Marie-Therese was wearing the same badge but pinned on her left shoulder from a ribbon the same color as his necklet, which meant that she was a Lady of the same order, two grades below his. Their uncle Prince Rainier IV had always been stingy about handing out royal honors.
Maxence said to Marie-Therese, “Don’t let me keep you if you want to mingle.”
“I’ll break away in a few minutes, Maxsy, but we are attracting a great deal of attention from the press. It’s in Monaco’s best interests if we stay together for a few more minutes.”
As Maxence moved into the crowd, he caught a glimpse of a tall man with blond hair hanging down over his shoulders.
He managed to intercept his cousin. “Alexandre! I’m so glad you came to the gala.”
A firm handshake, and Alexandre introduced his wife, Georgie, to Marie-Therese. “Wouldn’t have missed it for the world, Max, and I’m glad to see we will wrap up our duties here tomorrow.”
Georgie was watching Marie-Therese closely, even scrutinizing her, but Maxence was more interested in the honors Alexandre was wearing. Alex wore a red and white sash across his chest like a beauty pageant contestant, pinned with a badge on his right hip and a silver and green star on his left shoulder. “Is that the Order of St. Charles? What rank are you?”
Alexandre’s smile turned smug. “I didn’t think you’d notice. It’s the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Charles.”
That was the highest rank in the highest order that Monaco awarded to anyone. Usually, only the Prince and his Princess Consort were members. “How the hell did you get that?”
Alexandre winked at him. “As always, it had to do with a bet.”
Georgie cocked her head to the side and asked, “Marie-Therese Grimaldi? Weren’t you a bridesmaid in Flicka’s wedding to Pierre in Paris?”
Marie-Therese nodded, smiling as always. “Yes, how kind of you to remember. Were you there?”
Georgie said, “I got there the next day, for the wedding of Wulfram von Hannover to Reagan Stone, my best friend.”
Marie-Therese pressed her lips together and her smile at Georgie turned a little chilly. “Maxence and I had already jetted back to Monaco early that morning. I wasn’t even aware of the von Hannover wedding until months later.”
“Yeah,” Georgie said, almost laughing, but she was still looking Marie-Therese dead-level in her eyes. “I heard.”
Marie-Therese clamped her hand around Maxence’s arm again. “So lovely to see you again, Alexandre, and so nice to finally meet your wife. You must bring her around more often.”
When they were out in the crowd again, Maxence asked her, “What was that about?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing,” Marie-Therese said, her jaw bulging oddly.
Crossing the floor of the Grimaldi Forum took an hour and a half. Maxence and Marie-Therese greeted old friends and VIPs, took selfies with people and caught up, but finally they reached one of the open bars to obtain drinks.
A moment presented itself when they were marginally less observed by everyone in the convention center. Maxence stirred his Macallan Rare Cask on the rocks and asked his cousin in a low voice, “What the hell were you thinking last night?”
Marie-Therese rolled her eyes so hard that he thought she would fling her false eyelashes against the glass wall between them and the glittering sea. “We need to make an alliance, Maxence. Other people in the Crown Council are moving to influence the election.”
That was news. “That explains absolutely nothing about how you ended up in my bed wearing trashy lingerie.”
Marie-Therese’s dark eyes flipped open further. “It was not trashy! It’s Myla.”
“I don’t care if it’s Bordelle Couture. I don’t expect my cousin to be wearing it in my bed.”
She pressed her lips together and flirted with him out of the corners of her eyes. “You like the more niche type of lingerie, do you? I’ll remember that next time.”
Maxence really should be more careful not to give anything about himself away, even to his cousins with whom he’d grown up. “There will not be a ‘next time.’ You’re a beautiful woman and any other man would be lucky to have you, but I’m your first cousin.”
“Oh, Maxsy.”
“Please don’t call me that.”
“Lots of people in our family have made alliances to keep others from taking the throne.”
