Queen of Babble Bundle with Bonus Material

by Meg Cabot

  I have a feeling it won’t.

  A bored clerk has just called Tiffany’s and Raoul’s names, and we’re getting ready to crowd into a tiny chapel with them when there’s a commotion in the hallway as a familiar voice shrieks, “Wait! Wait for me!”

  “Oh God,” Shari groans. “Who invited her?”

  I bite my lower lip. “Um…I might have mentioned that Tiffany was getting married downtown today…right about now.”

  “Oh my God, Lizzie,” Tiffany snaps. “Aren’t you ever going to learn to keep your mouth shut?”

  Before I have a chance to answer, however, Ava bursts in, wearing a demure business suit (complete with pillbox hat) and clutching the arm of her husband, Joshua Rubenstein, aka DJ Tippycat, followed, as always, by Little Joey.

  “I’m so sorry I’m late,” Ava says, with all the regality her recently acquired position as president in charge of marketing of Geck Industries has given her. “We got stuck in traffic on the way from the helicopter landing pad.”

  Tiffany glares at her, but Raoul says amiably, “So glad you could make it.”

  Then the clerk calls their name again, and we all file forward for the mercifully brief—but meaningful—ceremony.

  It isn’t until Latrell has uncorked the champagne, and congratulations have been exchanged all around, and we’ve been told to file out again to make room for the next couple, and Raoul’s instructed us to get back into the Town Cars he’s provided to take us back uptown to Tavern on the Green that Chaz snags me by the elbow and pulls me into a corner by a water fountain and a bulletin board listing clerk’s office personnel. There he shows me something he has hidden in an inside pocket of his suit.

  “Do you know what this is?” he asks, a suspiciously bright twinkle in his sapphire eyes.

  I look at the plain white envelope.

  “It’s the deed to my building?” I ask eagerly. “You paid it off with your secret inheritance, and I don’t owe any money on it anymore?”

  Chaz looks disappointed. “No. Is that what you want me to do? I thought you wanted to do it all by yourself, stand on your own two feet, and all of that stuff you said last summer?”

  “Um, yeah,” I say, trying to hide my disappointment. “I do. Totally. So what is it?”

  Chaz opens the envelope and pulls out the folded paper inside. It’s a pamphlet with Office of the City Clerk of the City of New York written on the top. Under it, it says, What You Need to Know to Apply for a Marriage License.

  “Yeah,” Chaz says when I turn my stunned gaze toward him. “I took one. And before you throw up, you can say no. I won’t be mad or offended or anything. I don’t care if we ever get married. It’s not important to me at all. I love you and only you, and I always will. No piece of paper is going to change that. I just know it used to be important to you, and if it still is, well…we can do it. And this might be a way we can do it that won’t cause you to break out in hives, or me to york. We could just fill out the application now, come back tomorrow—there’s a twenty-four-hour waiting period—and do it. We don’t have to tell anyone. I just figured, you know, since we’re here anyway, we could go in there real fast—I wrote my name down on the list when I got here, the application office is downstairs. It’s okay, we’ve got time, we’re like number ninety on the list or something—while everyone else is getting into the Town Cars, and then join them up at Tavern on the Green. And no one will be the wiser. We’ll be exactly the same. Only we’ll be getting married. Tomorrow. Or whenever. They’re good for sixty days. The licenses, I mean.”

  I am still staring at the pamphlet he’s holding.

  “You’re asking me to marry you?” is all I can manage to choke out.

  “If you want to,” Chaz says. “You don’t have to. And I’m not talking about one of those big monstrosity things your clients have, with a chocolate fondue fountain and the chicken dance. I don’t want that. I will never want that, do you understand? My sister had that, and it was—” He shudders. It is clear he is beginning to lose it. I lay a steadying hand on his arm as he goes on, “Your parents will probably want to have that for you, and I am telling you right now…I will run. I will run as far and as fast as I can away from that. I will come back to you at night, when it’s safe. But I’ll hide during the day, where they can’t find me. Even if I have to take to the swamps. I know there aren’t any swamps in Michigan, but…”

  I give him a gentle shake.

  “Chaz,” I say. “It’s all right. I don’t want that either, okay? I like your idea. Doing it this way, just you and me here tomorrow. No one else. Because that’s what getting married is really about, right? Just us. No one else.”

  “No one else,” Chaz says. “Because we’re the only ones who matter. I mean, I guess we can tell people…someday.”

  “Someday,” I agree. “When we feel like it. We can just mention it. Like, by the way…we got married. Although they’ll probably be mad we didn’t invite them.”

  “I don’t care,” Chaz says. “Do you care?”

  “I don’t care,” I say. “We don’t even have to tell them if we don’t want to.”

  “I should probably mention to Luke that we’re going out first,” Chaz says. “To sort of cushion the blow. I can tell him we’re married in a few years. Although he’s juggling approximately four steady girlfriends in Paris right now. I don’t know why he still thinks my seeing you is such a bad idea.”

