Max tapped Nico’s text to call him.
After one ring, a crackle and fumbling thump issued from the phone pressed to Max’s ear.
Nico yelled, “Max, Max! Is it you? Are you still there?”
“Yes, I’m still here. Are you all right?” he asked.
Nico said, “I dropped the phone. Jesus, Max! Where are you? Are you hurt? Say a number between one and five if you need help.”
“Ten. I’m fine, Nico.” They went through the dance of assurances. Nico was a few years younger than Max, but they’d been friendly at boarding school and hung out often enough to know quite a bit about each other. “I’ll be back in Monaco later today.”
“Oh, thank God!”
“But I would like some reconnaissance. Could we meet?”
“Of course, cousin. Where?”
“I’ll be staying at my apartment in the palace and taking over the business office.”
“In the palace? Are you insane?”
“Pierre is dead, or so I’ve been told.”
Nico’s voice grated with sarcasm. “Yeah, and there’s certainly no one else who might see you as a threat or an impediment, so staying in the most obvious place in the middle of a bunch of soldiers who may or may not have some extra money in their pockets and some extra bullets in their guns is a completely reasonable decision.”
“Right. How about ten o’clock tomorrow morning?”
“Sure, if you’re still alive by then.”
Chapter Two
Sea Breeze
Dree
Cramps spiked through Dree Clark’s fingers and up both her wrists.
Knives of pain sliced through her shoulders, which hovered near her ears.
Under her feet and butt, the helicopter jittered as it banked, nearly rolling over on its side and slanting so hard that she was falling sideways.
A wispy seatbelt held her in the velvet-upholstered, cushiony seat.
Dree could see far too much ocean out of the side window that looked straight down into deep blue, glittering terror.
She squeezed her eyes shut and squeaked, “Hail Mary, Full of Grace, The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death.”
The hour of Dree’s death was right now and she was going to die and oh God oh Mary please get her out of this helicopter.
She screamed silently into the darkness of her closed eyes.
Seven minutes later, the helicopter landed on a helipad in Monaco.
Her jaw clenched so tightly that she was sure her teeth had fused together.
Somewhere outside of the darkness of her clamped-shut eyelids, a man’s gravelly voice said, “Ms. Clark, you can open your eyes now. We’ve landed.”
The howling throb of the helicopter rotors did seem to be slowing.
The floor of the helicopter was more stable under her feet, not tilting anymore.
She lifted one eyebrow, prying her eyelids apart.
Sunlight blazed between her eyelashes.
She chanced a look outside the helicopter through the wide window.
On the inland side, past a chain-link fence, mountains encrusted with tall, pastel-colored buildings climbed into the pristine sky.
A few people stood outside the fence, pointing cameras with bazooka-sized lenses at the helicopter or whispering into their phones. A squat red-brick building that looked like it had been built in the fifties interrupted the helipad’s fence.
The whine of the rotors above her died away, and Dree glanced out of the bulbous front windshield of the helicopter. People were already stepping out of the first helicopter that had flown from Nice, France, lifting off just three minutes before the one she’d ridden in.
The people disembarking from the first chopper were Maxence, that guy Quentin Sault, who’d come to take him back to Monaco, and some more of his military guys. They walked toward the door of the small building, not acknowledging the few paparazzi outside the fence.
Max strode as he walked, a vision of powerful, sexy masculinity in a well-tailored suit. Sunlight glinted off his tanned skin, and a breeze toyed with his thick, black hair. His hard cheekbones and jawline cast shadows on his skin, a handsomeness reminiscent of sophisticated old-Hollywood movie stars. His gait was powerful and athletic, the movement of a healthy, confident man. Even the way he jabbed the asphalt with his heels looked arrogant.
The shorter security men scurried to keep up with his long-legged stride while they squinted at the reporters outside the fence.
