She had to control herself. She was hurting him, and she didn’t want to hurt Maxence.
Chapter Ten
A Settlement
Maxence
Maxence stared at the fallow farms and winter-yellowed meadows racing below the helicopter as they flew inland for about an hour. A car met them at the heliport where they landed and drove Maxence and his lawyers to a blue house with a bisque-tiled roof and a small garden.
Several children played outside, three of whom bore an uncanny resemblance to Maxence, dark eyes, dark silky hair with a hint of curl, and what he’d always thought of as overly lush features. He leaned on the garden wall for a few moments and watched them play, his closest living blood relatives in the world, before he let himself in the gate and strode up to the front door.
Two lawyers followed behind him, each bearing their own briefcases.
Maxence knocked on the carved wooden door.
Inside, Abigai Caillemotte served them tea and cookies, as she’d known they would be coming. Her long hair, the color of dark honey, was coiled into a sleek bun on the back of her head.
She was pretty, Maxence had to acknowledge, in a sturdy sort of way. Psychoanalyzing Pierre for his attraction to her that had cost him everything, including his own life, was fruitless.
Why did people do things?
Because they did.
Why did some people fall in love with people who were absolutely wrong for them in every way?
Because they did.
Why did that love sometimes become an obsession that destroyed them?
Because it did.
Maxence did not speak as the lawyers laid out the paperwork to provide Abigai Caillemotte with a middle-class income for her life and included the deed to the house where they sat. Her children would each have an inheritance when they turned eighteen and another when they turned thirty that was suitable but not extravagant. It was significantly more than most royal bastards received.
Abigai Caillemotte wept as she signed the paperwork, begging Maxence’s forgiveness and trying to wheedle more money and a vacation home in Monaco, ostensibly so that their children would know the land of their father.
That was not possible, one of the lawyers explained.
Maxence did not speak.
A larger cash settlement immediately would do much to assuage her grief after the death of the man she’d loved enough to bear so many children with, she insisted.
Maxence still said nothing.
The lawyers offered her the documents again.
In the end, she took what they’d offered, which was more than generous.
As they were leaving, Abigai threw herself at Maxence, exclaiming how much he looked like Pierre and how much she missed him. She begged Maxence to come and visit her and the children so that they would know their father’s family.
“I am sorry, Madame Caillemotte,” Maxence said. “That would not be appropriate.”
Eighteen minutes after they’d arrived, they left the house to return to the helicopter and Monaco, and Maxence took one last look at the children in the garden.
As they were running through the dappled shade, tossing a ball to each other, two who must be Pierre’s natural children were an echo through time of himself and Pierre playing at Le Rosey between classes.
As they got older, Maxence would keep an eye on the children to ensure they had everything they needed. If necessary, he would intervene, but asking Maxence to maintain ties with a woman whom he suspected was just as manipulative and narcissistic as his brother had been was asking too much. Abigai Caillemotte had demanded to attend Pierre’s marriage to Flicka, danced with him during the reception, and insisted that Pierre stay with her on Flicka’s wedding night.
Pierre had taken advantage of Abigai Caillemotte, that was certain, but Caillemotte had been a willing and enthusiastic participant in the tragedy that had led to his downfall and suicide.
Chapter Eleven
A Much More Joyous Settlement
Dree
At the convent across Monaco’s invisible border with France, the good sisters Ndaya and Disanka had prepared lunch for Maxence and Dree again. There were hugs all around, and Disanka hugged Dree especially hard, rubbing her shoulder and asking after her health and her family. Dree did the same, and they all smiled together.
Maxence smiled when they leaned in to hug him, laughing and teasing him in French, but there was something formal about him. It wasn’t anger. He wasn’t mad at them. He just seemed . . . somber.
Lunch was tasty. The chicken and fluffy white rice were easy to identify. The pale-yellow conical mound tasted like creamy, buttery potatoes with some yam mashed in, and the gravy that trickled over everything was rich with spices, chilis, and tomatoes.
Dree ate it all. She was a carbs girl, and those were some freakin’ amazing carbs. Carbohydrates were necessary for the brain to produce serotonin, and humans have an essential carbohydrate requirement. Even cats required some carbohydrates, and cats were nature’s perfect carnivore. Dree could rationalize carbs from a medical and biochemical perspective all day long. She cleaned her plate and only tenuously refrained from licking the last few pale smears across the stoneware.
When Disanka saw her plate was empty, she motioned Dree toward the kitchen and told her to help herself.
Dree skedaddled to the kitchen and dished up just a little more of everything. A lot of the food in Monaco was derived from French or Italian, but Dree had grown up in New Mexico, land of scorching hot green chile peppers. She probably had an essential capsaicin requirement.
The little girls, Majambu Milandu and Mpata Majambu, ate their lunch and prettily asked to be excused, and then they scampered out to the convent’s playground with the other little kids who attended the convent’s nursery school, happily babbling with them.
About halfway through the meal, during one of the seven-minute lulls between the laughing and talking about France and Monaco, Maxence laid down his utensils and folded his hands. “I will not be returning to the Congo,” Maxence told them.
