“You, my dear, have caused quitethe ruckus,” she says, her bright red pantsuit crumpled and her thick-rimmed hot pink glasses askew.
“How do they even know where I live?”
She finds a hallway mirror and straightens herself out. “Because everyone knows who you really are now, my dear girl,” Judith responds before she turns to me and says, “It would have been nice to have been clued in.”
“About that.” I begin when Nona’s voice calls from the kitchen.
“Val? Who is it?”
“It’s Judith Giovanni, my boss,” I call back.
She nods in the direction of the kitchen. “Come on then. Let’s meet your grandmother, shall we,Valentina Romano?”
She marches down the hallway, one hand held in the air. “Come! You can tell me all about it.”
Judith Giovanni is not someone to argue with, and even though I’m certain she’s here to fire me—or worse—I do as she says, reaching the kitchen, where I introduce her to Nona.
“I can see where your granddaughter gets her fine features,” Judith says, making Nona smile. “Now, do you have anything stronger than tea? That mob out there was intense.”
A handful of minutes later, we’re in the living room, a decanter of whiskey on the coffee table, from which Judith has already had her first glass and is onto her second. I stand at the window and pull back the lace curtains to see a mess of people outside, with television vans and journalists and photographers as well as members of the public, all hoping to catch a glimpse of me, the woman who duped a prince.
“You look like a Valentina,” Judith says as she eyes mefrom across the room. “You're not a natural blonde, are you?”
“No, I’m not,” I take a seat opposite her. “It's part of my disguise. I don't actually need glasses either.”
“As far as disguises go, it's not exactly high-tech, is it?” she replies before she takes another sip of her drink. “Jolly good whiskey.”
“It's about a hundred years old,” I reply. “And as for my disguise, the last time anyone knew I was Vittorio Romano’s daughter, I was twelve.”
“And you've changed a lot since then,” Judith finishes for me.
“She was a cute twelve-year-old who blossomed into a beauty,” Nona says with pride in her voice.
“Well, you're certainly in a pickle now. Lying to us all about who you really are, and getting caught kissing a prince no less.”
I cast my eyes down, my heart throbbing. “You're here to fire me.”
“Fire you? Are you quite mad? You're the hottest thing in the country right now. You've seen it yourself outside. Everyone wants a piece of you.”
I look back up at her in surprise. “But I lied to you about who I am.”
With a flick of her wrist, her gold bangles jangle. “Semantics, my dear girl. Yes, I would have preferred to have been given a heads-up, particularly when it all blew up. But you did what you had to do to survive. I admire that. It shows tenacity and determination.”
“See, Val? Not everyone is against you,” Nona says.
Just the royal family and about thirty reporters currently taking up residence outside.
Never one to mince her words, Judith replies, “There are a lot who are against you, however, but that's whatmakes this the story of the year. Not since Princess Amelia and Ethan Roberts were duped into a reality television program has the nation been so enraptured. And we learned about it all only today! Imagine what the next weeks will bring.”
I groan.Imagine.
“I'm not sure I want to be a story, let alone the biggest story since the Princess Amelia reality TV palaver,” I say.
“You don’t have a choice in the matter.” Judith places her glass back on the coffee table and leans her elbows on her knees. “First things first. What happened between you and the prince? Was it just a kiss? Or was it something more?”
I flick my gaze to Nona. She gives a brief head nod. “Not just a kiss,” I say.
Judith's face lights up. “Marvellous! Would you be willing to write about it for the paper?”
