The old priest frowned. “I don’t understand.”
Maxence said, “I don’t either.”
But he knew that one action was a bribe and the other was a threat.
After a quick discussion during which Dree did not speak, Father Moses elected to stay with his friends and godchildren at the convent, so Maxence arranged a car to transport him.
Maxence was standing on the curb when the car pulled away. “All right, Dree. You can stop hiding behind the lampposts now.”
Dree had trailed them at a distance, though Maxence hadn’t lost sight of her for a moment.
She stepped out of the crowd, the Mediterranean sunlight glowing on her skin and hair even though it was late January. “Why didn’t you tell him that you’ve decided not to be a priest?”
Maxence said, “We should talk about this inside.”
“No, Maxence. If you can’t tell him you made a decision, we don’t have anything to talk about.”
Security guards crowded into formation around Maxence, their heads swiveling as they watched the crowd around him for any sudden movements.
“Chérie,” he said.
“I need to know right now. Do you choose me, or do you choose the Church?”
“Father Moses will talk to Pope Celestine. I’m sure I’ll have some clarification by tomorrow.”
“They don’t need to clarify anything. Father Moses was perfectly clear. They want you to come to Rome, and they want you to be ordained as a priest right now.”
“I’ve been studying for this for ten years, Dree. I’ve poured my whole life into studying theology and serving, trying to be a man of Christ.”
The commando near Maxence’s right shoulder frowned but didn’t stop surveying for threats.
“No,” Dree said in a voice that sounded like his hand was around her throat. “I understand you need to do the right thing, but I won’t do something I know is wrong. I can’t believe we’re having this discussion again. I’m not your sin, and I’m not your temptation. I deserve better.”
Dree bowed her head and stepped back into the crowd, almost instantly lost in the throng of tourists and Monegasque citizens.
“Dree!” he called after her.
One of the security guys on Maxence’s left shoulder glanced briefly at him and then resumed scanning the crowd around them. “Should I send someone after her, Your Highness?”
Sending someone to drag her back would break her trust even more. “No, Leo. I’ll return to the palace now.”
Maxence walked inside the palace, letting his security detail set the pace because he’d caused them more than enough trouble that day.
Back in his office, Maxence sat in his chair and stared at the empty room, trying to make sense of it.
In the middle of his desk blotter, a wrought iron metal key had been placed precisely in the center of the green felt.
He took a black velvet cube out of his pocket and set it beside the key.
Maxence stared at the antique key and the box for a long time before he slid them into his pocket and went back to his apartment to change into his tuxedo for the Sea Change Gala.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Cinderelly
Dree
Yeah, Dree was crying.
Dree had locked the door of her windowless bedroom in the basement of the palace, practically a dungeon, and was crying her eyes out.
Later, she would tell herself that farm girls don’t cry, but right then, everything was wrong, and she already missed Maxence so much that her arms tried to crawl on the floor and out the door to find him, but she absolutely wouldn’t.
Maxence had chosen the priesthood, and he’d chosen Monaco above that.
Dree knew where she stood in his order of priorities. She wasn’t at the top, and she wasn’t even in second place. Hell, Dree didn’t think she was even number three.
Of course, he had practically adopted those two kids, and so if he had to choose between her and the kids, Majambu Milandu and Mpata Majambu would win that competition, too, and rightly so. Not that people should be in a competition for love. That wasn’t a real choice, and Dree would have never made him choose between the children he loved and herself. If he had a commitment to those girls—and he might—Dree would have figured out how to make it work for all of them.
But Dree was not going to screw a priest.
She didn’t want to screw around with a forbidden guy because it was dirty. She’d admired and cared for the man she’d known as Augustine in Paris, who’d been kind and fun, and a little naughty, and genuinely phenomenal in bed.
And then in Nepal, she learned so much more about Maxence, the depth of his love for humanity, and his willingness to sacrifice himself for others.
And now back in Monaco, Prince Maxence resisted corruption even though power corrupts absolutely, and he was trying his damnedest to save forty thousand people because he loved them, even though it seemed like no one in that little country had loved him enough to notice he’d been abducted and was being tortured.
