Order (A Romantic Suspense Royal Billionaire Novel)

by Blair Babylon

  No wonder his “slips” were rare, and why evading palace security was one of his most highly developed skills.

  The Jumla district of Nepal was so remote and Max was so confident he must not be under surveillance that he remained lost in thought as he approached the counter to check out of the little inn, and he missed the three men standing, motionless, near the door.

  He shouldn’t have overlooked them.

  Their gray-blue military fatigues weren’t the flashy hiker apparel of foreigners traipsing about the Nepali countryside in late December, and the odd bulges under their uniforms indicated they were armed.

  A man near Max’s shoulder said, “Prince Maxence, Your Highness, we’re here to escort you to Monaco.”

  That voice was familiar, and Max’s skin rippled under his tee-shirt and jeans from the impact of the man’s voice.

  Max didn’t allow his body to jump, but he tensed.

  He turned his head and looked down into the gray, nearly colorless eyes of Quentin Sault, the director of Monaco’s security services who answered to Maxence’s older brother, Prince Pierre, even though their uncle was the titular sovereign.

  Two commandos wearing winter fatigues guarded the doorway.

  This was it, then.

  Max wasn’t sure why or why then, but they had come for him.

  Sault was thoroughly Pierre’s creature. Pierre must have decided to execute Maxence, and he’d ordered Quentin Sault to do it because Sault followed Pierre’s orders, all his orders, even the most vile.

  That was why Sault and his soldiers were in Nepal. Pierre must have given Sault that final order.

  There was no other possible explanation.

  Sault stood at Max’s side.

  The other two commandos guarded the inn’s front door, which was the only escape from the room other than a frantic sprint up the stairs and a probably futile attempt to leap through the glass of one of the second-story windows.

  But if Max made it upstairs without being shot, which room would he choose to lead the assassins through? Because surely, these men would not leave witnesses alive.

  Would the sacrifice be a father of five young children and his childhood friend from boarding school, or Dree?

  It wouldn’t be Dree.

  But those were both unacceptable options, so Max wouldn’t run.

  That left the option of fighting his way out.

  A fight would pit three highly trained, probably heavily armed, military men against one moderately trained unarmed man who did not practice his self-defense skills.

  Thus, there was no way out.

  The air evacuated the lobby of the inn.

  Max pressed his palms on the cracked linoleum of the inn’s check-in counter and tried not to show he was drowning in emptiness.

  If Pierre had indeed finally ordered Max’s execution, his only choice was how he behaved in these final minutes of his life.

  Though perhaps, he could talk his way out of it.

  Maxence turned back and stared, unblinking, at the wall. Neon blue afterimages of the idols and pictures of Hindu gods tacked up there appeared and floated over the white paint, and he watched them drift to the left.

  The bright blue streaks began to spin in Max’s vision, and his statement was an eruption of everything in his mind. “I abdicate. Right now, I renounce my place in the line of succession. I renounce all my titles and property. I renounce my goddamn citizenship.”

  Quentin said, “No. No, Prince Maxence, Your Highness. You can’t.”

  “Oh yes, I can. Attorneys have advised me on how to do this. If I give up everything—my titles, my property, and my citizenship—you have no hold on me nor jurisdiction over me. So, I renounce.”

  “Your Highness, you cannot,” Quentin said.

  Max’s voice rose. “No. I renounce. I renounce it all.”

  “You would renounce your birthright so you can be a priest?

  “To be a Jesuit. I will be a Jesuit, not a parish priest. And yes. I want nothing more in life than to be a member of the Jesuit order.”

  Quentin Sault’s voice became a bit dry. “If I may be so bold, sir, you are not cut out to be a priest, Your Most Serene Highness.”

  Max would not relent. If he renounced, he might survive. And if he did convince Sault and his men not to murder him, the assassins would not look any farther in the inn to eliminate witnesses to their assassination. He said, “St. Augustine struggled with worldly temptations, as do I. It’s not unusual. He wrote, ‘Lord, grant me chastity and sobriety, but not yet.’”

