“That’s—that’s just wrong.”
He nodded. “No matter what, I can’t be a practicing deacon here in Monaco before the election and coronation. My loyalties cannot be divided.”
She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. “So, when you’re in Monaco, you’re not a deacon? My B.S. detector is going crazy on that one.”
“I was a member of the royal family before I was a deacon.”
Dree tilted her head. “That’s logical.”
“I am here in my capacity as a member of the royal family.”
Those were just facts. “Also true.”
“The change in the wording specifically references Monaco. There’s a clause in it that states if there is a conflict with my duties to the church and my duties in Monaco, that I ‘am released’ from my vows as a deacon. It doesn’t say ‘will be released.’ It doesn’t say ‘can be released.’ It says that I ‘am released.’ That was how Pope Vincent justified it to my uncle, Prince Rainier IV, that literally when I set foot on Monegasque soil, I was un-conflicted in my duties in the line of succession.”
Prickles ran down Dree’s neck because this felt like blasphemy. Altering the text of a sacrament sounded like the first scene of a horror movie that would end with fighting the Antichrist to keep the Seventh Seal from opening. “Popes usually take things like sacraments pretty seriously. It’s weird that he did that.”
“I don’t assist at the Mass or do any of my other duties of a deacon while I’m in Monaco. It’s one of the reasons why I didn’t stick around for my uncle’s funeral. I would’ve desperately wanted to assist at his Mass. But I couldn’t, or I shouldn’t have. Besides, I had already been back in Monaco for over a month. Pierre was getting ready to have me knocked off, I think, and I’d delayed that trip to Nepal as long as I could.” His fingers alighted on her knee and trailed up the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. “Now, where were we?”
Dree stilled, every ounce of her attention laser-focused on the smooth, cool trail of his fingers up her leg.
He whispered near her ear, “Say something if you want me to stop.”
Dree stopped breathing again so he wouldn’t mistake a moan for her telling him to stop.
His fingers ambled up the tender skin of her leg and reached the lace of her new panties, stroking the thin fabric with one fingertip.
Dree’s heart sped. His fist was big between her thighs, pressing on her soft flesh, and she moved her leg aside.
His fingertip scraped over her panties, sending little shudders through her skin.
She couldn’t help herself, and a whimper squeaked out of her throat.
He hooked his finger under the elastic of her panties, and his thumb gently pressed her nub.
Her back bowed, trying to press herself against his hand, already hungry for release.
He growled into her neck. “You’re wet. I could throw you face down on this desk and take you.”
She nodded. She would’ve nodded at anything he offered her.
His voice was a gravelly whisper in her ear. “I’m not going to make you wait for it today.”
He ground his hand against her, his thumb slipping over that hard, sensitive nub, and his long fingers parted her folds and entered her.
Her hips were moving, and she was riding his hand as she sped toward the edge of release.
His long fingers pressed her front wall, holding her impaled on his hand as his thumb rubbed circles on her.
The tension building inside of her was unbearable, an excruciating clench pounding in her veins.
She knew she was whimpering, making little sounds, and she hoped no one could hear but she couldn’t even think about anything other than his fingers deeply penetrating her and driving her toward orgasm.
Just as she was getting close, just as she was tipping and beginning to topple, Maxence ducked his head and bit her bare shoulder.
The pain launched her over the edge, and the orgasm blasted up her spine and filled her head with buoyancy. God, how did he do that, make pain feel like everything she’d been missing?
She throbbed. She throbbed and she clenched, and she kept throbbing as he pulsed his hand to force her to keep going.
Just as it was going to become too much, his thumb lightened, and his fingers inside her, which felt huge because she was swollen inside, gentled.
She followed the crest down, landing gently in his arms.
Maxence slowly removed his hand and tucked her panties back where they belonged. He opened his desk drawer with his pinky, removed a handkerchief, and wiped his hand.
She was a limp flower, wilted over his lap.
His low voice was rough in her ear, “When you were sitting across the desk from me with Nico smiling at you and your shoe dangling off your toes, I wanted to throw you on the floor and take you until you screamed my name. I want to make you suck me off between every meeting, all day long. I’m the man who wants you every minute and in ways you’re afraid to think about. I want to break you until you won’t say no to me, no matter what I decide to do. I want your body to be mine to do with what I want. That’s who I am. I’ve never been able to reconcile that with what I wanted to be. But if we have any chance of having a future, you need to know what I am.”
Chapter Six
Michael Rossi
Maxence
Near Maxence’s elbow, his office phone clicked, and his receptionist said, “I’m sorry, your highness. He’s coming in now.”
Her voice sounded minorly distraught and probably due to a breach of protocol, rather than terrified at an intrusion, so Max merely raised one eyebrow as his office door popped open and a pudge of a man bounced through the doorway.
Oh, dear Lord.
