Read The Star Princess for Free Online

was coming."
    "Yes, I did." Ilana agreed. "But now every detail is embedded in my brain." She dusted salt off her tight, dark-blue jeans, sucking on another Com Nut. "It amazes me. Supposedly sane people calling me to debate the merits of old lace versus new, hot appetizers versus cold"— she counted off the most recent crimes on her fingers— "whether Uncle Frank will mind sitting across from his ex-wife's godchild, and if having yellow tulips in the centerpieces will clash with white wine. And then acting as if every single person in the free world cares!"
    Slavica laughed and put in, "It's called wedding fever, baby. And you'd better watch out." She lifted up her left hand. A ring twinkled in the overhead halogen lighting. "It's contagious."
    Ilana snorted. "I have a natural immunity." Her parents' failed relationship would have turned even Cupid into a cynic on the subject of commitment. That's not the issue, though. Getting to the wedding is."
    "I thought they had a private jet," Slavica said.
    "They have a spaceship." Sweat prickled between her breasts. "A fleet of them."
    Flash regarded her from where he relaxed in a chair on the opposite side of the room. His hair was jet black and his eyes were blue— a killer combination. It was probably why she'd fallen into bed with him their sophomore year at UCLA. It hadn't taken much more in those days to charm the pants off her. She was a little more circumspect now— by her standards, which never seemed to match anyone else's— but one thing she had with Flash Giordano that she didn't with any of her other former flings was a lasting friendship.
    "I thought you went to a class last week," he said. His legs were propped on a sad little ottoman, one foot crossed over the other. He'd been reading a script and only now gave any indication that he'd paid attention to their conversation.
    She cleared her throat. "Class?"
    "Ilana… " His tone conveyed everything; he didn't need to say anything more. Ilana remembered that, growing up, her father had possessed the same knack. When he'd been around.
    "You must mean Fly Without Fear for Dummies."
    Flash regarded her as he flicked a pencil against his stomach. "How'd it go?"
    Ilana let her hair fall over her eyes as she rummaged in the bag for another Corn Nut. "I stayed for the intro." She could fudge facts with the best of them, but lying… well, she had never been very good at it.
    "How long?"
    "Ten, fifteen minutes. Or maybe five."
    Leslie and Slavica gave her the kind of pitying stares that only long-term friends and co-workers could.
    "Okay, I don't know how long I was there," Ilana finally blurted. "It felt like an eternity."
    "So, the 'dummies' stayed and you left."
    "Shut up, Flash." She glared at him as she switched leg positions, dangling the shoe on her other foot. She spilled the remains of the bag of Corn Nuts into her hand. Salt sprinkled everywhere.
    "But… both your parents are pilots." Slavica spread her hands and waited, as if expecting enlightenment.
    "Ladies and gentlemen," Ilana said in a nasal voice, pretending to report a breaking news story. "In a horrible mishap of genetics, the 'flying' gene was found to be missing from every single strand of Ilana Hamilton's DNA."
    Slavica nodded sympathetically. "That's sad."
    "Sad? No. Inconvenient, yes. But I'm working on it." She was the creative twin, she reasoned. Ian had inherited the flying gene and a host of other traits Ilana lacked, such as self-sacrifice and duty, honor, country— all that. At first, Ilana had seen her brother's eagerness to devote his life to the greater good to be as pointless and boring as dating only one guy at a time. But she'd come to respect him for it. As long as he and the rest of her family didn't expect the same from her.
    No, the Vash life was not for Ilana. Those royals overprotected their women, while giving the single men unlimited freedom. The men got live-in courtesans, who weren't prostitutes but members of a glorified,