  “Aw,” I say. I still can’t seem to summon up any animosity toward Luke. I’m still holding on to his engagement ring to give to my own daughter, if I ever have one. Or to my niece Maggie, from whom I’m expecting great things. “That’s so cute.”

  “Cute, my ass,” Chaz says. “Let me see your arm.”

  Obediently I roll up the sleeve to the vintage Lilli Ann pink wool suit that I’m wearing. We both stare at the inside of my elbow.

  “No hives,” Chaz says.

  “That’s a good sign. Do you feel like throwing up?”

  Chaz shakes his head. “No.”

  I’m feeling optimistic about this, and about the number we are on the list. Ninety. That was Gran’s age when she died. They both seem like gifts from above. Like maybe…maybe someone is watching out for us…someone who wants to make sure we aren’t on the highway to hell after all.

  Or that maybe we are, actually. Because maybe that’s a good place to be.

  Chaz and I both look down at the pamphlet in his hand. It is divided into frequently asked questions, which include, Is a premarital physical exam or blood test prior to the ceremony required? (Answer: No) and Can two first cousins legally marry in the state of New York? (Answer: Yes) and Can I use the marriage license in another state? (Answer: No).

  It all seems so…legal.

  “You really want to do this?” Chaz asks.

  “I think so,” I say. “But…you once said I’d make a terrible wife.”

  “I’ve sort of amended my opinion on that,” Chaz says. “I think you’d make sort of a spiffy one now.”

  “Spiffy?” I grin up at him. “Did you really just say that?”

  He grins back. “I think I did.”

  I grin even harder. “Do you promise to cherish and obey me?”

  “I already do,” Chaz points out. “Especially the obey part. In bed, when you get saucy with the whips and chains.”

  “Then,” I say gravely, “Charles Pendergast the Third, I will gladly marry you.”

  “You guys,” Tiffany shrieks from the doorway through which everyone is filing. “Are you coming or what?”

  “We’re coming,” Chaz calls after them. He nudges me. “Hey, I don’t think they heard me. You’ve got the big mouth. Tell them not to wait for us.”

  “Not me,” I say happily. “I think I’ve finally learned how to keep this big mouth shut.”

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to:

  Beth Ader

  Jennifer Brown

  Carrie Feron

  Michelle Jaffe
<
br />   Laura Langlie

  Tessa Woodward

  and especially Benjamin Egnatz

  Insatiable Excerpt #3

  Chapter Three

  6:00 P.M. EET, Tuesday, April 13

  History Department

  University of Bucharest

  Bucharest, Romania

  Professor?”

  Lucien Antonescu smiled up at her from the enormous antique desk behind which he sat, grading papers. “Yes?”

  “So is it true,” Natalia asked, grasping at the first question she could think of, since she’d completely forgotten what she’d meant to ask him the moment his dark-eyed gaze fell upon her, “that the oldest human remains ever found were discovered in Romania?”

  Oh, no! Human remains? How disgusting! How could she ask something so stupid?

  “The oldest human remains found in Europe,” Professor Antonescu said, correcting her gently. “The oldest human remains ever found were discovered in Ethiopia. And they’re roughly a hundred and fifty thousand years older than the remains found in what we consider modern-day Romania, in the Cave with Bones.”

  The girl was only half listening. He was the sexiest of all her instructors, and that included teaching assistants. On the University of Bucharest’s equivalent of Rateyourprof.com, Professor Lucien Antonescu had been given all 10s in the looks category.

  And justifiably so, since he was over six feet tall, lean and broad shouldered, with thick dark hair that he wore brushed back from his temples and a smooth, gorgeous forehead.

  As if all that weren’t enough, he had dark brown eyes that, in certain lights, when he was lecturing and grew excited about his subject matter—which happened frequently, because he was impassioned about Eastern European history—flashed red.

  Surely the posts on the message boards were exaggerated . . . especially the ones hinting that he was related to the Romanian royal family and was a duke or a prince or something.

  But since taking Professor Antonescu’s class, Natalia could see why he—and his course—was so popular. And why the line of girls—and some boys, though when he showed pictures of ancient Romanian art, Professor Antonescu spoke so appreciatively of the lush lines of the female form that there was no possible way he could be gay—at his office hours was so long. He was a gifted orator, with a regal yet very engaging presence. . . .

  And he was so very, very hot.

  “So,” Natalia said hesitantly, taking in the way his perfectly tailored black cashmere blazer molded those shoulders. She wondered why she couldn’t see his eyes—those dark, flashing eyes—better and realized it was because he had the shades to his office windows pulled down. She hoped he’d still notice that she’d worn a new shirt, one that showed off her cleavage to its best advantage. She’d bought it at a steep discount at H&M, but it still made her look irresistible. “It would be correct to say that Romania is the cradle of civilization in Europe.”

  This, Natalia thought, sounded very intelligent.

