Page 43 of The Royally Broke Billionaire
The queen nodded and bugged her eyes out in Piper’s direction. Perfectly in-tune with her monarch’s needs, Piper rushed forward and smoothly offered to usher the grandparents-to-be to their seats.
Piper admired the queen even more with each new tidbit she learned about her. The fact that the woman had grown up to be so gracious, despite her harsh, judgmental mother spoke volumes.
Tess was practically perfect, with the notable exceptions of the unladylike way she rubbed her nose in a circular fashion as if she was trying to spin it off her face and the thick, unflattering glasses she donned when her eyes were tired at the end of a long day. Smiling to herself, Piper realized that these quirks only made the woman that much more lovable.
Once Piper made sure that Tess’s brothers and their wives were seated in their places of honor, right up front in the courtyard, she nodded to the royal courier that they were ready to begin the proceedings.
Mo clapped her hands lightly together with anticipation. She had been the one who wanted to find out the genders of their babies in advance of the births. The queen indicated a preference for being surprised when her child was born, but her best friend had insisted that they do this together. Eventually, Mo’s whining and pleading had worn down the queen’s objections.
Unable to contain her excitement, Mo rushed forward to greet the courier at the steps that led up to the raised stage. Already several inches taller than the jumpy man, Mo towered over him from her perch on the steps.
“I’ll take them!” She squealed, stooping down to grab the large, silver balloons’ curly ribbons from the startled courier.
Once she had them in her greedy grasp, she scurried back to the center of the stage. Silence reigned and anticipation soared as numerous cameras live-streamed this moment over the internet to viewers across the globe.
Standing in front of the queen, Mo looked up at the balloons to see which one she should give her. She turned and twirled them to look at each side, before holding them out away from her to inspect the ribbons. Evidently, coming up short on answers, she whirled around to face the nervous courier before demanding, “Which balloon is the queen’s?”
Piper could tell by the man’s pale, worried expression that something was amiss before he even answered Mo.
His stammered answer confirmed she was correct to be concerned. “Umm… The k-k-king and queen’s balloon was in my right hand, and yours w-was in my l-l-left, Your Highness.”
Mo stared blankly at him, with her mouth agape, as if she couldn’t quite believe her ears. She blinked several times. “But… I twisted and turned them around. Aren’t they marked in some way?”
“I’m afraid not,” the man cringed as if he expected Mo to order him to the guillotine over the fiasco.
Ever the voice of reason, the queen said, “Perhaps the contents of the balloons are either both pink or both blue. Then it won’t matter which one we get.”
That rationale seemed to make sense to Mo because she slowly nodded her head.
Just then, a big gust of wind swept in from the sea, and the balloons’ ribbons slipped from Mo’s grasp. Her husband valiantly tried to jump and catch them, but they sailed up and away too quickly.
The queen lifted her hand to her forehead as if she suddenly had a terrible headache. The rest of the crowd watched in mesmerized horror as their big reveals flew away.
Piper’s mind scrambled for a solution. She could have someone contact the store that had made the balloons to get replacements, but that would take too long. Millions of people were watching this fiasco unfold on their computer and phone screens. The last thing she wanted was for her royals to look like fools.
Turning to bark an order at the royal guard, Piper yelled, “Shoot those balloons.”
As six uniformed men lifted their rifles and aimed, she mouthed the words, “Please be the same color.”
Shots rang out and an explosive blast of pink and blue confetti rained down on the courtyard.
Just when Piper was thinking that this public gender reveal couldn’t possibly go any worse, the queen stepped forward and regally made an announcement. “There you have it… One of us is having a girl, and the other is having a boy. I think we should take this as a sign that we are meant to wait until the first baby is born to see which gender belongs with which couple of the royal family.”
Mo appeared to be on the verge of pitching a fit, but when the crowd, including the members of the press, erupted into excited cheers, her face morphed into a wide smile as she nodded her agreement to be patient.
After having nearly everything that could possibly go wrong happen while the world was watching, the tides shifted and the remainder of the weekend went smoothly. The air inside the palace practically crackled with love, laughter, and unadulterated happiness.
The mothers-to-be both squealed with delight over the handmade christening gowns Piper had toiled over as their shower gifts. They pulled her into a marvelous group hug as all three sets of eyes welled with tears. Piper was thrilled that they appreciated her gifts that she had sewn with love as the inspiration for each stitch.
It was a touching, warm moment until King Sebastian’s father asked his wife a little too loudly, “Does she expect my male grandchild to wear a dress?”
“It’s a christening gown,” his wife hissed at him as she lightly smacked at him with the back of her hand.
“Hmph. Looks like a dress to me,” he grouched.
Looking around the room, Piper realized that between the outspoken older man, Mo, and the soon-to-be-born royal babies, this palace would never be dull.
Trey and Ellie Donovan chose that moment to wheel in the cart holding the massive cake they had baked for the baby shower. Piper could tell, by the proud way he presented it to his sister and her best friend, that Trey had done the imperfect, slanted lettering himself. It read, ‘It’s a boy! And a girl!’