But Dree was nobody’s temptation, and she was nobody’s sin.
Maxence was a perfect human being, and he would be an amazing priest.
But he wasn’t hers, and her heart was still broken.
And so Dree cried for what felt like an eternity in the gray nothingness of limbo with her face buried in her pillow, only coming up for quiet gasps of air when necessary.
Until there was a quiet knock on her door.
“Dammit,” she whispered. And then louder, “Just a second!”
She hurried to the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face, desperately trying to take down the swelling in her pink nose and rosy eyelids.
Oh, she looked like crap. The cold water had done nothing.
But she couldn’t leave the person standing out there in the hallway forever, so Dree slathered a handful of the bright green tea tree oil and clay mask that Chiara’s cosmetologist had insisted would calm her skin all over her face, making sure to build it up good over her red nose.
She hurried to the door. “Coming! Coming, I’m right here!” Dree flung open the door and grinned. “You caught me in the middle of my beauty routine.”
Her friend Chiara stood outside in the hallway. As always, she was perfectly put together, her lipstick sharp and her earrings straight. She asked, “Have you been crying?”
Dree dissolved into sobs again.
Chiara stepped inside her room, pressed the door closed behind herself, and locked it. “Oh, no! Oh no, my dear Andrea. What has happened?”
“I’m so stupid! Don’t be nice to me because I’m so stupid!”
Chiara led Dree over to the small table and two tiny chairs on the far wall and held her hand across the table. “Was it Prince Maxence?”
Dree grabbed a dirty tee-shirt from the suitcase behind her and buried her face in it, nodding.
“I am so sorry. These Grimaldi are all the same. Malizia, the whole family of them. You must not cry over him. These Grimaldi have made too many girls cry.”
“I’m so stupid. I believed him, and I still believe him.”
“Has he made you pregnant? Is he forcing you to have an abortion?”
Dree lifted her head to look at Chiara. A green copy of her face was printed on the tee shirt in tea tree oil mask. “I don’t think Maxence would do that.”
“Oh, how many women his brother forced into that.”
“Oh, no, Chiara. Did he do that to you?”
She set her jaw. “My grief was years ago. What has this malizia Grimaldi done to you?”
“I thought he loved me.”
“Malizia. Did he say that he would marry you?”
“Not really, but I thought—”
“They say things that sound like it, and then they break their promise. Malizia.”
“He wants to be a priest. Pope Celestine said that he should come to Rome right now, and he would ordain him as a priest.”
Chiara straightened. “Why
would His Holiness Celestine say that to him? Prince Maxence is to be the Prince of Monaco. He will be elected to be the sovereign prince as soon as they hold the meeting.”
“No, he won’t. He’s always wanted to be a priest,” Dree said. “He has a Ph.D. in Theology because he’s going to be a Jesuit.”
Chiara paused, examining Dree. “Wait, I am confused. Is the malizia you fell in love with Prince Maxence or a priest?”
“Both. Prince Maxence wants to be a priest.”
“Impossible. Prince Maxence would never do that to the people of Monaco.”
“He’s going to abdicate as soon as they hold a meeting of the Crown Council tomorrow. He’s trying to get somebody else elected.”
“Malizia!”
Dree sighed. “Yeah, I guess he is.”
“And he is made you cry like this? He does not deserve you. He does not deserve any of us.”
Dree nodded, even though she suspected the truth was that none of them deserved him.
Chiara snatched her phone out of her pocket, a tiny pucker of anger between her eyebrows, which must have meant that she was enraged. “Prince Maxence is making a terrible mistake, not wanting to be our sovereign prince and not wanting you. We will make him see his error.”
She slapped her phone up to the side of her head. Dree could hear a faint ring coming from it.
Dree asked her, “What are you doing?”
Chiara inhaled hard, and her lips bowed in the middle. “Showing him his mistake. After he sees you at the Sea Change Gala, he will not want to be a priest anymore. Then, he will be our prince, too.”
