“Were you using one of the palace’s tablets to take notes?”
“I think so. Max—I mean, His Serene Highness, Prince Maxence—gave it to me to take notes on.”
Chiara’s regulation smile softened. “Then it’s all right. Documents on those tablets are uploaded automatically to the archive cloud.”
Including her Killer Valentine doodle. Awesome. A winged guitar and the words Duke Alexandre Valentinwah is XAN VALENTINE OMG IT ALL FITS would be preserved in her curly writing in Monaco’s archives forever.
Great.
Just great.
“But that’s not what I’m here for,” Dree said. She pulled her cell phone out of the little beige satchel-bag that Chiara had picked out for her the night before. “Could I get the palace’s WiFi password?”
“Oh, of course. And here, I’ll admit you to the network.”
Chiara handed Dree a business card with an impressively long line of gobbledygook on it. When Dree had meticulously pecked it all in, Chiara found her device and authorized access for her phone. “You should be all set now.”
Just as Chiara finished her sentence, Dree’s phone buzzed.
Texts and notifications poured down her screen.
“Oh!”
They kept coming.
Dree grimaced. “I guess it has been a month.”
And yet more bings and buzzing.
“Okay, this is ridiculous,” she said.
The stream slowed and ended.
Chiara smiled at her. “You’re very popular.”
“Uh, yeah.” Dree started reading.
Many were expressions of concern or outright demands to know where she was from work friends, relatives, and people in her apartment complex.
Dree—Dree honey—Dree are you there—Dree are you coming to work?
Aunt Mortie is sick but she’ll be okay. But she wants phone calls. (eyeroll emoji) Call Aunt Mortie.—Jesus, you didn’t call Aunt Mortie and she’s pissed.
This is to notify you that your request for the return of your security deposit has been denied due to cleaning issues.
What do you get when you cross an MRSA staph infection with syphilis? Room 4929 and Dr. Luis in hazmat gear. (picture of a portly man in a yellow spacesuit)
Hey, what up babe.—Fine don’t talk to me.—You should smile more.
Loretta Mabel has shared a photo album with you. Press here . . .
Mandi: Oh my God, Sis, thank you so so so much for the money. I can’t believe how much therapy and supplements I was able to get for Victor. He’s improving. He’s improving! He signed to me that he wanted milk this morning! And he drank it because that’s what he wanted! MILK! I’ve never been so damned excited about freaking MILK in my life! He hasn’t destroyed anything or slammed into me or bounced off a wall for a week! Neither one of us have any fresh bruises. Thank you. Thank you. May Mary bless you forever.
Dree had to stop for a moment and breathe. Milk. Victor had never purposely signed anything. The reduction in self-injurious behavior and violence was amazing.
Okay, she had to keep the money going.
More texts flooded her phone.
Text C to confirm your dentist appointment on December 8th.
Saw this in Gaggle Magazine and thought you’d like it. (Picture of shirtless vampire actor from TV.)
I’m bored. Call me.—You there?—Hey, Dree? Good Sam says you were fired. U ok?—Dree, I need you to call or text or something. I’m worried.
You have a new statement from Southwestern Medical Group.
Hey Dree baby where are you? No one has seen you for days! You okay?
And then there were the ones that worried her.
Dree couldn’t stop reading them.
We’re all going to pizza and beer tonight. You in?—You didn’t show. You cool?—Dree, we can’t find you or Francis. What’s going on?—Jesus, Dree. Call somebody. We’re freaked out.—The police asked me weird questions about you when I called them. Are you in trouble?
Yes, she was in trouble.
Dree texted Caridad Santos and other nurse-friends from work, assuring them she was okay and somewhere safe and to pass it on. She didn’t want to worry them.
Is this the phone of Ms. Andrea Clark? We have some serious questions for you about your finances with Francis Senft. He says you have the money he owes us, and we should get it from you. Please call us to discuss payment of your debt as soon as possible. My name is Kir Sokolov, and my number is—”
The same number had texted again.