  Sault said, “I won’t take your abdication back to the Crown Council.”

  Maxence whipped his head around and stared at Quentin Sault. Violence rose in his chest. “You can’t refuse to accept it. You’re a military officer and the director of the intelligence service. You have no authority in the government. You aren’t in the line of succession or even the royal family. You can’t refuse my abdication. Legally, no one can, but that won’t stop them.”

  Quentin told him, “Your Serene Highness, my prince, you need to go back to Monaco to stand for the Crown Council’s election of the next sovereign prince.”

  “You can’t refuse to take my abdication back. I’ll turn on my phone and call Pierre to abdicate. He might accept my renunciation, and maybe he’ll countermand your order to kill me.”

  Sault’s gray eyes flared open. “What are you talking about?”

  “My brother, Prince Pierre, will accept my renunciation now that my uncle has died. Uncle Rainier has died, right? Dear God, please tell me his suffering is over. The doctors said his stroke was neither survivable nor recoverable. He should never have been intubated or had that feeding tube placed. It was cruel. Pierre insisted on doing it so he would have time to consolidate his position with the council.”

  Quentin Sault said, “That was a month ago. No one notified you when your uncle passed, either?”

  Either?

  No one notified him when his uncle had passed, either?

  That was an odd choice of words.

  The commandos by the exit hovered their hands near the oddly square bulges in the side pockets on their pants.

  Maxence barreled on, determined to convince Quentin Sault that there was no reason to execute him. “Besides, Princess Flicka has returned to the palace. I saw that before I turned my phone off. Pierre has had more than enough time to dispel any stray rumors about divorce and ensure he has enough votes when the Crown Council finally meets. I’m surprised he hasn’t called for the vote already. Pierre can do it without me. I’ve told everyone I’ve left that life behind and plan to take Holy Orders as soon as Pierre allows it. I will do it tomorrow if Pierre informs His Holiness. I will not stand in the way of Pierre taking the throne. You don’t have to do this.”

  Sault asked, “Did you say you turned your phone off?”

  “Of course, I did,” Maxence said. “There’s no mobile phone reception out in the Himalayas. My phone has been shut off for a month.”

  “For a month?” Quentin asked, his voice breathless. “My God. You haven’t heard. I thought you must have seen it on the news and decided not to come back, or thought it too dangerous, or had been threatened. That’s why we’re here to escort you home safely.”

  At that, Maxence turned and examined the ashen tones under Sault’s complexion. His voice was low, and his words came out clipped with anger. “What happened?”

  Sault shook his head like he was shaking off a shock. “Prince Maxence, Your Most Serene Highness, my prince, I regret to inform you that your brother, Prince Pierre Grimaldi, shot himself a week ago.”

  Maxence frowned at Quentin, utterly dismayed at why he had come all that way to tell Max this. “Is he all right?”

  Quentin blinked, an exaggerated flapping of his eyelids. “I’m sorry, Your Highness. His Serene Highness, Prince Pierre Grimaldi, has died.”

  Impossible.

  Rage flew up. “You were supposed to guard him. You were supposed to ta
ke care of him.”

  “I am aware of that,” Sault said.

  “What the hell happened?”

  Quentin Sault drew himself up ramrod-straight, and the troubled creases around his eyes could have been sorrow or shame. “Pierre’s wife, Princess Flicka von Hannover, fled with her bodyguard and announced to the world that she had divorced Pierre. They confronted each other at Castle Marienburg in Germany in, what I must admit, was a masterclass of strategy on her side. Someone has been reading Clausewitz. When it became clear there was no path by which she could be returned to the Prince’s Palace, by either persuasion or force, Pierre placed my gun under his chin and committed suicide.”

  The bleak vacuum of the room sucked the breath from Max’s lungs.

  He swiveled back and leaned on the counter, resting on his elbows, and tried to breathe.

  His chest moved.

  His lungs expanded.

  But he did not seem to be able to gasp air.

  Finally, Max choked out, “Suicide?”

