Royal Desire(10)

I say a teary goodbye to Mom as she leaves for the airport. The time has now come for another major confrontation – the announcement of my official engagement to Alex. So far, the family knows about it and they have been majorly uneasy, except for Marie.

But it’s time to make it public now. It’s time to drag that-which-shalt-not-be-discussed into the limelight.

Let the mudslinging begin.





*





The official announcement will be to the press. Under Madame Fournier’s careful guidance, Alex and I hold our first interview for Telemonde Moldavia, our local TV station. But CNN, FOX, BBC. Al-Jazeera and all the big world news reporters are here too, not to mention the gossip rags.

I’m dressed in a deep blue velvet dress. It has a demure neckline and a very flattering waist. My hair is brushed and coiffed to shining ‘natural’ perfection. I am bright-eyed and innocent-looking. My face has been touched up so as not to make me look too young, lest Alex be accused of robbing the cradle, even though we are only a few years apart in age.#p#分页标题#e#

Alex is so impossibly handsome that I can’t take my eyes off him. Which is a good thing. He helps me focus on what we are here to do. We have to sell our love to the world and come off not looking like the bad guys.

The interview is conducted in English. Our interviewer is the most famous talk show host in Moldavia, Yvette Dupree. She’s the Oprah of her little corner, and we are about to make her world famous.

We are seated on her couch together. She is placed in her usual armchair facing us. There is no live audience today. A bevy of cameras – more news cameras than I have ever seen in my entire life – decks the entire podium to the front of us. I’m frankly dazzled by all the lights.

My hands are numb. Come to think of it, I can’t feel my legs either. Madame Fournier has made us rehearse what we’re going to say again and again, but there’s always the chance of Yvette Dupree throwing us a curveball. She’s a journalist after all and you can’t curtail the freedom of the press, even in Moldavia.

Even if you are royalty.

Yvette is a stunning blonde. She is not beautiful if you take her individual features apart. Her nose is too narrow. Her eyes too close together. Her lips trend to the voluptuous side. But put together, she is stunning, especially with her huge mane of hair.

“Are you ready?” she says in her low, smoky voice. She is far from deferential, though she is clearly excited. This is her coup and she knows it. Her career is about to go stratospheric.

“Yes,” Alex says.

He clasps my clammy hand.

“You’ll be OK,” he whispers.

It’s like a test I have studied ten times for. I keep telling myself I’ll be OK, and yet, now that I’m here and my examination orals have begun, I am tongue-tied and frozen.

Oh God God help me.

The interview begins. Before us, the news cameras greedily lap up our every word, magnify our every deficiency . . . every pore on our face. Sweat beads upon my brow from the studio lights.

The first few questions are congratulatory about Alex’s ascension to the throne. Yvette mentions the old King’s passing and we are suitably somber. Alex talks about his father in a heartfelt way, dragging up memories of his childhood with his father. He details the anecdote, as rehearsed, about his father playing toy trains with him in the royal playroom. I find myself imagining Alex as a boy and the old King as a far younger man – sitting together on a humungous toy train as it runs round and round a track replete with toy stations and toy passengers.

So we have now established that Alex loved his father. I hate it that everything is so manipulated for the media, but we have no choice. And it’s true – Alex did love his father dearly, even if they didn’t always see eye to eye.

Alex is magnificent in front of the cameras. He’s very natural, as if he’s used to being before them all his life even if this is his first time being officially interviewed.

Yvette swivels to me. My insides turn to jelly.

“So, Liz. May I call you Liz?”

“Yes, please.”

Don’t, don’t throw me a curveball, I psyche her.

“So how did you and Alex meet?”

I take a deep breath. Alex gives an almost imperceptible nod of encouragement.

He claimed and took my body against the wall of a public hotel restroom. The men’s one, to be exact.

Do not be ashamed, I hear Madame Fournier’s voice telling me.

“I was a maid in a hotel in Chicago. Alex and his father were visiting.” Thank goodness my voice isn’t shaking . . . yet. I am looking directly into Yvette’s piercing brown eyes. “I was one of the servers at the state ball thrown that night by Alex’s father. Alex noticed me.”