A week has passed and you have not contacted us regarding the payment of your debt from the funds Francis Senft said he deposited in your name in your bank accounts. He assured us you do have the money and you will pay us from those funds. It seems Mr. Senft had been stealing some of our merchandise. He sold it for the street rate and kept the funds instead of paying for the merchandise. We now require to be paid for said merchandise. Please call me, Kir Sokolov at—”
Boiling water splashed down Dree’s back. Heat burst through her, and her hands began to shake.
It has been another week, and there is still no attempt from you to contact us to set up a payment schedule. By now, the police will have contacted you about finding Francis Senft’s body. I would hate for what happened to him to happen to you. As you can see from the body, it was not quick for him. I am Kir Sokolov. Call me immediately.
And he left his number.
There were more texts after that, demanding money, threatening her.
The phone felt like ice in her cold fingers. As numbness crawled under her fingernails and through her joints, the phone slithered away and tumbled toward the floor tile.
Dree batted at the chip of black ice as it fell, but it slipped off her fingertips and clattered on the floor.
Chiara said, “Oh, no, no,” and scrambled after the phone as it flipped away from them.
Dree chased after it, mortified that Chiara might see the threats and figure out that she was either immoral or stupid enough to get mixed up with drug dealers. The answer to that was that she was stupid, of course, but the shame drowning Dree was more than she could deal with just then.
Chiara grabbed the phone off of the floor. “It’s okay. I think it’s okay. I don’t think it’s—”
She was staring at it, reading the texts.
“Oh, it’s nothing. I’m sure it’s nothing,” Dree said, holding out her hand because she didn’t want to smack her phone out of Chiara’s hand.
As Chiara read the texts, her eyes drooped, and her expression became sadder and sadder. “Oh, Dree. This person is saying very bad things.”
“Um,” Dree said. “Yeah.”
“We do not allow this sort of thing here in Monaco. We will tell Colonel Sault.” And she was off.
Chiara trotted through the hallways, reassuring Dree the whole way that this would be taken care of immediately.
Dree pattered along beside her. “I don’t want to make a fuss. I don’t think we need to tell anyone about this.”
“I know you are American and that your government does not take care of you when things like this happen, but we are in Monaco now. You will be safe here in Monaco. We will not let a man speak to you this way.”
Chiara led her through a couple more doors and to another office, where she knocked with an imperative, machine-gun rattle. “Colonel Sault? Colonel Sault! Ms. Clark has a problem we need you for.”
A nondescript, thin man answered the office door. His bristle of gray hair was the same color as his eyes, though his skin was a medium tan. Dree recognized him as the man who’d found Maxence in Nepal and hung out in the back of Max’s office all the time. He asked, “Yes?”
Chiara spoke to the man in a rapid-fire language that sounded like Italian, and she handed over the phone.
Dree said, “It’s no big deal. They’re back in America, and they don’t know where I am. I’m sure I’m not in any danger.”
Colonel Sault—Dree remembered Maxence had
called him Quentin Sault—read the texts on Dree’s phone without expression. He handed her back the phone and said, “Tomorrow morning, please present yourself and your phone at our local police station office. I will call ahead to inform them that you are coming, and the technology department will take information from your phone. As you said, Ms. Clark, it is doubtful that you are in any current danger because it does appear these texts were sent from the United States. However, I must caution you to take care until we have more information. Do not go places alone. If you leave the palace, ride in a car rather than walking.”
“Thank you, sir, Colonel, sir,” Dree stammered.
She thanked Chiara for helping her, but Chiara said, “It is no problem. I feel better having Colonel Sault taking care of things. In any case, I shall call a car to take us shopping at my places.” Chiara held up a black credit card with two fingers. “I have already secured a petty-cash credit card for our purchases tonight.”
Chapter Eight
Marie-Therese Grimaldi
Maxence
Maxence was sitting behind the desk in the office in the palace. Afternoon sunlight filled the courtyard outside the window and brightened the room.