“We’re not making that kind of alliance, and I thought you didn’t want the throne. I thought you wanted to be a social media influencer or whatever it is you do.”
She paused then said, “I thought you didn’t want the throne, either.”
“I don’t,” he said.
“But you don’t want certain other people getting it.”
“No.”
“And that’s why we need to make an alliance.”
“This explains nothing about last night.”
Marie-Therese leaned toward him and whispered, “Other people have been talking to the electors, not just you.”
Maxence did not roll his eyes. It took a lot of effort, but he did not. He felt one eyebrow creep down toward his eyelid, however. “I’ve counted the votes. My faction will win.”
“I don’t think you’re counting correctly.”
“They’ve assured me.”
“Some of them are assuring a lot of other people of their votes, too.”
“I’m confident in my assessment.”
“Max, I’m telling you that you shouldn’t be.”
“All of them have said they will vote with me.”
“No. A lot of them have said they’ll vote for you, not with you.”
“They all know I’m going to take Holy Orders and be a priest.”
Marie-Therese tilted her head to the side and squinted at him, a sardonic smile on her scarlet lips. “But do they?”
“Yes, all of them. I have assured every single one of them of it.”
“That’s not what people are saying. They think you’re talking to them because you’re standing for election, but you’re being coy about it.”
“But I’m not.”
“And that’s going to be a catastrophic shock to them, and they’re going to want to go down the line of succession in an orderly fashion after you, which means Alexandre, and then Christine, and then my father.”
“But we don’t have to go in order,” Maxence said. “You gave me that idea.”
“My father’s been picking off the weak members of your coalition. At this point, I don’t think you have a majority. I think you’re short by five votes, and that’s because my father thinks he’s up by the same.”
Heat prickled Max’s face. “Surely, not.”
“He’s been more methodical than you, and he’s had more time because you’ve been worrying about the tourism office’s advertising budget and the cost of olive oil from Italy.”
“Meetings like those are important parts of running the country.”
“Which is a job you don’t have yet.”
“But someone had to do it.”
“But now you have a problem. Some of your voters have been lured away.”
“I’ll talk to them,” Maxence said, mentally rearranging his schedule for the next day. “I’ll have them back in line before the meeting at five o’clock.”
“My father will be doing the same thing.”
Frustration welled in his chest. “Then what do you propose we do?”
“I think ‘propose’ is the operative word here,” she mused, holding her champagne flute near her cheek and gazing up at the glass ceiling of the convention center and the stars above.
“I beg your pardon,” Maxence said, still calculating votes and trying to figure out who had deserted him.
Marie-Therese reached over with her long, delicate fingers and stroked the red silk scarf tucked into the lapels of his tuxedo jacket, right above where his heart was beating. “You have a significant number of votes, just not quite a majority. I have a few votes, a
nd I can siphon off a few more from my father. Together, we’d take about seventy-five percent of the votes, an easy supermajority that my father would never see coming.”
His grandmother’s engagement ring weighed heavily in his pocket. “Together?” he repeated her word, shocked to his core.
“Yes,” Marie-Therese said, looking up into his eyes with a dark, calculating stare, her tone a little too steel-edged to be considered bright. “We would announce our engagement at the start of the Crown Council meeting, which would sway additional sentiment toward us.”
That was why she’d been in his bed. “That won’t work. We’re cousins.”
She stepped back and sipped her champagne, surveying the crowd as she swallowed. “First of all, we’re royal, so it’s done all the time. And secondly, considering our parents, I’d say we’re probably cousins. There’s maybe a fifty-fifty chance we’re actually related. I mean, what are the chances, really?”
“That’s my mother you’re talking about,” Max said.
“Well, I’m talking about mine, too. Only one of them needed to fool around to make us not genetically related to each other.”
“This is not the topic for a conversation in public.” Max’s relationship with his parents had been a complicated one, like most of his friends who’d been raised by nannies and then shipped directly off to boarding school when they were five. They’d both died when he was a teenager.
