Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Two

The Vanderburg twins' next public appearance was at the SimsWorld TV launch party.  The girls' agent is in negotiations currently for their reality TV show to go into syndication. 

The twins had a blast at the party, hobnobbing with the Sims world's rich and famous.  Just about everyone who was anyone in the Sims world was there. 

It was also Anastasia's second public outing with her new bridegroom, Lucian.  Rumors of her pregnancy abounded as she showed up in a long, flowing ivory sheath. 

Chapter One Hundred Twenty

A weary Queen Catarina called for reinforcements. She summoned Crown Prince Sebastian to the palace.
"What's the matter now, mother? Another manufactured crisis?"
"Oh no," the Queen told him, "this one is not manufactured. It's all over the papers." She handed him the stack of magazines and newspapers and printouts of online articles.
The Prince laughed. That a sister of his was in the news for scandalous behavior was not news to him. Twenty years earlier, when Princess Francisca disappeared, the papers covered the story for three months straight.
Prince Sebastian's ex-playboy instincts kicked in. "So Alex banged a chick and the girl went to the press to brag about it. Big deal."
"Big deal?" shouted Queen Catarina. "Do you know how embarrassing this is?"



"Yes, embarrassing to you. Just like you were embarrassed when Francisca left."
"This is not about Francisca."
"Ah, but it is. The fact is, just like when Francisca left, this situation is making you look like you've lost control. And you have."



"Sebastian, your sisters -- I don't know what to say about them. They lie, they manipulate, they keep all kinds of secrets --"
"They learned from the best, mother. They learned from the best."
"Please, Sebastian. Talk to them. I can't get through to them. And you know their father, he worships the ground they walk on, so he won't discipline them even in ghost form. He never disciplined them when he was alive."
"Mother, respectfully, that ship has sailed. They're not children anymore."
Queen Catarina sighed with resignation. "I suppose you're right. I suppose the only hope I have is for them to grow up and mature like you did. Even if I'm not around when they do."



Tired of dealing with headline after headline, the palace hired Veronica Schofield, a leading crisis manager and public relations expert, to deal with the fallout from Alexandra's sexcapades. The longterm monarch broke down as she detailed event after event for Schofield. "I don't know where I went wrong with them," she confessed in reference to her twin daughters. "They're outrageous. Completely out of control. One of them, she's a skirt-chasing lesbian, and the other won't even talk to me."
"With Alexandra, how many girls do you think are there?"
"I can't really tell with her, honestly. She keeps so many secrets. Her and her sister both. They lie about everything. I don't know when they're telling the truth, half the time. I know of two for sure, the one at Anastasia's bachelorette party and this young lady from the article. The girl from the article even claims to have a video of them, you know, doing it. Neither she nor her sister have told me the name of the first girl. Anastasia won't even get me access to the guest list. I understand she's protecting her sister, but this is ridiculous. My contacts at the university have told me of a third girl, but that hasn't been confirmed and she hasn't come forward yet. And there was a young man at her father's funeral, but Alexandra won't name him either. We're not experienced with the twenty-four hour media cycle."
Reading through the headlines, Veronica said, "We need to get out in front of this, now. It's about damage control at this point. We need to know just how many other girls are out there, so we can keep them quiet."
"What are we going to do?"
"Well, I'm going to contact the young woman from the article. She's the one who says she has a video, right?"
Queen Catarina shrugged. "I guess."
"We have to get a judge to get some kind of order to stop her from releasing this stuff. Or at least pay her off."
"How much money are we talking about here?"
"Honestly, depends on her. The ball's pretty much in her court. All we have to do is respond. But we do have to get out in front of this. Alexandra has made a start with her statement that she hasn't had contact with her since leaving school. "





The next morning, Alexandra was in court trying to get an injunction against her ex-lover Tiffany Rich. She confidently strode up the steps of the Hidden Springs City Hall, almost certain that she would succeed in getting Ms. Rich not to release any more damaging media. Her new husband, Patrick, stepped right behind her, as well as Ms. Schofield, her agent, and her attorney.



While Alexandra was in court, Anastasia and her husband, Lucian, were enjoying a Simfest at a local coffeehouse. The pair were noted patrons of the arts in Hidden Springs, financing performers and sponsoring talent competitions such as this one. When one of the performers accidentally burned his hand, Anastasia herself poured cold water on it and herself tended to it while the next performer was going on stage.

Chapter Ninety-Six

About those pictures...Fort Starch Military Academy was the site of one of the most anticipated political speeches in recent memory. Adding to the anticipation was the scandal that ensued involving the leakage of photos featuring the keynote speaker dancing at her twin sister's bachelorette party with her arms wrapped around an unidentified woman. There were even more paparazzo and reporters around than usually follows political speeches.
For that reason, the timing of the photos' release could not have been worse.
In the days leading up to the speech, all anyone wanted to talk about was not the subject matter of the speech, but the pictures. The palace press corps did their royal best to try to quash the uproar caused by the photos, and they were helped by Anastasia's staunch refusal to release her bachelorette party guest list to the queen. "Her Majesty doesn't have to know who's at my parties! Unbelievable!" was her sharply worded denial of Queen Catarina's request.



