After they toured the public areas, Maxence led her deeper into the casino.
She said, “I love the arched doors, but this room seems familiar.”
Dark wood paneling lined the walls to about eight feet, where subtle gold and sage green accents took over and soared to the ceiling five stories or more above.
Maxence said, “This is the Salle Médecin. It used to be James Bond’s special haunt to play baccarat and roulette, but now the space is more often used for galas, tournaments, and private events.”
“This is amazing.”
When Maxence looked down at Dree, her eyes were sparkling with wonder. “I’m glad you think so.”
They walked out of the rear doors onto a wide terrace and wandered through the small botanical gardens back there. Finally, they came to a white railing that overlooked the sapphire harbor filled with superyachts, cruise ships, and hundreds of smaller watercraft.
Dree sighed and shuffled closer to him, and Maxence looped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side again. Before he even noticed what he was doing, he leaned down and kissed her forehead.
He shouldn’t be too affectionate because that might lead to misunderstandings, but it was fun to play for a while.
It was a lot of fun to play for a while.
Dree pointed downward from the terrace on which they stood. “What’s that?”
A peninsula jutted out into the Mediterranean Sea, and a rainbow mosaic had been tiled onto the roof of a large hexagonal building. “That’s the Auditorium Rainier III. The Philharmonic plays there a lot, and it holds a lot of different cultural events. That mosaic on the roof is called the Hexa Grace. The auditorium has only been there for a little while. Before that, there was a sporting club.”
“Oh?”
Maxence stared into the air drenched with sunshine. “When I came home to Monaco for school vacations, I ran around the casino and the other gardens. When I was a boy, and I must have been pretty young, there were pigeon nests on the casino roof, hundreds of them. I went up there as a child to count the eggs and watch them hatch.”
For absolutely no good reason, Maxence kept talking.
“They were homing pigeons. They always came back. Generations of pigeons laid their eggs up there, hatched, and grew up. And there were traps up there.”
Dree frowned, confused. “Traps? I’m surprised they didn’t have spikes up there to make them go away.”
He nodded, even though he wasn’t surprised. “After the birds were trapped, the cages were taken down to the sporting club. There, they were stuffed into a tunnel. It must have been terrifying in there, dark and hot and crowded. The Riviera gets steamy in the summers. They must have been praying for God to free them. When they reached the other end, the birds emerged and flew into the sky, where the hunters were waiting with their shotguns.”
Her small gasp disappeared into the breeze. “Max, you’re going to give me nightmares.”
“Some of them escaped. Some were only winged.” His mouth kept talking like his soul was trying to fly into the air and away over the sea. “But those that survived, like all pigeons, returned to where they were hatched, which was the roof of the Monte Carlo casino, where the traps were waiting.”
She blinked. “Oh, my God. Wait, so when people shoot shotguns at those ceramic disks they call ‘clay pigeons,’ they used real pigeons? Like, the birds?”
“That is what it refers to.”
“Ew. I would never shoot an animal I didn’t intend to eat.”
“Monaco used live homing pigeons for years after everyone else had gone to clay pigeons because it was decadent and callously elite to kill live birds for fun, sort of like trophy-hunting endangered animals on a game ranch. It’s a blood sport. The wealthy like blood sports.”
Dree’s lip lifted. “That’s disgusting.”
Maxence couldn’t seem to shut up. “Live birds were considered more sporting. Clay disks sail in a trajectory preordained by physics. Birds fly erratically and have free will. You have to be a better shot to hit a bird.”
“That is gross.”
Maxence surveyed the harbor, the pristine water crammed with the ships and yachts of the uberwealthy, the ones who engaged in blood sports to whet their appetite for domination. “It seems that I’m just another Monte Carlo homing pigeon who returns to the traps on the rooftop. It calls me back. I can’t stay away.”
And yet, he was a Grimaldi, so he was also the hunter.
The sun had drifted westward, and it was time to return to the palace.