“You and Pierre look enough alike, and you both look like your dad and our grandfather. Me and him?” Marie-Therese gestured at her short, chubby father, Prince Jules. He was talking to some of their mutual relatives and some Russian oligarchs, the Sokolovs and the Ilyins from the look of them, and was surrounded by a ring of security who glowered at the other guests of the gala. “Not so much.”
One of the men standing behind Prince Jules, one of the more massive ones, angled toward Maxence for a just a moment, giving Max a view of his white bulldog silhouette and smashed-in nose.
Michael Rossi had shaved off the scruff of brown hair that had bristled from the top of his head. He sneered at the crowd as the bright LEDs glared white on his bald pate.
Puzzle pieces clicked together in Max’s head. His cobbled-together family in Kinshasa showing up in Monaco after being contacted by Michael Rossi, one of the people tracking Max and Dree in Paris turning out to be Michael Rossi, and now, Michael Rossi was acting as a personal bodyguard for Jules. It was all a subtle web of threats and machinations that led back to Jules Grimaldi.
Always, Jules Grimaldi.
Maxence kept talking, lest Jules’s daughter standing right there with him see too much in his face. “That doesn’t mean—”
“My parents don’t need you to lie and defend their morality, Max. I know exactly what they are and especially what he is, and that’s why I’m trying to throw my lot in with you, if you don’t screw it up.”
Desperation could make people do things out of character, which might explain Marie-Therese showing up in his bed the previous night. “You could have just told me your worries about the vote.”
She shrugged. “I was raised with my father in his house, at least during school vacations. Family resemblance or not, I am his daughter. Crawling into your bed seemed more likely to work than blabbing the truth.”
Just then, Maxence happened to notice his cousin Nico making his way away from the bar, holding a martini. “Nevertheless, I do not want the throne, and you said you don’t, either. So, I’ve already arranged for another candidate.”
“You’re joking,” she said, her voice flat.
“Not at all.”
“But who else could possibly, possibly be a candidate for the throne?”
Max reached out and palmed Nico’s shoulder, directing him into the conversation with him and Marie-Therese. “Nico, so good to see you here.”
“You aren’t getting out of this conversation that easily,” Marie-Therese said.
Maxence asked, “Nico, have you made your decision?”
Marie-Therese looked between the two of them and emphatically said, “No way.”
Nico leaned toward Max. “I thought we were keeping this confidential.”
“She’s on our side,” Max told him.
Nico raised one eyebrow but said, “If you still think it’s a good option, I will accept.”
Marie-Therese’s eyes, already lined with makeup until she resembled an anime character, widened still further. “You’re kidding me.”
Maxence smiled at her. “Not at all. I think Nico would be an excellent choice.”
“He’s not even in the line of succession.”
“Sure he is,” Maxence said, turning to look at Nico. “You’re, what? Number thirty-two? Thirty-three?”
Nico waved his hand in the air. “Every time someone has a baby or passes eighty years old, it changes. I can’t keep track.”
Marie-Therese rolled her eyes. “The conservatives are never going to vote for him. The ones who think there shouldn’t be an election at all, that there should just be a confirmation for the next person in line, are never going to vote for someone who’s so far down the line of succession.”
“The point of the election has always been to safeguard the throne from someone who would abuse it,” Maxence said. “Why shouldn’t we elect the person who would do the best job?”
“If we’re going to do that,” she pulled Max’s arm toward her and whispered, “we might as well be a democracy.”
Maxence whispered back, “Splendid idea.”
Marie-Therese stepped back. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Maybe,” he told her, “but I think Monaco garners sufficient publicity from the royal family not to abolish it completely.”
Marie-Therese shook her head. “I’m going to go get drunk, because you obviously already are.”
Maxence called after her, “Don’t forget we have to open the dancing!”