Dree heard the strain in his voice because they were speaking English at that point. Maxence and the two religious sisters had switched back and forth between the two languages during the meal, expressing anything they could in English for Dree and, when the concepts became too complicated, in French.
He told the religious sisters, “I am sorry. I feel I have betrayed you.”
Ndaya and Disanka leaned their heads toward each other, and an amused glint crept into their dark eyes. Ndaya asked him, “And why is this?”
Disanka glanced at Dree and pursed her full lips with merriment.
He said, “I have accepted a position here. I will continue to support the convent and mission in the Congo financially, but I will not be able to be there. I would like the two of you and Majambu Milandu and Mpata Majambu to live here if you would want to. If you want to go back to the DRC, I will visit when I can, but I will be busy with this new position.”
Ndaya turned her eyes toward Dree and then back to Maxence. “Is that the only reason?”
Dree’s mouth almost fell open. Wait, did they know?
Maxence toyed with his potatoes with his fork. His voice was lower as he admitted, “I am leaving the priesthood. I will not be ordained. My commitment to the church to be a presbyter is at an end. His Holiness Pope Vincent de Paul released me from the clergy and gave me permission to marry.”
At that point, both Ndaya and Disanka looked pointedly at Dree, their mouths and eyes smiling, and Disanka asked him, “And who are you going to marry?”
They knew! They were totally torturing him for the fun of it.
The good sisters were stringing him along, but this was the man Dree was going to marry, to hopefully have children with, and to spend her life with. She shouldn’t let this go on. As his fiancée and with his honkin’ ring on her finger, she should stand with her man.
But she was also an older sister in a large family.
Dree stuffed another bite of the fall-off-the-bone-tender chicken in her mouth and chewed, sitting back in her chair to watch the shenanigans.
Maxence still hadn’t looked up and noticed they were laughing at him. “Yes,” he said. “Dree and I plan to marry as soon as we can.”
Disanka giggled one tiny laugh that could have been confused for a hiccup, and Ndaya backhanded her lightly on the arm, staring at Maxence the whole time. “But what will you do, here in Monaco, for a profession? After all, you are a priest, trained only in religion.”
Maxence still hadn’t looked up from his plate of food, which he had barely touched during the meal, which was a remarkable event that Dree had never seen happen before. “It seems I have been elected the leader of this country.”
At that, Ndaya and Disanka burst into laughter, the chimes of their mirth ringing from the dark, exposed wooden beams and white plaster of the convent.
Maxence finally looked up at them and realized they’d been stringing him along. His dark glance at Dree was an embarrassed pout that he would get over in two minutes. He asked the religious sisters, “How long have you known?”
“We are living here in a convent with many other religious sisters who are native to this place. Do you think we don’t know everything about your life here?” Ndaya asked him. “It is amusing that you did not tell us you were of a royal family when we lived in the Congo and let us believe that you were merely a poor Jesuit helping out in the world, but you cannot expect that you could bring us here and not have us find out.” She pushed her phone across the table toward him.
The phone’s browser was open to a news website. The headline was Monaco’s New Prince: Playboy or Priest?
Maxence winced and pushed the phone back at her. “How mortifying.”
Disanka asked him, “You want our blessing? Of course, you have our blessing. Go, and do your good in the world with this, Brother Maxence, because you will always be a Brother in Christ to me.”
They chatted for a while longer, Ndaya and Disanka teasing Maxence about thinking they didn’t watch television, until Max asked them again, “You didn’t tell me where you want to live. Do you want to stay here, in France and Monaco, or do you want to go back to the DRC?”
Ndaya and Disanka smiled kindly at him, glanced at each other to check in, and then Ndaya said, “It is pleasant to pass the time in another country to visit, but this is not our home here, Brother Maxence. We will go back home.”
Maxence nodded. “I will visit when I can.”
Ndaya shrugged. “Even if you had become a priest, Brother Maxence, you would have had to come and go. Rome tells the priests where to go, and they never stay for too long. Father Moses has been in Paris for some years now. You will always be a part of our hearts, but it is a thing we expected for you to also work elsewhere in the world.” Ndaya picked up Disanka’s hand and shook it above the table. “We religious sisters will continue the good work that you started in the DRC. Come and see us to see how much we have done.”
Disanka picked up Dree’s hand and held it in her cool, slim one. “And you come see us, too, Dree Clark. You bring your babies to show us. Or, if this man here doesn’t treat you right, you come live with us as a religious sister. We always have need of another nurse.”
Dree smiled at her and squeezed her hand. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Maxence speared an enormous hunk of chicken on his fork. “The enthronement is next month. Would you like to stay for that?”
“We would like to stay, Brother Maxence. You had better feed us good at the big feast.”
Maxence laughed. “I guarantee there will be a large feast.” He stuffed the hunk of chicken in his mouth and chewed, closing his eyes with delight.
Dree asked him, “The coronation is next month?”
Maxence nodded. “Enthronement. The end of next month.”
“Are we going to New Mexico before that?”