Maxence turned back to the terrace and the gardens behind the casino where tourists milled, gawking and pointing.
Sunlight showered the plants and people, shining and glinting on the people’s vibrant afternoon clothes as they strolled along the Riviera next to the Mediterranean Sea.
Except for one man.
He wore a dark gray boxy suit, and the sunshine glinted on the silver in his close-cropped hair.
Quentin Sault stared straight at Maxence, touched his ear and said something, and then faded into the crowd like a puff of pale smoke.
Chapter Nineteen
Norberta von und Lichtenstein
Maxence
The cool days accumulated into weeks. The calendar on Max’s phone told him where to go every minute of the day.
Maxence wished Dree was at his side for that evening’s cocktail party, but the electors on the Crown Council would look askance at him if he escorted an admin to a royal soirée.
The event had been “sponsored” by a large wealth management firm. Their sizeable contribution to Monaco’s coffers had purchased pictures with Monaco’s royal family standing on their red carpet in front of a large screen with their logo embossed on it. The firm would also pay a percentage of their annual gross revenue into Monaco’s treasury the next year.
Pierre had enjoyed photo ops and networking opportunities like this one. If he hadn’t committed suicide, Monaco’s treasury would have been flush with cash from his celebrity.
Prince Rainier IV had detested these events. After his wife had died tragically young, his sisters and nieces had pitched in to keep him company and make these galas tolerable for him.
Uncle Rainier had been a good man, Maxence mused. He’d been grumpy at events like this to the point of turning it into a joke, but he’d left Monaco in better shape than he’d found it, both financially and as a society.
Marie-Therese had done more than her fair share of hanging on her uncle’s elbow at events like this one, claiming the events also benefitted her social media role. She’d halfway become the face of Monaco because paparazzi pics of royal bachelorettes sell magazines and invite clicks.
But not as well as those of single, royal bachelors, Max noticed.
He was walking between velvet ropes on the red carpet, approaching the photo-op area.
Camera flashes became a wall of light rushing at him. He squinted and smiled with one hand tucked in the pocket of his new Tom Ford tuxedo trousers.
The light became a tsunami cresting over him until he walked inside the door.
Darkness.
Maxence’s breath caught in his throat. He froze.
His feet contained in his rigid dress shoes, the left one laced slightly tighter than the right. The soles of his feet bearing his weight and planted on the firm floor. The crook of his thumb pressing on the seam of his pocket. His silk tie around his collar and neck. Cool air settling on his cheekbones. Over a hundred voices chattering and laughing, dissonant strings grinding in the moist air. Frying meat, spilled alcohol, women’s perfume, his fresh-wood cologne, and the sweat of human animals herded tightly together.
The taste of fear on the back of his tongue.
His eyes stretched.
Neon lines grew out of the darkness and formed lilies rising toward the ceiling.
Pale light dusted women’s bare arms, the sequins and beads on their gowns, and their shining hair before finding the men who wore dark
suits.
The room was dim but not dark, and Maxence had a party to attend.
He drew a deep breath and stepped into the reception, greeting friends with a double-kiss and the event’s sponsors with a firm handshake after he’d wiped the sweat from his palm onto the seam of his trousers.
The cocktail party that night was being held in the Salle Médecin, the very same room in the Monte Carlo casino that had enchanted Dree just a few days before. The baccarat and gaming tables had been removed, and giant, glowing mushrooms and neon-tube flowers filled the darkened room to the ceiling five stories above as if the guests had shrunk. Eight open bars were strategically placed among the glowing flora, and the few hundred royals and oligarchs in the room threw back alcohol. Hors d’oeuvre stations were scattered among the surreal landscape to stave off inebriation too early in the evening. A five-piece string quartet scraped dissonant notes.
Security personnel lined the edges of the room, leaning against the walls and scanning the space for threats.