Nico stared at her retreating back. “If we can’t convince people like Marie-Therese to vote for me, this is never going to work.”
Maxence turned back to him. “She was just surprised. I’ll bring her around tomorrow. Let’s go to the dining room. Supper will be served in a few minutes.”
She had been shocked by the switch to Nico, however. Maybe Maxence should prepare the members of his voting bloc to vote for his second cousin Nicostrato Grimaldi tomorrow.
The supper was served on the upper floors at round tables seating twelve people each. Maxence switched a few name cards to seat Nico next to him so they could plot their coup for the next evening. The other ten people at their table were senior government ministers and VIP guests. They vied for Maxence’s attention because they thought he was going to be the sovereign, when they should have been competing for Nico’s attention, which amused Max for the duration of the supper.
Nico seemed solemn, which Maxence thought was a good look for him. If he held that expression at the election the next day, people might be more likely to vote for the young man who took the job so seriously. Some nobles had privately expressed worries that Pierre might not have taken the responsibility seriously enough, considering his reputation. Emphasizing that Nico would approach the job industriously might win over a few more electors that Maxence had not been able to quite persuade.
Nico asked him, “And you were serious when you said you’d stay for at least six months? Or a year if I need it?”
“Absolutely.” After Max was ordained, if he were ordained, he would immediately ask for a leave of absence to make sure Nico was taken care of before he began the last stage of his Jesuit training.
“You’re sure? It feels like you’re humoring me.” Nico had known Maxence for a long time.
“Before I make any other commitments, I’ll make sure that I can be here for the next six months, possibly twelve.”
Nico tilted his head, smiling a little at Maxence. “What are you planning?”
Max shrugged, grinning a little and looking over the crowded rou
nd tables filling the room. “I’m not sure yet. It depends.”
Nico leaned toward him just a little bit. “Does it have anything to do with Princess Grace’s engagement ring that you took out of the vault this morning?”
Conflict rose in his head. “I wanted to see it. I wanted to hold it. I remember her, you know. She was extraordinarily kind, at least as much as I can remember. She smuggled cookies to me when I was at home and mailed them to me when I was in kindergarten at Le Rosey.”
“I think she was my great grand-aunt, maybe. I was presented to her and Prince Rainier III a few times when I was a toddler, but I don’t really remember her at all.”
“You’re a few years younger than I am, and I was seven when she had the car accident.”
“The roads around here are treacherous. I’ve nearly gone over an edge a couple of times when I just blinked.”
After supper, Maxence consulted his watch. The blue steel face told him that it was nine-thirty and time for the dancing to start, so he sent Quentin Sault to find Marie-Therese.
Nico and he only had a few moments to conclude their conversation before Quentin returned with Marie-Therese, who appeared to have availed herself of the bar and was just the slightest bit tipsy.
They’d both learned the usual ballroom dances at boarding school and were proficient enough not to make an absolute embarrassment of themselves at a charity event like the Sea Change Gala. Luckily, the band struck up a waltz for the first dance, an easy one. Marie-Therese settled one hand on his shoulder and Maxence grabbed her other one, lest one of her hands end up on his ass. He led her through the steps, alternately gazing fondly at his cousin and looking up to make sure that he wasn’t going to bulldoze into the edge of the crowd. They didn’t need to keep this up for very long, so after two verses, Maxence slowed them to a stop and bowed to his cousin.
Maxence was just holding out his arm and motioning for everybody else to join them on the dance floor so he could make his escape when, in the crowd of black tuxedos and dark-gowned women, one sunny blonde wearing a shimmering silver dress stood out like a sunbeam in the night.
Around her smooth throat, she wore a platinum cross necklace that glimmered in the candlelight, a momento of stolen time in Nepal and a quiet, personal Christmas morning that stood out among all the others in his life, when he’d given it to her because angels should wear a cross.
Prince: Royal Romantic Suspense (Billionaires in Disguise: Maxence Book 5) Page 26