  “It would be a lovely idea, of course,” Professor Antonescu said, looking thoughtful. “Certainly there have been human beings living here for over two millennia, and this land has been the site of many bloody invasions, from the Romans to the Huns, until finally we had what today makes up modern-day Romania . . . Moldavia and Wallachia, and of course Transylvania. But the cradle of civilization . . . I don’t know that we can say that.” He was even better looking when he smiled, if such a thing were possible.

  “Professor.”

  The smile caused her to come undone. She knew she was not the first. His bachelor status was legendary, the intrigue heightening whenever he was spotted with a woman—never the same one twice—in the posher restaurants downtown. How many had he asked back to his castle—he owned a castle!—outside of Sighişoara, or to his enormous loft apartment in the trendiest district of Bucharest?

  No one knew. Maybe hundreds. Maybe none. He didn’t seem to care to marry and start a family.

  Well, all that would change when he tasted her cooking. Iliana, behind her in line to see him just now, had teased her for saying she was going to invite him over. So old-fashioned! She said Natalia should just offer to sleep with him right there, in his office, like Iliana was going to, and get it over with.

  But Natalia’s mother had always told her she made the best sarmale of anyone in the family. One taste, her mother said, and any man would be hers.

  “Yes?” Professor Antonescu asked, one of those thick dark eyebrows raising.

  Natalia wished he hadn’t done this. It only made him look more attractive and made her feel more foolish for what she was about to do.

  “Would you like to come to my place for a home-cooked meal sometime?” she asked, all in a rush. Her heart was beating wildly. She was sure he could see it thrumming behind her breast, considering how low-cut her new blouse was.

  Something in the dimly lit office made a chirping sound.

  “I beg your pardon,” Professor Antonescu said. He reached into the inside pocket of his expensive coat and produced a slim cell phone . . . top of the line, of course. “I thought I’d turned this off.”

  Natalia stood there, wondering if she ought to say something about the sarmale or perhaps undo another button of her blouse, as Iliana would have done. . .

  . . . but she hesitated when she saw Professor Antonescu’s expression change as his gaze fell on the name on the caller identification.

  “I’m terribly sorry,” he said. “This is an important call. I have to take it. Could we discuss this at another time?”

  Natalia felt her cheeks growing red. It was merely because he was looking at her . . . and yet had never once lowered his gaze below her neck.

  “Of course,” she said shamefacedly.

  “And please tell the others,” Professor Antonescu said as he accepted the call, “that unfortunately I’ll have to end office hours early this evening. A family emergency.”

  Family emergency. He had family?

  “I’ll let them know,” the girl said, pleased. He trusted her! That would put Iliana in her place!

  “Thank you,” Professor Antonescu said politely as she slunk from the dark, lushly decorated room, all in richly appointed leather-trimmed furniture and filled with manuscripts that were many centuries older than she was. Even Professor Antonescu’s office was different from the offices of her other instructors, which were as barren as a politburo’s and just as grim.

  She opened the door, slipped through it, and turned to close it. . . .

  But not before she heard him say, in a voice she had never heard him use before, and in English, “What? When?” Then, “Not again.”

  Natalia turned then to see a look on his face that made her heart turn over in her chest.

  But not in the joyful way it did when she spied him coming down the corridor toward the lecture hall.

  Now she was afraid.

  Deathly afraid.

  Because those beautiful eyes of his had gone vermilion . . . the same color her shower water ran when she accidentally cut her leg while shaving.

  Only this wasn’t a trickle of water. It was a man’s eyes. His eyes.

  And they’d gone the color of blood.

  His gaze was boring into her as if he could see straight through her blouse, past her bra, and into the most intimate places of her heart.

  “Get out,” he said in a voice that she would swear later, when she told her mother about it, didn’t even sound human.

  Natalia turned, threw open the door, and flung herself through it, flying with a face as white as death past the other students waiting to see their professor.

  “Well, that obviously went well,” Iliana said with a sneer.

  But when Iliana tried Professor Antonescu’s office door, she found it locked. She knocked and knocked, finally cupping both hands around her eyes and pressing them to the door’s frosted glass.

  “The lights are out. I don’t see him in there. I think . . . I think he’s gone.”

>   But how could the professor have left a locked a room from which there was no other exit?

  Copyright

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to reprint the lyrics from “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” by WordSong, Inc., and by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, LLC. “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” © 1987 Sony/ATV Songs LLC, R.U. Cyrius Publishing, Knockout Music Company and Donald Jay Music LTD. All rights on behalf of Sony/ATV Songs LLC administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  QUEEN OF BABBLE. Copyright © 2006 by Meg Cabot, LLC. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  ePub edition May 2006 ISBN 9780061750601

  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Cabot, Meg.

  Queen of babble / Meg Cabot.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-06-085198-9 (alk. paper)

  ISBN-10: 0-06-085198-8 (alk. paper)

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.