Pierre sat on a chair on the other side of the coffee table. “She won’t convert to Catholicism. She won’t even hear talk of it. Her family were Huguenots, persecuted Protestants in northern France.”
“And she’s not royal,” Flicka said.
“My uncle would never have allowed a dynastic marriage to her.”
“But I’m royal,” Flicka said. “I have an even better title than a principality.”
“Monaco has been trying to marry a Hannover princess for generations,” he laughed, “and we finally got one.”
Flicka flinched. Josephine had told her that Pierre was only after her title, but she hadn’t believed her. Who would have believed such a thing was even possible these days? “So I had the appropriate pedigree, like a show horse or a breeding dog.”
“It’s not like that, Flicka.”
“But she didn’t.”
“That sounds so snobbish, and it isn’t like that. She’s angry about me marrying you.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet.”
“But she understands.”
“Does she?” Flicka pushed another birth certificate aside, revealing a photocopy of a church record. “You married her in their church. Before God and their congregation, you said your vows to Abigai Caillemotte and married her six years ago.”
“Yes,” Pierre said, “but the Catholic Church won’t recognize it, and Monaco won’t recognize it. The French province and the national French government never recorded it. My uncle never gave permission for a dynastic marriage. It isn’t a legal marriage. She doesn’t have any claim to your title, and my children with her have no claim on our throne.”
A tear slipped out of Flicka’s eye, and she brushed it away. “Our deal was that you could screw around. This isn’t screwing around, Pierre. This is a marriage to another woman, a woman you love. I thought I got your heart. You said that I had your heart. No matter what you did with your dick, I thought you loved me.”
“Flicka, I do love you.”
“Not like you love Abigai.”
“It’s different.”
A hot drop splashed on her hand. “What is it about her? Why did you fall in love with her and not with me?”
“I was involved with her before I met you. It was never a contest. You never lost. She never won. It’s just the situation we’re in.”
“What was it about her? Did you fall in insta-love with her the moment you met? Does she have a magic pussy or something?”
He shrugged, and his dark eyes drifted upward with thought.
At least he was thinking hard like he wanted to give her a real answer instead of pacifying her, like he had been doing.
Pierre sighed, and then he spoke slowly. “At first it was just a screw, like everyone else, but I spent time with her. When I was with her, I was away from—” Pierre gestured to his head of security, Quentin Sault, standing by the door, and then his hands widened, to encompass the room, the hotel, the extravaganza of a wedding she’d thrown, and maybe the insanity of being royal in a world without monarchs. “—All of this. She’s a world away from all of this.”
His wedding ring, platinum and discreetly paved with tiny diamonds, glittered in the light from the lamp by his chair as his expansive gesture included Flicka.
“All of this?” She gestured to the room.
“The pomp,” he said, musing, “the pompousness. The invasive press. The security every minute of the day. The fashion, and what happens if you wear the wrong thing. The arts, and what happens if you’re seen in the wrong place. The negotiations for publicity and tourism and events for Monaco. It’s exhausting.”
“If you don’t like it, you should abdicate.”
“Never,” he said, his voice lowering. “I was born to be the Prince of Monaco. I will live and die as the sovereign Prince of Monaco.”
“And yet you wouldn’t be, if your uncle had married someone.”
“That’s fate,” Pierre said. “I will never give up the crown. I want to be the Prince. I’ve been waiting for it my whole life. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
“You could have just waited until your uncle died and then married whomever you wanted.”
“No,” Pierre said, frowning. “I couldn’t. That’s not the way it works.”
“Why not?”
“Because I might die,” he said.
“That would be Maxence’s problem.”
“But he won’t take it. He’d abdicate.”
Flicka knew exactly why, too. “Alexandre is next in line.”
Pierre laughed out loud. “Can you imagine a murderer as the Prince of Monaco? We’d have a revolution.”
“Never been proven,” Flicka said, shuddering at her memories of the violence that day.
“Everyone knows.”
“Then give the damn thing to Christine.”
“She wants it even less than Maxence.”
“Then whoever is number five,” Flicka said, exasperated.
“You can keep going down the list, but it doesn’t matter. It’s my job. I want the job, and I want my children to have the job after me.”
“Which children?”
“Ours. I told you my children with Abigai have no claim, none whatsoever.”
“But they’re your children.”
“Yes, but the crown doesn’t recognize illegitimate children.”
“And she’s your wife.”
“Not legally. Not in Monaco.”
“How could you do this to the woman you love?”
Flicka gritted her teeth and waited to see whether Pierre answered about her or Abigai.
He said, “I don’t know. It upsets her so much. These few months have been Hell on Earth. She threatened to throw herself out of a window at the George V, so I had to stay with her that night. She was distraught. It broke my heart, how upset she was.”
He had, indeed, answered her question. “I’m upset. Am I breaking your heart?”
“You’re royal,” he said, “like me. You should understand. We have a dynastic marriage.”
Misery and rage merged into a new, white-hot force in Flicka’s body.
“No, I’m not like you.” She looked up at him. “I thought I could handle anything you did, but I was wrong. I can’t be married to a man who loves another woman, who has another family. I want a divorce.”