  “I’m afraid so, Your Serene Highness. I am prepared to tender my resignation after you arrive back at the palace, but I felt it should be my final duty to see you back home to your rightful place in the line of succession.”

  Maxence had always ruminated on new information at length, which was one of the reasons Father Moses had recruited him to be a Jesuit instead of a Franciscan as he’d initially planned.

  Max tried to draw in the thought that his brother no longer lived. His grief was formidable, and it weighed on the crown of his head and his shoulders and constricted around his chest.

  Pierre was one of the few people in the world who knew Max had spent months held hostage on that tanker ship, and they shared blood and genes and parents, who were also gone.

  Another great sucking hole had been ripped in the atmosphere.

  Max had always thought Pierre might eventually order his execution, but now he couldn’t.

  And Pierre would not betray any more of their friends nor threaten or abuse Flicka ever again.

  Horror washed over Maxence that the world might be a better place without his brother in it, but he grieved at the loss.

  The path of his future, once constrained like a dark tunnel, was now a boundless, terrifying void, but it seemed to snap shut when he tried to peer into it.

  His soul could not settle on an emotion and thus they all assaulted him, but a flash of blond curls by the stairs caught his eye.

  He looked over.

  Dree was standing in the door to the stairway, her backpack lying on the floor at her feet.

  The two commandos by the door whipped guns out of their clothes and pointed them at her.

  Maxence covered the few feet of floor before his thoughts caught up. He spread himself across Dree, shielding her and looking back at the two commandos. “Put the guns away. Sault, tell them to put them away.”

  Quentin Sault raised one fist in the air like he was signaling someone to halt.

  The two commandos lowered their weapons, but they kept them at the ready.

  Sault asked, “Who’s this?”

  From behind him, Dree asked, “Maxence, what’s going on? Did you renounce your vows as a deacon in the Church?”

  Oh, those.

  Those holy vows further complicated the situation.

  Maxence told her, “These men aren’t from the Vatican.”

  “You renounced something, but I don’t understand what’s going on. Did someone commit suicide?”

  He turned and looked down at Dree and thought he might fall into the blue of her guileless eyes. “I would say that I haven’t told you some things about myself, but I think I’ve told you everything. I told you they were stories I’d made up.”

  She raised one of her blond eyebrows. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Monagasquay.”

  Dree shifted her weight onto one leg, bracing her fist on her jutting hip, and gazed up at him with a knowing, ridiculously cute grin. She said, “Monagasquay isn’t a real country.”

  She was so adorable that he wanted to bite her. Just a nibble.

  “It’s Monaco,” Max admitted. “Everything I told you is true, except the country’s name is Monaco. It’s a small principality on the Mediterranean Sea that cuts a small chunk out of southern France.”

  She squinted at him, dubious. “I thought Monaco was in Africa, not France. Isn’t that where Casablanca takes place?”

  “That’s Morocco. Morocco is in North Africa, on the southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Monaco is in Europe, and it’s a tiny city-state chipped out of the coast of France, north of Italy. Monaco is where James Bond films take place, in the Monte Carlo casino.”

  “Oh.” She frowned. “You’d think twelve years of Catholic school would’ve taught me geography better than that. But you almost fooled me with Monagasquay, so I guess not.”

  Maxence said, “I was second in line to the throne of Monaco after my older brother, Pierre Grimaldi—”

  “Wait, you mean Prince Pierre, the older brother from your stories when we were in France?” she asked, squinting at him.

  “Yes, Prince Pierre, but now I’m the heir apparent to the throne of Monaco since he committed suicide. I am His Serene Highness, Prince Maxence Charles Honoré of the House of Grimaldi of Monaco.”

  Dree stared up at him with those fathomless, unblinking blue eyes, and he could practically see the machinery cranking inside her head.

  She said, “Nuh-uh.”

  If you’d have asked Maxence, he would have said that absolutely nothing in the world or the universe could have dispelled the grief-stricken shock that permeated him, but Dree’s canny refusal to be fooled by nonsense shattered his composure.