Maxence had been accustomed to courtly manners his whole life, so he merely rose, buttoned his suit jacket, and waited for his uncle to bobble the length of the room before he extended his hand across his desk. “A pleasure as always, Prince Jules.”
His uncle shook his hand and chortled, “Surely, Maxence, we don’t need to be so formal as that. We’ve never been that formal when no one else is around. It’s splendid to see you again, and so soon. You’ve had a haircut!”
Max sat in his office chair and smoothed the short hair around his ears. The back of his neck still felt chilly. During lunchtime in his apartment, his barber had sheared off almost three-months’ worth of growth that had curled over his ears and collar like a teenager. “Indeed.”
Jules placed his fingers on his red-checked vest as he looked between Max and Dree, who was dutifully scribbling on her little tablet-computer. “I see your little Nepalese admin has settled in. You don’t look Nepalese, my dear.”
Dree looked up at him, her blue eyes bright with laughter. “Oh, I’m not from Nepal. I was born in New Mexico, but I was working in Arizona before I went on the mission with Catholic Charities.”
If Maxence leaped across the desk and slapped his hand over her mouth, it would draw more attention to the fact that she had given Jules Grimaldi four pieces of information he could use when investigating her to find Max’s weak spots.
His emotion—whether it was impatience, irritation, or rage—must’ve shown on his face, because Dree caught his eye and then her head dropped straight down to stare at her tablet, and she scribbled something.
Jules was practically cackling with this new information, and he asked her, “Oh, do tell. You don’t seem to be merely an admin. I’ll bet you’re something much more interesting.”
Maxence said, “If you’re done harassing the staff, what brings you here today?”
Jules turned back to Maxence, his blue eyes sparkling with good humor, and took a seat in a chair on the other side of Max’s desk. “I heard our nephew Alexandre had arrived back in Monaco.”
Our nephew. Jules used the royal plural whenever he could get away with it. “Where did you hear that?”
Jules flipped his fingers at the air as if magic might emanate from them. “One hears things. I
heard his sister is with him.”
Maxence didn’t have to act anymore. “I don’t think Lady Christine is in Monaco.”
“Oh? Where is she?”
“I have no idea.”
“Surely, you must. Is she staying at Alexandre’s house, that lovely château overlooking the ravine like she always does?”
“I don’t think she’s in Monaco, Jules. I don’t think she has any plans to return.”
“But she must. Since Alexandre is back, we must have a Council meeting. Surely, now that you have returned, Alexandre will desist with his incorrigible plan to tie up the Council with his voting bloc of young people.”
“I’m not sure what Alexandre’s plan is.”
“But surely he’s discussed it with you. You met with him and his American wife this morning. All you young people who went to Le Rosey have your own little cabal.”
Like many of his generation, Jules had been educated at home, though several of his siblings had attended day school. “And yet, I don’t know what Alex’s plan is. At the next meeting of the Council of Nobles, I will abdicate, and then it’s up to Alexandre as to what he will do. At least, that’s the way it’s always happened in the past.”
Jules had been brushing invisible crumbs off his garish vest, but his glance up at Maxence was like he’d flicked electricity across the desk and popped a spark in the air between them. “Do you have any reason to think the succession will not be as it has been done in the past?”
“Of course not. Monaco is a deeply conservative country,” Maxence said. “That’s how we’ve gotten away with an absolute monarchy in the modern world for so long.”
Jules seemed to ponder that, nodding. “But Alexandre is next in line. I don’t see how he is going to get out of this conundrum.”
“It is quite a conundrum, as you said.”
“The court will never elect him. That leaves Christine as next after him, and you’re saying that she will refuse to return.”
Maxence could see where this was heading. “She has so far. I think she may be staying away to increase the chance that her brother will be pressured into accepting the throne. Nobody wants multiple rounds of voting and negotiations.”
Jules settled back in his chair and steepled his fingers on his round little belly. “The mature generation will not vote for him. And if she refuses to come back, the votes will fall to me.”
Maxence nodded, keeping his eyes steadily on Jules and refusing to give away even a flicker of emotion. “That is the traditional line of succession.”
“And then I’ll be sitting behind that desk, Prince Maxence.”
Max nodded. “At that time, you would be sitting behind this desk.”
Jules giggled, either at the thought of being the sovereign prince or sheer glee at the idea he would be. “And yet we are not scheduling a Council meeting.”
“As I am the next in the line of succession and I am now back in Monaco, the Council meeting is at my discretion. Pierre delayed it for a month. I will wait to discuss the line of succession with Duke Alexandre and Lady Christine.”
“I see, stalling. That’s an excellent tactic. I’ve used it often myself.”
Maxence allowed one shoulder to flinch in a shrug and one side of his mouth to lift, acknowledging it without admitting it.
“Are you going to take months to do this?”
“As long as it takes to come to a satisfactory resolution.”
“The Sea Change Gala is coming up soon.”
Maxence brushed the air. “It’s weeks away.”
“Who will be the host, Prince Maxence?”