Because Dree was now staff, she hadn’t rated riding on the first helicopter with His Serene Highness, Prince Maxence of Monaco, Count of Wherever, Lord of Someplace She’d Never Heard Of, Emperor of His Own Massively Inflated Ego, the Duke of Stick Up His Noble Ass, and Royal Guy Who Evidently Didn’t Want to Get Laid if He Treated People Like That.
If Maxence really was a prince of this whole country, shouldn’t there be a whole lot more media here to take his picture? Like Princess Di or something? Just because he was ridiculously rich didn’t make him royal. Those very few photographers might just be aviation enthusiasts who were there for the helicopters.
Her helicopter’s door scraped as it opened, and the other staff began scooting toward the wind blowing into the cabin of their aircraft.
The breeze smelled great.
Shocked, Dree froze with her palms on the velvet seat and inhaled hard, sucking in the freshest air she’d ever smelled. The cool, damp air soothed her nose and throat as she breathed it in, bringing her the scents of crisp cotton sheets dried outside in the springtime and God’s creation of the Earth. “Wow.”
The white guy beside her, yet another military guy wearing black fatigues and armed to the teeth, turned back. One of his light brown eyebrows rose above the rim of his mirrored sunglasses. “You okay?”
“Yeah, this place smells great.”
He looked out the door, then back at her. “You mean the sea breeze?”
“Is that what it is?”
“It’s a little fresher than the regular ocean, I guess.”
“That’s what the ocean smells like? Which ocean is it?”
His head tilted. “The Mediterranean Sea isn’t an ocean, but it’s pretty big. It’s cleaner than a lot of areas of the Pacific or Atlantic, so maybe that’s what you’re smelling.”
“I’m from the middle of the desert in America. I’ve never smelled the ocean before.”
He grinned at her. “Welcome to Monaco. Make sure you spend some time on the beach. It’s great.”
Dree followed the guy as she stooped to exit the helicopter. He held out his hand to steady her as she hopped down onto the asphalt, and she retrieved her backpack with everything she owned in the world inside.
“I’m Louis Bernard,” he said.
She stuck out her hand to shake. “Dree Clark. Pleased to meetcha.”
Late afternoon sunshine slanted over an electric-blue sea that stretched southeast to the horizon and threw silver speckles on the wavelets. Wind gusted over the water and patted her face, fluttering her unzipped puffy coat at her sides and ruffling her hair.
The long tarmac of the heliport was painted with red and white bullseyes. Royal blue helicopters clung to the targets like bottle-blue dragonflies gingerly resting on a sidewalk.
Thick red and white stripes marked their tail fins.
She looked over at the heliport building, where Maxence was walking.
A banner composed of a red rectangle atop a white one snapped on the flagpole in the sea breeze.
The helicopters, the small building, and some of the trucks outside were marked with a shield filled in with a red and white diamond-checkerboard pattern, which Dree had seen before.
She’d seen it when Maxence had been sponge-bathing in their tent and when he’d rolled up his sleeves to his elbows in that Paris hotel and bared his thick forearms.
The tattoo on his right
arm, the one with a ring of three shields, had that exact pattern on the shield pointing down toward Max’s wrist.
That was the last thing, the thing that finally convinced her he was Prince Maxence of Monaco. His body was literally marked with Monaco’s insignia.
No, Monaco was marked with his insignia.
Maxence really was a royal prince who’d been slumming in Paris and then had been on a charity tour of Nepal. That wasn’t a joke. His ancestors had ruled lands and commanded armies to fight wars.
Her family were sheep farmers, infantry cannon fodder, and peasants.
A part of Dree’s mind was very busy insisting that people were people, and that royal people were no better than other people who were the salt of the earth, the ones who grew the food and milked the sheep that kept the world fed.
Whether Maxence was better or not, he and Dree were very different, as he stood in his tailored, stylish suit on the soil of the country he might rule someday, while she wore grimy jeans and a ski jacket from a church’s poor barrel.
A group of people emerged from the building and approached Maxence. The new group looked like a bunch of business folks because they were all wearing suits or, for some of the women, professional-looking black dresses.