Quentin Sault stood at the corner of the room, having flanked Maxence as he’d walked the red carpet and entered through a discreet door farther down the hallway. Three men stood beside Sault, more of Max’s detail since he was out of the palace. All of them wore dark, boxy suits and seemed to have no necks.
Another man walked up to Sault, seemingly larger and more neckless than the rest. Max recognized Michael Rossi, the man who’d trailed him in Paris, conferring with Sault and gesturing toward the other end of the room.
Maxence followed Rossi’s waving arm and found his cousin, Marie-Therese, standing with her father, Jules Grimaldi. Sault must have assigned Rossi to the security detail that looked after his cousin Marie-Therese or his uncle Jules. At least they were far enough away from Max.
They both seemed to be having a splendid time. Marie-Therese laughed and bent over to give one of her father’s friends a view down her cleavage. Jules was chuckling with his hand on his tummy, holding a martini in his other hand. Maxence didn’t recognize the people standing with them. They might be either from the wealth management company or some of their better clients who had received one of the coveted invitations to hobnob with the royals.
He moved farther into the crowd at the party.
If Dree were at his side, he could only imagine what pithy adage she would use to describe the cluster of bluebloods and billionaires negotiating the business of the world in the Alice in Wonderland-style landscape.
He couldn’t expose her like that, of course.
Her anonymity was her safety.
As Max greeted his friends and people who wanted to be his friends for their own reasons, lightbulbs flashed. Professional photographers roamed the room, snapping pictures of guests having a splendid time while they discussed wealth management.
His goal for the night was to find his great-uncle Louis Grimaldi and Valentina Martini and decide who between the two of them would make the better monarch for Monaco. Perhaps seeing them in a formal social setting might help make up his mind.
Maxence caught a glimpse of his great-uncle Louis among neon palm fronds, holding a drink and talking with a few other people of his generation. Lurid fuchsia light glinted on bald pates and silver hair. The five of them were waving their drinks around as they spoke about something that must be very important, or else they were performing an interpretive dance about seaweed.
Camera flashes lit the room, throwing silver light and black shadows at the walls.
Maxence was just about to make his way over to his uncle when he caught a glimpse of Lady Valentina Martini, the other person Nico had identified as a likely candidate for the crown.
Lady Valentina huddled with a more sober group of women, and all of them seemed to be speaking in lower tones. Occasionally, one of them glanced around, either bored or just taking stock of the room, but none of them were flailing about.
Because Maxence hadn’t spoken to Valentina since he’d been back in Monaco, he threaded his way through the crowd to talk to her first.
He’d almost reached Lady Valentina Martini, and indeed Valentina had glanced up at him with one eyebrow lowered, when a light hand touched his arm. A soprano, feminine voice asked, somewhere near his shoulder, “Maxence? Imagine meeting you here.”
Max glanced down, not showing his irritation at being waylaid, and found his acquaintance from school, Kira Augusta von Prussia. Her pearl pink gown was almost as pale as her porcelain skin, and her hair was so fair, it was silvery. Alfred Hitchcock would’ve called her an icy blonde, as he had Max’s grandmother.
Maxence said, “Kira? I heard you were up in the Netherlands working as a cultural attaché.”
Her slim arms wafted into the air, and Maxence bent to kiss her on both cheeks.
Her cool lips brushed his skin. Up close, her flawless skin made him wonder if she was one of the stark white mannequins positioned around the room that had acquired a dress.
Kira said, “I was bored. I thought I would come down and see if there was anything in Monaco that was more exciting to do.”
Maxence gestured at the room. “There’s certainly something more surreal.”
Firefly drones floated overhead, spelling out “Monaco welcomes you” as they rippled in the air.
“It certainly is more interesting than anything in the Hague.” She tucked her arm through his, a surprisingly intimate gesture from the ordinarily reticent Kira von Prussia. A few months ago, he would’ve thought he was going to get laid. She said, “I was thinking about you the other day.”