However, no one had a bigger stake in the photos than Patrick, Alexandra's best friend of forever and current companion. And he had been conspicuously silent on the pictures -- until now.
"Who's that?" asked Patrick after the first wedding rehearsals.
"Who's what?"
"The woman in the pictures."
"I told you, that was Ana's friend, Valana. We shared a dance. I don't know why people are losing their heads over this."
"Because you're a princess and you're dancing with a woman. That's why."



"Well, they need to get a grip," Alexandra summed. "We only shared one slow dance, off of one song. We were making rounds, you remember that. They act like we're dating or something."
"You do like girls, don't you, Alex?"
"I thought I told you that, Patrick. I like guys and I like girls. I'm bisexual. I'm starting to feel comfortable with that now. There was a time not very long ago when that wasn't the case."



"Yeah, when you turned me into a boy." Patrick took a deep breath. "Alex, you're more romantically attracted to women than you are to men. Admit it. Those pictures confirm it. Those pictures don't lie."



As he spoke, he seemed to be on the verge of tears. "Alex, the way you looked into that woman's eyes as you danced, I've never seen you look like that before. At anyone. Not even me. Tell me, Alex, honestly. How do you feel about me? Do you love me?"
"Come on, Patrick, that's ridiculous, of course I love you."
"Like a brother, like a friend, or like someone you'd want to marry and spend the rest of your life with?"
"Oh, please, not this question again."
"It needs to be asked."
"Why? Patrick, we've been through the battles together. All the stuff with my mother, the kids at school, I mean, how could I have survived without you? We ran away on all those trips to the woods when you were still a stuffed doll..." Her voice trailed off. "When my father died, you were the only person I had to lean on."
"Alex, think about it. Ana and Lucian's wedding is just days from now. They're about to get married and move on with their lives."
"And I'm thrilled for them. Really, I am. But their situation is not ours. Ours is more complicated."
"Really? How so? They were only reunited fairly recently. And yet they're headed to the altar before we are. Tell me, what makes our situation so much different from theirs? Is it that you're having cold feet?"
"No, it's not that, it's just -- I'm just not ready. Marriage is a major step, a big commitment."



"Not that much different than what we are now, Alex, if you ask me. You committed yourself to basic training and flight school. You committed yourself to grueling college courses. So why, why can't you commit yourself to me? Come on, change me back to a girl if that's what you want and let's do this."

Chapter Ninety-Five

The Redwood Heights Luxury Lodge was a Hidden Springs landmark. It had been there, well, since Hidden Springs became a top destination for celebrities and the rich to kick back and relax. But lately the town had been losing ground to newer tourist locales such as Sunlit Tides, Monte Vista, Aurora Skies, and, lately, the new kid on the block, Isla Paradiso, which, ironically, was the rumored location of Princess Anastasia's honeymoon.

The city planning committee wanted to do something about that. They wanted to hire an architect to update and remodel the Lodge, to make it more attractive to tourists and locals alike. Who better to hire, then, than a native of Hidden Springs, with a deep understanding of its history and culture?



Princess Anastasia and her fiancé, Lucian, set foot inside the Lodge for the first time since being appointed to remodel it, and decided that indeed, a lot of work needed to be done to it to bring it up to date. Not impossible, she thought, but this place needs more work than I realized.



The views from one of the bedroom windows are spectacular.



Meanwhile, the palace press corps continued to try to lessen the fallout from leaked pictures of Alexandra dancing with a woman at Anastasia's bachelorette party.



The next morning, even Prince Renauld asked Anastasia about them. "Do you know the young lady in the photographs?" he asked her.



Anastasia's first and last instinct was to protect her sister -- at all costs. "No -- I -- I don't know who she is."



"Your mother is very upset about these pictures. She didn't sleep all night."
Anastasia laughed. "Well, she's the one with the problem. Besides, this is entirely ridiculous. I don't see why such a big deal is being made about pictures of someone dancing."

Chapter Ninety-Four

When the Vanderburg twins throw a party, it's an event, and it usually lands on the pages of the gossip magazines.



Anastasia's bachelorette bash was no exception.

Held at the twins' new estate in the Hidden Springs mountains, far away from the palace, the party had a guest list that read as a who's who in young Hidden Springs society, and even included a few of the princess' college friends.



Including one Samantha Grey, the rumored romantic interest of one Andrew Cheesman, Jr.



And designer Tyler Wentworth, rumored to be designing Princess Anastasia's wedding gown.



The first item everyone seemed to be buzzing about was Alexandra's new haircut. The soon-to-be maid of honor showed up with her blondish hair cropped very short, and wearing a slender black dress with a low-cut back.