“I thought we were doing away with the formality, Prince Jules.”
“Hosting the Sea Change Gala will signal to the rest of the world who we believe will be the next sovereign, if someone hasn’t been elected by then. Do you plan to host?”
“I hope to be on my way back to Kinshasa by then.”
Jules nodded, seeming to ruminate on this information. “If there is no election and coronation by then, I would be pleased to host with my daughter, Marie-Therese.”
And thus, he would place his finger on the scales of public and private perception. “Does Marie-Therese know you’ve made this offer on her behalf?”
He scrunched up his knobby little nose. “She believes herself to be an ‘influencer’ on whatever social media platform is currently en vogue. She would surely be pleased to publicly host the Sea Change Gala or any formal event that requires an official royal patron.”
“I’ll be sure to let her know you volunteered her services.”
Jules laughed uproariously, slapping his knees with mirth. “I would hope so, because I’m not sure she’s speaking to me these days.”
Interesting.
After further verbal dueling, Maxence was able to get his uncle Jules out of his office and carry on with his day.
Later that afternoon, Maxence sent Dree Clark on her way, watching her hourglass figure sway as she walked down the hallway. Her black high heels teetered on the carpet, making her hips swing.
Oh, the things he was going to do to that woman.
Some of them might end their relationship.
He turned back to his office.
Several of the other nobles had requested meetings that afternoon, all of whom were wheedling for positions and contracts. Max needed to state, firmly and repeatedly, that he had no interest in the crown and would take Holy Orders as soon as possible.
The sooner that was widely accepted, the better.
As Maxence turned on his heel, he caught sight of a man walking down the corridor.
The guy turned as he marched, giving Max a view of his pug nose and overhanging brow. His white bulldog silhouette was familiar, but he’d shaved the sides of his head and left only a scruff of brown hair on the top since the last time Maxence had seen him near the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
Quentin Sault was reading on a tablet in Max’s ante-office, sitting in a chair against the wall.
“With me,” Maxence snapped as he walked by.
Sault followed him.
Max slammed the door. “Why is Michael Rossi in the palace?”
Sault clasped his hands behind his back and stood at attention, his pale eyes fixed on the bookcase but unfocused. “He is assigned to palace security.”
“He was following me in Paris.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You said he wasn’t one of yours.”
“He is now.”
“Are you sure he wasn’t one of yours then, doing my brother’s dirty work?”
“I did not mention Prince Pierre, sir.”
Interesting. “Did he have orders to eliminate me?”
Sault’s eyes tracked downward, and his voice was lower. “I don’t know. It may have just been surveillance.”
May have been. “I want him out of the palace.”
“And where should I assign him, sir?”
“That’s your job. I just want him out.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re dismissed.”
Quentin Sault pivoted and marched toward the door.
“Sault.”
He turned back. “Yes, sir?”
Maxence stared at him, trying to pin him to the wall with his eyes. “How did my uncle, Prince Jules, know exactly what time I would arrive at the heliport yesterday?”
Sault drew himself up a little straighter. “Did he?”
“His car drove up, and he walked onto the tarmac just as our helicopter touched down. The helicopter flight from Nice is only seven minutes. Considering Monaco’s hellacious traffic, Jules had to have left his apartment in the Odeon Tower before my plane from Nepal touched down in Nice. He knew I was coming.”
Not one stiff, gray hair on Sault’s head even twitched. “I’ll look into it.”
“That will be all.”
Dammit, what was the use of owning an army if Maxence couldn’t trust them?
He rubbed one side of his face.
Chapter Seven
Kir Sokolov
Dree
Back in the servants’ area of the castle, Dree sought out Chiara, who was in the business office inputting numbers in spreadsheets. The palace areas where the royals held events and receptions were ornate, every square inch studded with priceless antiques or art.
The staff areas were mostly underground, windowless, and utilitarian. Tube lighting buzzed in the ceiling fixtures above spartan desks and net-backed office chairs. The faint scent of damp rock permeated the space despite an air filter whirring in the corner.
Chiara’s dark blond hair was as perfectly coiffed as the day before, except her bun at the nape of her neck was smoothly braided instead of a shiny knot. Her chic dress was burgundy instead of black. She held her hands clasped at her waist and ducked her head as she asked Dree in her low, calm voice, “Did your appointment proceed properly?”
“Oh, yeah,” Dree said, nodding so hard she could see her blond curls swaying around the edges of her vision. “I took notes on everything they said, did a quick summary at the top of the take-aways, and handed the tablet back to him.”
“And then you transmitted your notes to the archives?”
“Um.” Dree paused. “Archives?”
Chiara nodded slowly. “All notes must be deposited in the archives. The Prince, or in this case, Prince Maxence, is the head of state and the government. All documents and items that go through his hands must be deposited. All notes or recordings of conversations must be archived.”
“Okay, I’ll do that next time.” She guessed she wouldn’t be doodling rock band logos on her notes anymore.
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