Dree Clark was wearing a shorter skirt than usual.
And no stockings.
She’d said a friend with exquisite taste had taken her shopping and picked out her clothes.
Maxence agreed that Dree’s friend had good taste for ready-to-wear clothes. Dree’s other dresses fell to the top of her kneecap, but this particular dress—a dark red, skin-tight confection that molded to her body like thick paint—had only enough material to reach her mid-thigh.
Every time she tugged at the hem, Maxence watched out of the corner of his eye, wishing her fingers were his tongue.
There were several meetings that morning, several secretaries from Monaco’s various ministries and a new ambassador from the Netherlands to be received.
But first, a scouting visit, and it would be an interesting one.
Max could handle everything in the daily life of the sovereign without a second thought.
The only thing he couldn’t handle was Dree Clark sitting in the admin’s chair, which was a smaller, straighter chair and somewhat behind the two seats directly in front of his desk.
He couldn’t handle the way her skirt hem rode up farther on her thighs every time she stretched her bare legs.
He couldn’t handle the way she bit her lower lip in consternation that he might notice her fidgeting.
Maxence’s desk phone said, “Your Highness, sir, your next appointment is here to see you.”
“Five minutes.” He snapped off the intercom. “Sault, leave us. We have a matter to discuss.”
The gray-haired, gray-suited whisper of a man slipped through the door and closed it behind him.
“Dree,” Max said.
“What, yes?” She looked up. One of her fists was wrapped around the hem of her skirt, and the other was precariously balancing the tablet on her hip.
He said, “Set the tablet on my desk.” His voice felt lower and harder as he said it, as the blood moved from his brain and pooled lower.
She placed the tablet on the edge of his desk. “I’m sorry. I was trying not to drop it.”
“Scoot forward and sit on the edge of your chair.
“I—okay? Am I supposed to sit farther forward?” She balanced just her butt cheeks on the edge of the chair. “Is it ergonomic?”
“Take off your panties.”
A sneaky little smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “But this skirt is so short.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet you are.”
“The panties. Now.”
She thumbed the straps over her hips through the dress, deliciously pushing them down to the tops of her thighs. Scarlet lace appeared at the edge of her dress.
Max’s heart flip-flopped, but he didn’t even blink.
That scrap of red lace—just the smallest, tiniest scrap—slid down her legs. She lifted one high-heeled shoe, then the other, and picked her panties up off the centuries-old Oriental carpet. “What should I do with them?”
Maxence held out his hand.
Dree leaned forward to drop them into his outstretched fingers and almost fell off the edge of her chair. She laughed and started to scoot back.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
He removed the pressed blue silk pocket square from the outer breast pocket of his suit jacket, folded her panties into a neat triangle, and tucked the scrap of scarlet lace into his pocket as a trophy. “Don’t lean back. Lick your finger and touch yourself.”
“I don’t need to lick my finger, Max, but okay.” Dree lifted one slim, scarlet-tipped finger to her mouth and sucked on the tip.
With that visual, he could almost feel her lips on the head of his dick. It swelled, growing heavy in his trousers.
This girl was going to kill him, but what a way to go.
He said, “The outside first.”
She did, massaging her flesh.
As her fingers moved, her skirt rode up higher.
The flesh between her legs was bare and smooth, more naked than naked.
His erection throbbed with his heartbeat, and he could hear his pulse.
Maxence had started this, so he had no one to blame but himself if his impending case of blue balls caused a massive stroke.
He said, “Near the top, right against the pubic bone.”
She did, and her blue eyes flared open a little.
Yeah, that was a good spot. “Now dip inside, slowly.”
Her finger slipped between her folds, and Maxence forced his breath to stay perfectly even as a blush rose on her cheeks.
“Back and forth,” he said. “Slowly.”
Her hand changed angle as she stroked.
“Not inside yourself,” he said. “That’s mine. Just the top.”