One bald, rotund man with a bouncy gait looked like a pink balloon in a beige suit as he bobbed across the asphalt. He approached Max with his hand extended.
Maxence shook the man’s hand and inclined his head while the man spoke.
Dree couldn’t stop staring at Max. He did look at home here, alighting from a helicopter, with his herald on it, while dark limousines stood waiting in the traffic circle on the other side of the fence.
The wind picked up, growling in her ear and dragging her clothes against her body. She pulled her coat more closely around her chest and crossed her arms against the chill.
Maxence saw her watching him and caught her eye.
Dree must look pathetic loitering on the tarmac, huddling to keep herself warm from the first ocean breeze she’d ever felt. The other guys who’d ridden on her helicopter had grabbed their stuff and moved away, walking along the fence line toward the terminal, so she’d ended up isolated and conspicuous, staring at the big water.
The guy Maxence was talking to followed his line of sight and saw her. He jutted his thumb toward her and bobbed his chin up, probably asking Max something like Who’s the dumbass blonde staring at the waves like she’s never seen any water bigger than a swimming pool before?
Maxence brushed at the air with his hand and turned back to him, but the guy glanced at Dree again, an impish grin on his pink face, and held out his hand toward her.
Dree was just about to look away from Max when he held out his arm and sharply pointed at the asphalt by his foot, commanding Dree to move herself to the spot that he had designated she should stand.
She hurried past the helicopters toward him.
Sadly, she didn’t even disobey the hereditary prince, because her family had been peasants all the way back to the time when they had been serfs. Her genes obeyed his.
Far away at the other end of the heliport, another helicopter landed, transporting the last few security guys who’d been in Nepal. The thundering blades chopped the air, and the prop wash blew Dree’s hair back, chilling her more.
As she neared Maxence, he dropped his arm and looked away from her, back to the bouncy guy who’d met him at the heliport.
The bubble of a man turned, his bright blue eyes seeking Dree as she approached. “And who’s this?”
Max shook his head, disregarding Dree as a person worth mentioning. He folded his hands behind his back and leaned toward the man. “She was working for my charity when I was on the tour of Nepal. I poached her because I’ll need a decent admin for the next few weeks.”
She didn’t rate an introduction, it looked like. At some point, she was going to have to take offense at this.
To Dree, Max said, “Take notes.”
Dree dropped her backpack and pawed through it, finally coming up with her phone. She got the feeling that Max didn’t roll his eyes because exasperation at subordinates was beneath his royal dignity.
Staff was not even worth his disdain. Or even a name. She was totally a nameless administrative cog to these guys.
A notepad app was on her main screen, and she thumbed it.
Max turned back to the other guy, “You were saying?”
The guy didn’t look at Dree again and said to Maxence, “I assume you’ll be staying in the hotel, as usual?”
Maxence shook his head. “I won’t be over at the casino nearly so much, I dare say, so I won’t need a room at the hotel.”
The other man laughed, his blue eyes dancing while the wind from the landing helicopter and the sea blew his few sparse hairs that lay over his pink scalp. “Oh, Maxence, you old rogue, you. I’ll bet you’ll get to the casino at least a few times. I heard about the trouble you got in last month, you naughty boy.”
The new guy looked like one of Santa’s elves, Dree decided, with his little button-nose and bell-like laugh. Yeah, if you shoved a red sock-hat with a white poof-ball on the end of it over his bald pate, he would definitely be the Head Elf in Santa’s Workshop with the list of children trailing on the floor, standing at one end of the assembly room and calling out the names of the good boys and girls who would get toys that year.
Maxence said, “Time will be scarce, Uncle.”
Oh, Dree was supposed to be taking notes.
She thumbed into her app, Max will stay in the palace, not casino hotel.
“But now that you’re here and Alexandre is on his way back,” he said, “we can convene the Council of Nobles and elect you. We could be finished with this election by the weekend.”
