Maxence wouldn’t joke about something so close to the truth. “We had dark senses of humor as children.”
“And now you’re going to be the prince, Max. Are you going to burn down the world?”
“No,” Maxence said. “No, to it all. I’m not going to take the throne.”
“But you’re next in line. And you’re there. Christine said you’d returned to Monaco, and my calls aren’t going directly to voicemail anymore.”
“I’m renouncing. I’m here to settle everything so I can leave.”
“Then you’re still serious about the priesthood.”
“Yes.” Maybe not.
“I thought that might be—a retreat.”
“From what?” But he knew her answer.
Her voice was gentle. “From me.”
Outside the window of his medieval castle, fire consumed the world. “Of course not.”
Flicka said, “Maxence, we’ve been friends for a long time.”
“Yes.”
“I just want to know if we’re all right. I need to know that we’re all right. We’ve done so much good together, leveraging our charities to have more impact and working off of each other’s media presence. And Max, I would hate to lose you as a friend. We’ve been through too much together. I need to be able to call you. I need to know you’re all right.”
Dree had just come back into his office. She wheeled in the tea service to the other side of his desk and fussed with the napkins, making sure everything was perfect.
An evening ray of Mediterranean light glowed on her alabaster skin and struck fairy lights in her golden hair. She looked up and saw him staring at her. Her smile started as a little shy, but then she grinned because she’d caught him gawking.
Maxence smiled back at her and said to Flicka, “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m going to be fine.”
He hung up the phone a few minutes later.
Four cups of steaming hot chocolate stood on the solid silver tray.
Dree said, “I wasn’t eavesdropping.”
Oh, she was funny. “Of course not.”
“The receptionist gal told me to tell you that your next appointment is here.”
He pressed the call button on the desk phone. “Two minutes.”
The woman’s voice said over the phone, “I’ll try, but—”
He clicked the intercom off. “Two things,” he told Dree.
Her eyes darted to the sides like she might find them.
Maxence held up his phone. “I’ve had a text from Isaak.”
She brightened. “Yeah?” And then something made her pause. “I mean, is he okay?”
“He and Batsa are still in Nepal. Isaak commandeered one of Quentin Sault’s jeeps after we got on the helicopter, and they drove back to the last village with a nurse. He brought the premature baby’s mother to the hospital in Chandannath. The baby is doing very well, and her mother has named her Chirasmi, which means ‘a long life.’”
Dree sat in the chair, her hand covering her mouth. “So she’s okay.”
“She’s fine. You did it. Isaak and Batsa are starting up their preemie pod charity, and they need your signature on the patent paperwork.”
She started giggling. “Okay, cool. I still can’t believe it worked!”
“And one more thing.” Maxence leaned back in his chair and fished in the pocket of his trousers to retrieve an old-fashioned, oversized metal key, a black, finger-length rod with a fleur-de-lis at one end and a notched square at the other, more like a Christmas decoration than a functional security device.
The iron flaked in places, leaving a red speck of rust on his thumb.
He handed it to her across the desk.
“What’s this?” Dree asked, turning it over in her scarlet-tipped fingers.
Maxence cleared his throat. “As my admin, you’ll need access to my apartment here in the palace.”
“Oh, okay,” she said, her bright sunniness lilting in her voice.
“Access to my apartment, at any time,” he said, almost choking on his words.
She nodded so fast that her chin vibrated. “Uh-huh.”
His voice dropped deeper in his throat. “Day or night.”
Dree snorted a laugh. “You are so funny when you try to be subtle.” She turned the key over in her hands, examining it. “So, am I supposed to come tonight?”
“Yes, you’re supposed to come tonight.”
The office door flew open.
Dree crammed the key into her satchel under her chair.
Alexandre and Georgie strode in, trailed by another brunette.
Maxence rose. “Christine.”
Chapter Twelve
Lady Christine Grimaldi
Dree
When Xan Valentine and Georgie walked in, Dree knew she had to act like a secretary, so she scuttled off to the archivist’s chair like a good little serving wench.
As soon as Maxence said, “Christine,” Dree turned back for a sneak peek.
Lady Christine Grimaldi was tall for a woman but not as giant as Maxence or Alexander. She was statuesque, Dree decided, a slim and beautiful brunette who could probably be imposing if she wanted to be.
The way Maxence hugged her and kissed both her cheeks was more affectionate than some of his other greetings. He held her at arm’s length for a moment, asking her how she was, and she murmured back to him.
Near her foot on the floor, Dree’s purse buzzed.
She really shouldn’t look at it during work. When she’d been at the hospital, she’d just shoved it in her locker during her shifts. Most of the nurses did that. The doctors didn’t, but you know, doctors.
Her phone buzzed so much that her purse slumped over and started to crawl across the carpeting.
She kicked the little pouch back under her chair.
Dree could still hear them talking in the back of the room, though they’d switched to some other Italian-sounding language.
Her phone buzzed and buzzed, which meant those were individual texts coming through, not a phone call.
