Who Made You a Princess? Read Online Free PDF Page A

Santa Barbara this morning. He’s not news down there.”
    “So much for keeping a low profile,” Gillian commented. “Not like Mac.” None of us knew then that the British Embassy had
     had someone keeping an eye on her while she was here. Not that it had done any good when that nutjob David Nelson had kidnapped
     her.
    “Yeah, his bodyguards are right up front,” I mused, savoring my pizza. “But I guess if you call a press conference and tell
     everyone you’re here, you’re not very interested in a low profile, are you? It’s just more props for the school. I bet Curzon’s
     ecstatic.”
    Like most of the people in the room, I kept half an eye on the prince while I finished my pizza and made a trip to the dessert
     bar afterward to bag a
crème brulée
. Too bad he had his back to the room. All I could see was dark hair, perfectly cut, and a bit of tanned neck. I wanted to
     see how he’d turned out now that he was all grown up. I wanted to see if he’d recognize me. Then I shook my head at my bad
     self.
    Never mind scoping out the prince, you hound. You left your heart in Santa Barbara, remember?
    “Guess we won’t be hangin’ with the prince, will we?” I asked Lissa in a low voice when I came back to the table. Gillian
     and Jeremy were still at the dessert bar. There was no way he’d remember me, or that I’d tell anyone we’d once played together.
     And if he didn’t, that was cool, too. It wasn’t like his life had anything to do with mine now. One more thing to let slide
     away on good-bye.
    “Why would we want to?” she asked. “That’s Vanessa’s department. Ten to one, if she were here, she’d be all over him. I bet
     she’d even invite him to sit at the sacred table.”
    “He might be nice.”
    “I’m sure he is. But you can’t find out unless you go over and talk to him. You’re welcome to go first.”
    I snorted into my soda. “Yeah, right. ‘So, Your Highness, what’s shakin’? Wanna hang?’”
    She snickered. “Go on. I dare you.”
    “I’d have to get past the bodyguards first. Fill out an application for an audience. Wait six weeks for it to be approved.
     Get the invitation—engraved, of course. Make an appointment. And by that time, the term will be over and he’ll be flying off
     home in his private Concorde before I even got to say a word.”
    Lissa hid behind her soda, trying not to laugh out loud.
    “What are you two giggling about?” Gillian whispered as she came back with her dessert.
    “Nothing,” I managed, glancing over at the prince’s table again. One of his bodyguards got up. “Ooh. Hey,” I whispered. “Clear
     the area. His Highness is getting dessert.”
    Lissa lost it and leaned on one arm as she pushed me with the other hand.
    The bodyguard walked slowly across the dining room, his impassive face scanning this way and that. He moved with an eerie
     smoothness, like a droid with well-greased ball bearings for joints. One hand rested at his hip, where I’d bet my bank account
     he had, if not a pistol of some kind, then at least a stun gun. The other hand tapped the side of his head briefly, where
     a curly wire like a fine phone cord ran up out of his jacket and into a transmitter in his ear.
    So
Secret Service.
    All this fuss to get the guy his dessert? Did they reconnoiter the stalls when they took him to the bathroom, too? I shook
     my head and drained the last of my soda. When I put the can down, I jumped about four feet.
    Secret Service Guy stood right behind me. “Miss Hanna?”
    I stared at him so long that Lissa finally had to nudge me with her elbow. “Huh? Are you talking to me?”
    “You are Miss Shani Hanna?”
    “Uh, yeah.”
What’s it to you?
I bit back the words. It’s not very smart to say stuff like that to people carrying unidentified weapons.
    “Would you please come with me?” His accent was a combination of British and the accent I’d heard on news reports where the
     Middle East reps to the U.N. are