What day of the week was it? After working day-in and day-out in Nepal, Dree could hardly tell. The priest who’d traveled with them had offered Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation, but she hadn’t kept track. When she’d crawled out of her tent and seen the altar was set up, she’d attended Mass. If not, she’d eaten her breakfast and worked her butt off, providing healthcare for people who rarely had access to it.
“I don’t think it’s going to work like that,” Maxence said to the guy. His tone was decidedly neutral. What he said wasn’t a threat nor a promise. It simply was.
Santa’s Head Elf laughed. “But you returned to be crowned after Pierre’s tragic and untimely death, didn’t you?”
Dree caught just the slightest whiff of sarcasm from the guy about the recent demise of Max’s brother, which was odd. She didn’t like speaking ill of the dead. Not that she believed in spirits or ghosts, but it still seemed disrespectful. Or unlucky. Or like something that decent people just didn’t do. Guy expects Max to be prince thing.
“No,” Maxence said to the man. “As I have repeatedly told everyone on the Crown Council and anyone who will listen, I have been given Holy Orders as a transitional deacon. I will be ordained as a priest as soon as possible, which I believe will be directly after the election of a new prince. I’m not allowed to marry. I am not eligible to be the sovereign. I’m only here to facilitate the election and coronation.”
Dree wasn’t sure what to write, but her heart seized upon hearing him say it so plainly.
“But the Sea Change Gala is scheduled for a few weeks from now,” the pudgy man said. “Surely, we’ll have a new sovereign by then.”
Dree wrote Sea Change Gala in bright letters on her screen. Few weeks from now.
Maxence shrugged. “It’s several weeks away, and it seems like an artificial deadline. There’s no reason to elect or crown a new sovereign prince Prince of Monaco before a particular charitable fundraiser.”
Dree scratched out few and wrote more than three weeks away.
“But the sovereign prince always hosts the gala and opens the dancing.”
Maxence’s slight frown was just the merest, dignified wrinkle between his eyes. “Anyone can be tapped to host the gala. There
’s no reason to rush the election.”
The guy’s jolly face condensed into a frown. “Anyone named as the official host will be seen as the front runner to the Council and the press.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s true. It would probably marginally change the odds in Vegas and with the London bookies for who will be crowned, but that doesn’t matter to us.”
“Appearances do matter. Someone will have to host the ball.”
Maxence raised his head and looked at where the paparazzi were splayed against the chain-link fence, frantically snapping photos. “Conflicting speculation might be good publicity. We do derive an obscene amount of revenue from tourism.”
“If there is no one else, I could do it,” Head Elf said.
Maxence tipped his head slightly to the side. “Are you angling for front-runner status, Prince Jules?”
Dree had been thumb-tapping notes while the two men spoke, writing gala host will be seen as frontrunner, when Maxence called the man that she thought of as Santa’s Head Elf, “Prince Jules.”
Prince Jules?
She’d been exhausted in Nepal, but Maxence had told her a story about how his uncle Prince Jules was utterly corrupt and had been removed from a government ministry position. He’d abused his authority and demanded bribes, or else he threatened to revoke people’s citizenship. The wealthy paid him from their yachts with wire transfers. Middle-class citizens couldn’t begin to afford to pay up, and he’d been throwing Monegasque citizens out of the country on fake, trumped-up charges.
This jolly little guy was the evil Prince Jules?
Jules Grimaldi laughed his good-natured chortle. “Me? I don’t want the throne. I’m set in my ways, and I’m rubbish at maintaining my temper through interminable public appearances. I just want to make sure there is a monarch on the throne because, otherwise, France will have the legal right to re-absorb Monaco. I don’t want to end up paying French income taxes or their wealth tax. I have far more to lose if no one is on the throne.”
Max’s disinterested smile never wavered at his uncle’s words. “Of course.”
Prince: Royal Romantic Suspense (Billionaires in Disguise: Maxence Book 5) Page 3