Such a forthcoming admission from the icy blonde. “I appreciate that you remembered me.”
“I was thinking about the time when we were in upper school, on that field trip to Paris to see the Louvre yet one more time?”
Several of those occasions came to the forefront of Maxence’s mind. “Was that the time you and Marie-Therese got drunk at the hotel bar, and when the chaperones made you stay in your room instead of letting you go to the Louvre, you guys got drunk again from the minibar in protest?”
Her serene smile did not move, not even in amusement. “I meant the time when that group of us sneaked out of the hotel and went to the jazz club.”
Ah, he did remember that. Afterward, music that had been processed and idealized for recordings seemed like an entirely different artform than live music. Maxence hadn’t missed a chance to see any live concert ever since. “You can’t go wrong with Parisian jazz.”
“We sat in a booth together.”
“I guess we did.”
“I hoped all night that you would kiss me, but you just listened to the music.”
Maxence had seen just about everything in his life, but being hit on by the unobtainable Kira Augusta, Princess of Prussia, threw him so much that he had to concentrate on walking, lest the toe of his dress shoe drag on the thick carpeting and he end up flat on the floor, an enormous tree fallen amongst the neon lilies.
A photographer snaked over to them, reared up to shower them with white from her flash, and slithered back into the crowd.
Maxence said to Kira, “I never knew you felt that way. I’m surprised you haven’t said anything in all these intervening years.”
“After we graduated from Le Rosey, it seemed we all jetted off for college in different directions, and then you truly left everyone behind to go to seminary in Latin America.”
“That’s true, but—”
“Once you enrolled in seminary, I would never have made my feelings known.”
Wait, were they talking about feelings? “Kira, I—”
“But now that you’ve returned to Monaco for good—”
Maxence turned and looked down at her. Her expression seemed serenely amused, but all of Kira’s expressions were serenely something. “I’m only here to settle the election of a new sovereign prince, and then I’m leaving again.”
She blinked, a perfectly posed portrait come to life. “But you’re the heir to the throne. You’re going to be the sovere
ign prince.”
“It’s a complicated story, but I have no intention of taking the throne.” They had reached Valentina Martini’s small group. “Lovely to see you again, Kira, but I need to have a conversation with these ladies.”
Kira floated back into the neon flowers, gently slipping between the people in the crowd without a ripple.
That was odd.
Maxence did not like odd.
Previously in his life, odd usually meant someone was going to try to stuff him in the back of a black SUV.
But he turned and faced Valentina Martini, one of his candidates for the throne. “Lady Valentina, how lovely to see you here.”
Valentina Martini’s gown was navy blue silk, almost black in the dim illumination from the twisted tubes of colored neon, with silver embroidery vining her left side. She hadn’t inherited the black hair and black eyes of their Grimaldi ancestors but was blond and blue-eyed, descended from other Nordic stock who had married into the House of Grimaldi. Lady Valentina was—Max traced his family tree in his head—his grandfather’s older sister’s granddaughter, which made them second cousins.
Lady Valentina looked him up and down before extending her hand to shake. “Prince Maxence, I heard you had arrived in Monaco once again.”
“Those rumors are true. I’ve been trying to get an appointment with you.”
“I’m terribly busy with the charities I support, Prince Maxence.”
Her charitable work might give him some insight into her interests and capabilities. “Very noble of you. What are your sponsored charities, by the way?”
She pursed her lips together before she answered. “Pinniped Rescue of Monaco, and Polo for Disadvantaged Youth.”
Those are weirdly specific charities. “Pinnipeds? Do you mean like the Mediterranean monk seal? So, you work with endangered marine life?”
“Sure.”
Maxence continued, “I’m not sure how polo helps disadvantaged youth. It’s certainly not a sport they could continue without significant support, and I’m not aware of professional polo teams that they could be recruited by. What is the model behind that?”
Prince: Royal Romantic Suspense (Billionaires in Disguise: Maxence Book 5) Page 17