Pierre stood. “You can’t divorce me. I married you for Monaco. You’re a perfect Princess of Monaco. You’re beautiful and accomplished, and we’ll have beautiful children together who will be the next generation of sovereign princes.”
Flicka nudged a picture of Pierre surrounded by three laughing children. “I don’t want children. I’ve never wanted children.”
Pierre’s eyebrows lowered. “Of course, you do. Women want children. Women want to be mothers and have a family.”
“Not me,” Flicka said. “We’ve discussed that, and we’ve discussed it a lot. And now, I certainly would never want children with you.”
Pierre rubbed his face with both hands. “I married you to provide for Monaco.”
“I thought you married me because you loved me,” she said, using the base of her tumbler to press wet circles onto the glass of the coffee table.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Pierre said. “We don’t marry for love. We’re royalty.”
She said, “I married for love.”
“Well, you shouldn’t have,” Pierre said. “This is a dynastic marriage. It’s to provide an heir for Monaco and publicity for the country. You can’t divorce me. You’ll do your damned job like I have all these years.”
“Of course, I can divorce you,” Flicka said, standing. “It’s written into the pre-nup.”
He stepped around the table. “You can’t divorce me. I’ll lose the throne. A divorced person can’t be crowned Prince of Monaco. It’s a Catholic sovereignty.”
“Not my problem,” Flicka said. “Maybe your buddy the Pope will give you an annulment, anyway.”
He grabbed her arm. �
��I will never agree. I will never sign the divorce papers.”
Flicka shook off his hand. “You say that like you have a choice in the matter. I’m invoking the conditions in the pre-nup. You don’t have to agree to anything. I’m leaving you, right this very minute.”
She walked toward the door, planning to stagger to Wulfie’s suite or just get a separate room for the night. She couldn’t stand being in the same room with Pierre for even one more minute.
Behind her, Pierre said, “Quentin.”
Quentin Sault stepped into Flicka’s path and grabbed one of her arms.
Pierre caught up and glared down at her from half a foot taller than she was. “You’re not leaving. You’re not divorcing me. A princess’s job is to spit out royal kids and look pretty for the cameras. You’ll stay and have pretty little princes and princesses for Monaco and do your job.”
“I’m done, Pierre.” She struggled, but Pierre’s hands and Quentin’s were too strong for her.
“I’m not going to allow you to ruin everything. I will not allow one silly little girl with bourgeois notions about marriage make me lose the throne of Monaco. I married you so that I could inherit the throne and be the prince. If I wanted to throw it all away, I would have married Abigai.”
Flicka pulled harder, but she couldn’t break their grip. “Let me go.”
Pierre glared down at her, and his dark eyes held fury like she’d never seen in him before. He swelled with rage as he inhaled, and his face twisted into something ugly and vicious. “I’ll kill you before I let you file for divorce. I’ll kill you if you run or try to fly to Paris. If you go to your brother, I’ll kill him and his pregnant wife.”
“You wouldn’t!” Flicka said, starting to panic. “You can’t get to Wulf. The Welfenlegion will protect him from anyone.”
Pierre clenched his teeth so hard that Flicka heard them grind. He said, “I have a person inside their security perimeter. I will give the order, and no one will be able to touch me. Your family lost your kingdom, but we still have the divine right of kings in Monaco. No one can indict me or even investigate me, and I have diplomatic immunity everywhere. I will kill Wulf, Rae, and any baby they have if they try to help you.”
“Please don’t,” Flicka begged him. “Don’t hurt them.”
Pierre looked up. “Quentin, hold her.”
He grabbed Flicka’s arm away from Pierre and held her wrists.
Pierre reached down to his leg and took a knife from somewhere near his shoe. He held it near Flicka’s neck. “I thought you would be different because you’re a princess. You should have understood. But you’re just like all the others. You want too much from me. You want things I can’t give you, and you’re stupid.”
“I thought you loved me.”
His laugh was cruel. “I’ll make you have a baby. I’ll flush those stupid birth control pills of yours down the toilet, and I’ll make you pregnant. I need you to produce legitimate, royal heirs, and I don’t give a shit about how that happens. Once I get you back to Monaco, you won’t be going anywhere until you shit out enough little princes and princesses that I won’t need you anymore. The Prince’s Palace is a fortress, and it can lock you inside just as well as it keeps invaders out.”
The life that he described assailed Flicka. She jerked her arms, fighting to get away, but she couldn’t move her head because Pierre was holding a sharp blade too close to her neck.
He might accidentally cut her.
Or it might not be an accident.
Pierre said to Quentin, “Take her to my bedroom.”
Flicka fought Quentin all the way to the suite’s bedroom, but he was too strong for her.
And so was Pierre.
Escape, Again
Flicka von Hannover
Anything, always.
Footsteps marched in the hallway outside and paused outside the door for a long, terrible moment, and continued past.
After a moment, Dieter leaned to look through the peephole again.
Flicka straightened, shaking off where she had touched him. Her skin slithered on her body, and yet she wanted to crawl into his arms and cry.
She couldn’t do that.
So many reasons.