She could check it real quick. Those guys probably wouldn’t even notice her looking at her phone.
Dree dumped her writing tablet on the desk and scrambled after her purse, digging through it to find her little phone that was having an absolute fit.
As she’d suspected, they were texts. Indeed, it seemed that her US cellular account must have connected to the Wi-Fi in the palace again. Dree wasn’t even sure how her phone bill was getting paid those days. She didn’t think there was any money in her bank account back in Phoenix after Francis had robbed her blind.
Some of the texts were family, including her sister Mandi, who was thanking Dree again for the enormous amount of money she’d sent a month ago that was paying for Victor’s new and more intensive therapy. She’d sent pictures of Victor, her son with severe, non-verbal autism, who did look calmer and more interested in whatever that was the therapist was shoving underneath his nose.
Some of the texts were from acquaintances and work friends, wanting to know why they hadn’t heard from her. Dree had only sent cryptic texts to a few of her closest friends to assure them that she was all right when she’d been in Paris a month ago and then again when she’d finally got Wi-Fi there in Monaco. She didn’t want to worry people, but after receiving those death threats from the guys who had killed her ex-boyfriend, she wasn’t going to tell people where she was, either.
But more death threats had scrolled onto her phone.
Where are you, little girl? We want the money you owe us. Francis Senft told us all about you before he died. You know that we will find you. You can’t go to work because we will find you there. You can’t go back to your apartment because we will find you there. We are watching your friends and all the places you like to go. Contact us so that we can arrange payment. You need to call me, Kir Sokolov, and he gave his phone number again.
There were more after that one, threatening more, insisting that they would f
ind her.
She’d have to go down to Colonel Sault’s office again and show him the new ones. And then he would want her to go to the police station again to update their records. The policeman she talked to earlier had been very kind and told her that they would watch out for her, but he’d also assured her that Monaco was the safest country in the world and that the palace was the safest place in Monaco.
Still, the amount of money the drug dealer said that she owed him freaked her out. She could probably never go home.
Maybe she would move to California or just go back to New Mexico.
There wasn’t anything much in Phoenix for her, anyway.
Dree turned her phone off. It wasn’t like anybody important called her.
Footsteps plodded on the carpet behind her, and the four of them reached the desk. The two ladies sat, and Maxence called for another chair. Alexandre leaned his butt against Maxence’s desk and crossed his long legs at the ankle.
Georgie caught Dree’s eye and grinned at her. “Hello, again. Fancy meeting you here.”
Dree shrugged back at her, trying for an impish look, and turned in her chair to face the desk.
The others chattered until the chair was brought, and then Georgie insisted that another cup of hot cocoa be brought for Dree.
Maxence mumbled, “I ordered four cups because I didn’t know you’d have Christine with you.”
Georgie told him, “But everyone needs a cup of cocoa.”
Alexandre laughed at them. “Give up, Max. She’s a pit bull lawyer when she has a cause.”
Another cup was procured, and Dree drank hot cocoa with the rest of them.
When everybody was settled, Maxence turned to Dree and reintroduced Alexandre and Georgie, and then said, “The final guest is Lady Christine Grimaldi, currently third in line for the throne in the traditional line of succession.”
Christine waved with her fingertips at Dree, who dutifully wrote down the name.
Maxence turned and looked at Dree, and his direct stare into her eyes startled her for a minute. She was supposed to be the invisible secretary, not somebody who got looked at by the prince. Max said, “Today’s topic is the amount of wine produced in the French vineyards around Monaco.”
Dree nodded and started writing baloney about grapes and wine barrels. She hoped she didn’t get stuff wrong.
Christine held up one finger and waved it at Maxence and Alexandre. “I cannot believe that I let you guys talk me into coming back here.
Georgie, who had sat right next to Dree again, leaned over and said to her, “I can’t believe she came back, either.”
Dree snickered in appreciation as she wrote fake notes about the amount of sunlight that grapes needed.
Christine continued, “And Marie-Therese was the worst. She’s been badgering me to come back ever since I took off. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was trying to lure me back here so her father could kill me and be one step closer to the throne.”
Maxence raised an eyebrow at Christine.
She brushed at the air with blunt fingers. Her fingernails were trimmed back tightly to her nail beds on her left hand and barely longer on her right. “She knows what he is. I can guarantee that Marie-Therese isn’t on his side for anything.”
“If you hadn’t come back,” Alexandre said, “the Council might’ve elected you in absentia. You wouldn’t have even had a chance to renounce before they crowned a mannequin in a brown wig.”
Christine shook her head. “You guys did not see the weird stuff that happened while I was in America.”
Maxence said, “I can have Sault look into it.”
Dree glanced toward the back of the room. Quentin Sault was standing by the door, his hands clasped in front of him. He rocked on his toes just a bit.
Christine said, “He won’t find anything. Jules has decided that he’s going to lie, cheat, or steal his way to the throne.”
Dree went back to making up stuff about wine.
Maxence asked Christine, “What happened that was suspicious?”