Maxence winced. “I’m trying to find a few days to be on the plane. I promise it will happen. I know it’s important to you.”
Dree raised her eyebrows at him. “You’d better.”
Chapter Twelve
The Last Settlement
Maxence
Early the next morning, just after dawn, Maxence allowed one of the Rogue Security mercenaries to escort him from his apartment to the exit of the Prince’s Palace. He stopped the man at the portcullis gate and continued across the cobblestoned outer courtyard alone, breathing in the cool sea breeze from the Mediterranean at the base of the cliff far below.
The palace guards standing outside the walls wore the Compagnie des Carabiniers du Prince’s red and white ceremonial uniforms, and he nodded as he passed. The Carabiniers ostensibly guarded the castle but were more decor than defense. They saluted crisply because Max was always under surveillance, whether he wanted it or not.
Maxence strolled the two hundred yards to the Cathedral of Saint Nicholas in the medieval walled city of Monaco-Ville.
A priest met him by the cathedral’s side door to let him in as they’d arranged the previous day. Once inside, Maxence turned and found the small hallway that bore the crypts where his ancestors were buried.
His footsteps echoed on the gold-veined marble that rose many stories into the air and pinched together at the top of the arches in the ceiling far above.
Tourists had not yet been allowed into the Cathedral for the day, so only one vase of white lilies rested upon each of the spaces of the marble floor above the graves of his grandparents and parents.
In a few hours, tourists and fellow Monegasques would honor Monaco’s previous leaders with tributes of flowers, especially for his grandmother, Princess Grace Kelly. Her gravesite was covered with marble at floor level and inscribed with her name and her monogram, two elaborate Gs in a mirror image of each other. A large painting of her wearing a white dress against Monaco’s cerulean blue harbor leaned against the wall. Even though the artist must have been enamored with her, as everyone had been, he still hadn’t caught the kindness Maxence remembered in her blue eyes.
His grandfather’s grave was next to hers under the floor. His painting was a charcoal sketch of him in a paramilitary uniform, which seemed appropriate for the solemn, quiet man. At his funeral, years after his wife’s, his old dog had limped behind the casket to lay him to rest.
Beyond Princess Grace and Prince Rainier III lay the earthly remains of Maxence’s aunt and uncle, Prince Rainier IV and his wife, who’d died childless. After them, Max’s parents were interred, as his father would have been a Prince of Monaco if he’d outlived his older brother.
Maxence lit candles and prayed for all of them, his grief still held at a distance in his heart.
Finally, he arrived at the newest grave in the Cathedral, one with a monogram of two mirror-image Ps engraved on the stone floor. Even though Pierre had committed suicide, of that there could be no doubt, he was still allowed to be buried in sacred ground because, of course, no one could know if he’d truly repented of the sin of self-slaughter as he lay dying.
It was an equivocation of the Church to offer some solace to the families left behind, but it seemed little comfort.
“You shouldn’t have done it,” Maxence whispered, the syllables barely a growl in the back of his throat and the words only a vibration in his mind. “You had four children with Abigai Caillemotte. Even though you couldn’t acknowledge them legally as heirs, they were your children, and you were responsible for them. They will grow up without a father, even a narcissistic bastard like you. I resolved to have nothing to do with them beyond financially supporting them, but I can’t just walk away after seeing that woman. She’s as bad as you or worse. Someone has to make sure those kids are okay, and it should’ve been you.
“This was the last selfish act in a self-centered, indulged lifetime. You should have done better, Pierre. I’ll make sure your kids are cared for. I’ll rescue them if I have to.
“You left Monaco a fractured m
ess. You were so obsessed with becoming the sovereign prince that you allowed criminals to infiltrate the country. They almost overthrew the government. They nearly turned Monaco into a haven for drug dealers and organized crime. In your lust for power, you almost destroyed the country you wanted to rule, but I’ll pick up the pieces of Monaco, too.
“You destroyed everything you touched, Pierre.
“You were named after Prince Pierre I, who married Princess Charlotte and became the first prince during the Restoration. You were supposed to be the father of a new nation. You were supposed to be the first modern prince, the first sovereign of the twenty-first century, and you were supposed to restore and lead Monaco into the future.
“I was named after Count Maxence of Polignac, our great-great-grandfather. Count Maxence was never a Prince of Monaco but was the father of the man you were named after. I was never supposed to be the prince. Even my name reflected that.
“But here we are again, Pierre, and I’m cleaning up the mess you made and acting as your emissary and making sure your narcissism and your evil aren’t the only things left in the world when we’re gone.
“The only thing I have to thank you for is that if I hadn’t been running away from your thugs yet once again in Paris, I might have never met Dree. She’s a brilliant light in the universe, Pierre, and she can help me save Monaco from you and your influence.”
Maxence sighed and squatted down to place one hand on the cold marble under which his brother’s body lay.
“I miss you, Rat Bastard.”
Chapter Thirteen
Further Developments in the Case
Reign (A Royal Romantic Suspense Royal Secret Billionaire Novel) Page 5