After Alexandra's well-rehearsed toast to Anastasia and Lucian, the festivities really began.



First, the cake dancers entertained the guests with raucous numbers.





Then, after the dancers left, the guests entertained themselves with music and revelry.





Led by the bride- and groom-to-be themselves, the partying lasted well into the night.

Chapter Ninety-Three

Deep down, Anastasia was afraid. Frightened out of her wits.
She dare not confide her fears to the two closest people in her life, her fiancé and her sister.
With a week to go before her big day, she was afraid of everything going wrong. But even more so, she was afraid of being precisely the kind of mother her own mother had been to her.
Cold, distant, hypercritical. Too busy with matters of state to bother with her own children.
When Anastasia wrote letter after letter begging to come home from Smuggsworth after being mercilessly bullied, the silence was deafening. She received no response. She was forced to continue with her studies there, even though she hated it.
And, as she watched the snow continue to fall and the drifts pile high outside her window, she began to wonder if all she was doing was all worth it.
Was she getting cold feet? Was she even sure this was what she wanted?



As she picked up her new Persian, Duchess, a pre-wedding gift from Lucian, and stroked her, it was clear that she'd have to hold her nerve just a little while longer.



In the midst of her reverie the phone rang. It was the city planner's office.
Anastasia had had her run ins with the city planner, who like all the other government officials in Hidden Springs had been hand picked by her mother. "Hello?" she asked.
The city planner on the other end of the line waited patiently. "As you well know, Your Highness, tourism is the life blood of this town's economy, and the recent snowstorms have put quite a damper on that. We're hoping to revitalize the industry, and we've decided that a facelift on the old Redwood Heights Lodge would be just the thing to start with."
"What are you saying?"
"We've heard of your architectural abilities, Highness, and we'd like you to handle the job."
"Me?" she asked, with a mixture of glee and disbelief.
Gulp.
"If we can put a facelift on the lodge, we can bring the tourists back."
If Anastasia accepted the new job, would she have to postpone her wedding? And what would she tell Lucian? How would she even approach him?

Chapter Ninety-Two

When Alexandra arrived at the palace after work, her cell phone rang. She looked at her caller ID and was surprised. "AJ! I thought you disappeared off the face of the earth!" she laughed. "Maybe got abducted by aliens."
"Been busy."
Alexandra sighed. "Same here, actually. You know my sister's getting married in two weeks --"
"Who hasn't heard about that one?" He chuckled. "Been all over the news."
"Are you coming to the wedding?"
"Me? At a royal wedding?" AJ burst out laughing.
"Yes, you, at a royal wedding. Why not you at a royal wedding? I sent the invite, I surely hope you got it by now."
"Well, Samantha has to go cause she's one of the bridesmaids, but I told her --"
"Then you gotta come."
"I don't have to do anything but watch the whole darn thing unfold from my living room." AJ laughed again. "Best seat in the world. No screaming throngs, no traffic jams. Besides, weddings aren't my thing anyway. Particularly royal weddings."
"But funerals surely are," teased Alexandra.
"Hey -- I didn't know your dad's funeral was going on that night. I just, you know, happened to be in the area and I thought I'd stop by, I took a wrong turn --"
"Nope, it was the right turn," Alexandra grinned surreptitiously. "Listen, remember I told you that my mom made that ultimatum that my sister and I had to get married in 10 days or lose our inheritance?"
"Yeah, that was insane."
"I didn't get a chance to tell you what happened next. So, my sister and I, we came up with a plan to get mom off our back about marriage. We used this top secret formula, called imaginary friend metamorphium, this compound, which turned our imaginary friend dolls that we had since we were kids into real Sims."
"No way, that's impossible. Those things are plush, they can't be made real. My little sister and brother each have one of those."
"With this compound they can be made real. But there's a catch. In order for it to work you have to have built an excellent relationship with it."
"No way, not even." AJ whispered, "So, did it work?"
"Well, there's a wedding in two weeks -- you be the judge." Alexandra let out another chuckle.
"Does your mom know?"
"Of course not. We haven't told her. And I don't want you telling anyone else either."
"Hey, I'm pretty good with secrets."
Alexandra changed the subject. "I have a speech next week at Fort Starch."
"You -- speaking there?"
"Yeah, wild, huh? My brother asked me to address the cadet classes."
"Now that, I'd pay the price of admission to see."
Alexandra sighed. "It's going to be like every other address ever given at Fort Starch -- dry and dull."
"It doesn't have to be. Not with you giving it."
"I'm going to be halfway asleep at the podium, I'm serious. It's one of those state of the union type speeches. Ugh."
"Well, Alex, one thing you can do is, try to talk about something that catches your interest, that might also catch the ear of the cadets, too. Oh, and picture all the cadets in their underwear. That might loosen you up a bit."
Alexandra let loose a hearty, guttural laugh. AJ was good for that. "Oh my gosh, do you want me cracking up on the podium, too?"