“I need a shower,” she whispered.
As soon as she said it, the imperative grabbed her. She needed to hose the filth and horror off of her body right that very instant.
“Where’s your bathroom?” she asked. Shaking jumped from her hands to her forearms and her elbows. “I need to shower right now.”
Dieter’s eyes examined her as he stepped away, his hands raised and open. “Through the bedroom, to the right.”
Flicka ran.
She kicked off her glittering sandals as she ran, holding her dress up for speed.
Behind her, “Flicka?”
She grabbed handfuls of the silk at her shoulders, pulling it down and trying to get it off.
The thin fabric proved tough and dragged at her shoulders. She wrenched her hands behind her back, trying to unzip the damned thing.
The zipper snagged in the silk, and she couldn’t get it down.
Flicka shoved aside the shower curtain, twisted the faucet to start the shower, and stepped in.
Icy water soaked her dress.
She tried to peel the sopping silk off of her skin, but water weighed down the fabric. It stuck to her as she yanked at it.
The shower melted the hairspray in her hair, and the mass slopped to her shoulders. The tiara tilted and fell, still pinned into her wet hair. Her makeup was running down her face and stung her eyes.
Quiet knocking rattled the door. “Flicka? Can I come in?”
“No!” She grabbed the soap and tried to scrub her thighs and shoulders, but pale pink silk swaddled her legs.
She was another person, an observer and floating wisp of nothing, and she watched the blond woman do completely inadvisable things like grabbing a bottle of still water from the side of the sink, sticking it inside her body, and squeezing the bottle like a douche. Ice water flooded down her legs, and then she used the skirt of her dress to scrub that away as hard as she could, ripping her skin with the glass-beaded silk of her dress.
Useless. Dirty. Bleeding.
Flicka slid down the wall, and the water turned warm as she pressed her face to her knees.
A whisper through the air, “Durchlauchtig?”
She croaked as she tried to laugh at the nickname he had tagged her with when she had been a child. “I’m not very goddamn serene right now.”
“May I come in? I won’t pull back the shower curtain. I can’t yell over the water. Someone passing in the hallway might hear.”
A small, logical part of Flicka’s brain clicked on. “That makes sense. Yes, okay. But don’t look at me.”
Beyond the shower curtain, the door creaked and clicked, closing. Above the hiss of the shower, Dieter’s deep voice whispered, “I think I should call the police. Perhaps you shouldn’t shower. There might be evidence if there were a trial.”
“No,” she said. “No police.”
His shadow wavered on the white shower curtain, towering above her. “It’s up to you, but you might want the option later.”
“He’s the heir to a throne,” she said. “Rainier would never allow him to be charged in Monaco, and he has royal diplomatic immunity.”
“Switzerland is neutral. We would not recognize it.”
“No country is that neutral.”
“There are other things,” Dieter said quietly. “Bruises.”
“I can’t. I just can’t.”
“I’ll be with you, every minute. I won’t let them do anything you don’t want them to.”
Panic welled up in her chest and choked her. “I can’t.”
“All right. So we won’t.” Dieter grunted, and his shadow outside the white shower curtain dropped to the same height as hers as he sat against the wall outside.
Flicka held her hands over her face as the water ran over her b
ody and the dress. “I am drunk and stupid.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said.
“It did matter,” she said. “I should have been diplomatic, but I was angry and had been holding it in all day. I was just shocked.”
“It was shocking,” Dieter said from outside the shower curtain.
When she looked through the crack where the curtain didn’t quite touch the wall, she could see the curve of Dieter’s strong shoulder and some of his military-short, blond hair. “I shouldn’t have exploded at him. I should have just caught a plane to Paris tomorrow and signed the papers to divorce him.”
“It doesn’t matter what you said or didn’t say.”
Warm water sprayed from the showerhead far up on the white-tiled wall and battered her skin. “I told him I wanted a divorce. He said he would never agree, would never sign the papers. I told him that I was invoking the conditions in the pre-nup, and he didn’t have to agree.”
“Your brother was thorough during those negotiations,” Dieter said.
Flicka’s hands started shaking again. She grabbed them both together, holding them in one massive, angry fist. “He said that he would kill me before I could get to Paris to sign the papers. He said he would never let me go.”
Dieter cleared his throat, and his shadow shifted.
“He said that if I ran to Wulf, he would kill Wulf and Rae and the baby.”
“He couldn’t do that,” Dieter said.
“He said that he has someone close to them, someone who answers to him, and he could and would do it.”
“Did you believe him?”
“Pierre can’t bluff. That’s why he sucks at poker.”
“Elands,” Dieter softly swore. “Wulfram’s own people or Rogue Security?”
“He didn’t say,” Flicka said. “He told Quentin—”
“Quentin Sault?” Dieter asked.
Of course, Dieter would know Pierre’s head security man. “—he told Quentin to grab me. He grabbed my wrists before I could even think—”
“I taught you better than that,” Dieter growled.
“He was so fast, and he’s so much stronger than I am.” Tears fell hotter on her face than the water from the shower.
Once Upon a Time: Billionaires in Disguise: Flicka Page 22