Her hand straightened and slipped through her soft skin.
Maxence didn’t move.
Her breath quickened, and her head fell back. She closed her eyes.
Maxence said, “Stop.”
She looked up at him with horror widening her blue eyes, but her hand had moved away from her sex. “Stop?”
He handed her a tissue. “Yes, stop. Now pick up that tablet.”
She complied. “Oh, no. It’s going to be like Paris again, isn’t it?”
He smiled. “Every time I say take notes, you will cross your legs the other way, making sure your thighs are wide enough for me to see your pink, sore, frustrated pussy while you do it.”
She settled the tablet on her lap. She said, still panting, “You’re diabolical.”
He’d been told that before. “And don’t press your thighs together to make yourself climax. I’ll know. Your subject to take notes on today is types of flowers to be imported for the Sea Change Gala.”
Dree frowned and glared at her tablet. “I don’t even know the names of all y’all’s European flowers. Roses?”
Speaking of official functions, Maxence tapped the desk phone. “Anna, have we scheduled an appointment with Lady Valentina Martini yet?”
“No, sir. I’ve spoken to her admin twice and the lady herself once. They have not been able to clear an hour for an appointment.”
“Even a virtual appointment over video-chat?” Maxence asked.
“No, sir. They’ve refused every attempt.”
He sighed. “I’ll call her. Send in my next appointment.”
His receptionist said, “Yes, sir. Your appointment is with His Highness, Prince Louis, but there is—”
The door to his office burst wide open, and two people entered the room, followed by Quentin Sault, who wore no expression, as usual.
The trailing one was Maxence’s great-uncle, his grandfather’s younger brother, Prince Louis Grimaldi, but the woman entering the room was—”
Maxence rose, buttoning his suit coat. “Marie-Ther
ese, so lovely to see you.”
Marie-Therese advanced, leaving their great-uncle sauntering into the room. “Maxence, my favorite relative. How was Nepal?”
“Mountainous. How was Monaco?”
“Treacherous,” she laughed.
He extended his hand across the desk to shake. “Ah, nothing’s changed, then.”
She dodged around the desk and barreled into his arms. Max hugged her quickly as she rocked back and forth. “You old rogue, you. You didn’t come to Uncle Rainier’s funeral. Or Pierre’s.”
Her hand trailed down his back and traveled just below where his belt encircled his waist.
Above Marie-Therese’s head, Max saw Dree Clark blinking in confusion and holding her stylus above the tablet as she sat perched on the edge of her chair.
Max untangled himself from his cousin. “I sat beside his bed nearly every day for a month. I said my goodbyes in person, and Monaco is, as you noted, treacherous.”
“People talked,” Marie-Therese said, shaking her glossy black curls and blinking her dark eyes at him. Like Max, she took after the Grimaldi side of the family, which was Italian by name and predominantly French by genetics. Like most royal families, they were descended from European blue bloods, not their subjects’ bloodlines. Their grandmother was American and blond, of course, but their great-great-grandmother was Mexican.
He said, “I’m sure they talked. I’m sure most people had nothing better to do than to talk. But now I’m here and settling Monaco for the next century.”
He looked behind her to where his great-uncle had stepped up and extended his hand. “Uncle Louis, so good to see you again.”
The slim, white-haired man smiled primly and shook Max’s hand. His forehead bulged above his eyes as if it had been designed to hold a crown. “Maxence, I’m glad to see you in more pleasant circumstances.”
Louis had also stood hospital vigil over Max’s uncle, Prince Rainier IV. When Max had arrived in the early afternoon, Louis had been sitting and reminiscing with his unconscious cousin for a few hours in the mornings, giving Max a few moments to chat with him before Louis left for lunch and business. They’d become closer over that hellish month, discussing amiably the future of Monaco and the transfer of power to Pierre, which hadn’t come to pass. “Definitely, Uncle Louis.”
Prince: Royal Romantic Suspense (Billionaires in Disguise: Maxence Book 5) Page 9