara again) and said, “I love you, too.”

So serious! He didn’t even smile.

Never sure what I’m supposed to do when he looks at me so seriously and says “I love you” like that. I know he does—his love is like this beautiful sea around us, warm and dependable and tranquil and calm, a place where dolphins can safely frolic and play.

But even here, on vacation, I’m seeing shadows in those lovely brown depths . . . and I’m getting the feeling that there’s rough weather ahead, with dark, deep waters, where you can’t see the bottom.

If I could have any wish, it would be that we could just stay here forever under this crystal-blue sky, in these nice warm shallow waves, and never have to face the harsh realities I suspect lie ahead.