She said, “One day, my car wouldn’t start.”
Alexandre laughed at her. “Are you still driving that Jaguar? You should know you need two of those, so you have something to drive when one is in the shop.”
“I don’t think my Jaguar is going to be getting out of the shop very soon because after I walked inside to call a cab, it exploded.”
Dree wrote hurriedly about wine and tried not to look completely aghast.
Maxence’s face lost all emotion and hardened. “You didn’t tell us this.”
“I didn’t tell anybody anything. Flicka’s husband set me up in a little house in the suburbs with a detail of four security guys. I had to leave the door open when I went to the bathroom, because evidently, they were worried ninjas would sneak in through the exhaust fan and kidnap me.” Christine elbowed Georgie. “Those mercenaries were cute, though. I kept leaving my bedroom door open, but it didn’t seem to work.”
This time, Alexandre’s face went rigid.
Georgie cracked up.
Christine was cool and collected in the face of danger, even cracking jokes. That was very country of her. Dree approved.
Maxence leaned on his elbows and clasped his hands on the desktop. “Let’s get right to business. Christine, would you like to be the Sovereign Princess of Monaco?”
Christine threw her head back and laughed hard, her shoulders up around her ears. “Oh, hell, no. What have I ever said that made you think I would accept that?”
Georgie said, “I don’t think she can. The treaties with France might not allow a female to inherit.”
“What?” Dree demanded and then clapped her hand over her mouth.
Georgie shrugged and said to her, “The Monegasque throne is male-preferred primogeniture succession with an election by restricted noble electors, but there may be problems with agnatic inheritance and Salic law. No one likes it. Creates problems, like, the whole plot of Shakespeare’s Henry V.”
Oh, that totally cleared everything up.
Dree wrote, Grapes make wine. Smashed ones.
“But the line went through Princess Charlotte,” Maxence said. “She was the heir apparent, and her son Rainier III inherited the title.”
Yeah, of course, Max knew the piddly details of whatever they were talking about. Princess Charlotte was probably his great grandmother or something.
Georgie nodded. “But Princess Charlotte abdicated in favor of her son as soon as she legally could when he was eighteen, and it was before her father died. She was never actually crowned. The monarchy skipped a generation when the Council confirmed him.”
“That sucks,” Dree said.
“Yeah,” Georgie said to her and nodded, wrinkling her nose.
Maxence said, “But times have changed.”
“But the Council of Nobles has only confirmed the guy who was first in line for the throne, anyway,” Alexandre said. “They’re just a rubber stamp. What makes you think they will elect someone who isn’t the heir apparent?”
“Because I believe the Council will ultimately make the good and moral choice,” Maxence said.
Alexandre snorted. “Okay.”
Max said, “Just because inheritance is passed preferentially through the male line doesn’t mean that we couldn’t have a sovereign princess. Christine, wouldn’t you like to be the first to challenge the gender barrier?”
Christine shook her head. “Nope.”
“But surely you must—”
“Nope. Never.”
Alexandre talked to Christine. “Look, Maxence already took Holy Orders because he assumed Pierre was going to inherit, so he’s out. I have that little problem from when I was a teenager that people will take offense to. You are the last person standing between Uncle Jules and the throne.”
Christine shook her head. “I’m not doing it. I like breathing. And if you coerce enough votes to elect me, my second official act will be to abdicate. My first will be to
send ninja assassins after you both.”
Maxence sighed. “Is there anything I can do, anything at all, to change your mind? We can keep you safe.”
Christine shook her head again. “I don’t think you can protect me. Jules is going to do whatever it takes to be crowned. He’s going to turn this country into a dictatorship. After that, we’ll have to play by Orwell’s rules. The only way to fight him is to look like we’re not.”
Alexandre cocked his head to the side. “So, you would leave our fellow Monegasques to be ruled by a dictator?”
Christine set her jaw. “I’d rather be a fighter in the resistance than a martyr for the cause. Getting in Jules Grimaldi’s way will get you killed.”
Maxence steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “What if we could make it look like you were drafted? You could continue denying any interest in the throne right up until you accepted and took power.”
“Nope. My lack of interest in the throne is absolutely genuine.”
Alexandre tucked his chin to his chest and crossed his arms. “Dammit.”
Dree hadn’t written anything in a while, so she scribbled, The French vineyards are producing enough wine for Monaco for supper tonight.
Maxence leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “I’ve identified a few candidates, but I must admit, I was hoping this discussion would go differently.”
After a whole lot more talking about relatives and Dree making up stuff about wine, the others left, and Dree was alone with Maxence again.
He said, “My apartment, midnight.”
Dree answered, “Yes, sir.”
“Good.”
“See?” she asked. “Isn’t it better when you don’t try to be subtle?”
Chapter Thirteen
Boats
Maxence
Goddammit, that evening’s supper soiree was on a boat.
Prince: Royal Romantic Suspense (Billionaires in Disguise: Maxence Book 5) Page 12