  “You’re right. You’re right!” His legs weakened, and he sat on the floor at her feet, pulling her down to sit beside him. “This is the most absurd situation in the history of absurd situations. All my life, I have been denying any interest in the throne and insisting that I have no ambition other than to become an itinerant Jesuit who travels the world with nothing more than a rucksack to hold one extra black robe and a spare rosary, serving God and the Pope, not necessarily in that order.”

  She squinted at him, concern written in her pinched eyebrows. “Max? You okay?”

  He gestured with an open hand at the three Monegasque men who had tracked him to the lobby of a run-down inn in the rural district of Jumla in the foothills of the Himalaya Mountains of Nepal, which was insane. “And now, Quentin Sault—the director of Monaco’s intelligence services and an officer in our military, the bane of my existence whom I believed would hunt me down and murder me one day—shows up out of nowhere and tells me that my psychopathic brother has offed himself, which makes him more of a narcissist than a psychopath, I think. But Pierre’s suicide makes me the heir apparent to the throne of Monaco.”

  Dree took his hand between her soft, tiny ones. “Max, honey, do you need a paper bag to breathe into?”

  He waved her off. “Seriously, Sault might as well have shown up here and said, ‘You’re a wizard, Harry,’ but instead, he says, ‘You’re the prince, Max.’ Absurd. Utterly absurd. Immeasurably absurd.”

  He shook his head and ended up with his head in his hands, finally breathing through the inappropriate laughter because every other reaction seemed more like a lunatic.

  “Are you telling me—”

  He nodded, flopping his head forward like a loon.

  “You’re serious. You’re, like, a royal guy.”

  “‘His Serene Highness, Prince Maxence of Monaco.’ I kid you not. Oh, hey. I’m also the Duke of Mazarin and the Count of Polignac. Look me up on your phone.”

  “The WiFi still doesn’t work for me,” Dree said.

  “Fine. When you get somewhere. But it’s true. It’s horribly, undeniably, unbelievably true,” he sighed.

  “Maxence, Augustine, I don’t know what to say.”

  “I went from thinking I was about to be exe
cuted—”

  “Wait, what?” she asked. “You were serious about that?”

  Max nodded. “Oh, yes. Quentin would have killed me if Pierre had ordered him to. Wouldn’t you have, Sault?” He glanced over.

  Quentin Sault was staring out the windows, his jaw set hard.

  Max threaded his fingers through his hair. “Yeah, I thought so.”

  “So, everything you told me was true. Like, when you were kidnapped and the pirates and the tanker boat? That was real?”

  From over at the counter, Quentin asked, his voice sharp, “You told her about that?”

  “I can tell people.” He turned back to Dree. “Anyway, my morning has gone from my imminent execution to my life upended. I am at an absolute loss for what to do.”

  Quentin spun and stared at him. “You’re going back to Monaco and calling a Crown Council to elect and certify a new sovereign prince, and you’re going to make sure it isn’t Prince Jules Grimaldi.”

  Maxence shot back at Sault, “What if I don’t go back? What if I take Holy Orders like I planned?”

  Dree’s fingers tightened on his arm, and he pressed his hand over hers.

  Quentin sighed. “Then everyone will assume Prince Jules threatened you in some manner, and you ran.”

  “Why would he—” Max stopped.

  Max’s uncle, Prince Jules Grimaldi, had over a billion reasons to remove or kill anyone between him and the princely crown of Monaco, and Max was the first of three people who stood in his way.

  Dree was still peering at him, her head tilted, like she was dissecting him with her gaze. “Why would a guy who is a prince want to be a priest?”

  He sighed and flipped his fingers in the air. “It’s a complicated story.”

  “Tell me.”

  Her questioning had become more brisk, even efficient. He was reminded of their conversations in Paris about Flicka, when Dree had said out loud what Max had not admitted to himself.

  Afterward, his mind and soul had felt cleaner.

  So, Max did his best to answer her. “I’m drawn to the church.”

  “Like a moth to a flame?” she asked, her clear blue eyes examining him.