Dree exclaimed, “I can’t go to a ball! I don’t have a dress!”
She sounded like the most pathetic Cinderella ever.
Chiara actually snarled. “You are one of us. Below stairs, we stick together. When Prince Pierre died, my friends below stairs carried me through the days until I could be all right again. I am calling my salon, housekeeping, and the palace seamstress. We will find a gown that no one will miss and make it fit you like it was made for you. We will make you the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. Go wipe off that green mask and soak your face in cold water. We have only a few hours to make you ready.”
Chapter Thirty
The Sea Change Gala
Maxence
Prince Maxence Grimaldi stepped out of the rear seat of the limousine at the Sea Change Gala, nodded to Quentin Sault who held his door, and strolled toward the Grimaldi Forum.
A phalanx of security personnel fell into step around him. Large events were difficult to secure, so a team was needed to protect him. Background checks were impossible. Many people felt they were too important to be scanned, and they balked at the perceived insult. Plus, many people brought their own bodyguards who were armed and circumvented the screening station.
On the red carpet outside the doors, cameras flashed at him like great blooms of white in the darkness.
Ah, yes.
He turned and squinted for the cameras, one hand drawing back the jacket of his tuxedo to rest in his pocket, trying to look debonair. Flicka had taught him how to pose for the press after seeing some truly, impressively awful photos of him. Sometimes, it worked.
The blue and steel Patek Philippe watch that his friend Arthur Finch-Hatten had given him for Christmas years before caught on the edge of the pocket of his trousers.
Under his wrist, his tuxedo jacket bulged where he’d tucked the black velvet box inside his pocket. Maxence couldn’t leave his grandmother’s enormous engagement ring lying in his desk. It seemed disrespectful to her memory to just chuck it in a drawer and lock it up.
Besides, he wasn’t worried about pickpockets. Monaco was the safest country in the world.
Likewise, he wasn’t worried about Dree Clark fleeing Monaco before they had a chance to talk one more time. Maybe, one last time. According to palace security, she’d gone directly back to her room in the palace’s small staff quarters. Friends had been visiting her room all afternoon. Max could talk with her tomorrow, perhaps after he was done with the Crown Council meeting.
At the very least, he could be honest with her after he’d formally abdicated.
The notification calling the Council of Nobles to the election had gone out that afternoon. The election would be held at five o’clock tomorrow evening, which was the first available opportunity for all the members of his voting bloc to attend.
Father Moses’s words spun in his mind. On the day after tomorrow, Maxence might be lying face down on the floor of St. Peter’s Basilica, receiving Holy Orders, a priest laying his hands on him as men had laid their hands on other priests all the way back to Jesus laying his hands on Peter, who would be the rock upon which he built his Church.
Camera flashes multiplied like heat lightning.
But Max had to get through tonight, first.
Marie-Therese stepped out of the glare and slipped her arm through his elbow, laughing for the cameras. “You didn’t tell me you were here, you naughty boy.”
Maxence didn’t move his lips when he said, “Keep your hands to yourself, cousin.”
“Oh, Maxsy. You’re such a prude sometimes,” she said, still grinning and hamming it up for the paparazzi.
He continued the stern debonair look as the camera shutters clicked like a deck of cards riffling.
Marie-Therese was bobbing all over the place, looking at the cameras over one shoulder and then the other, his cousin alternately flirting with the cameras and opening her mouth like something Max was not going to think about lest he need therapy.
Her hair-flip flung her long black tresses into Max’s face.
Her curls hung over his nose and eyelashes as he stepped back and brushed off her hair like he was batting away a bee.
A solid wave of white light washed over them as the cameras went wild for the mishap.
Marie-Therese laughed it off, apologizing, and Maxence smiled fondly at his cousin, whom he couldn’t wait to get away from.
But he was stuck with her for most of the evening because they were co-hosting this debacle.
He and Marie-Therese had never had a problem until she’d sneaked into his bed. Indeed, she’d been a very quiet ally against her father during the years that Jules had been the head of the ministry, slipping bank statements and emails from Jules and certain Russian oligarchs to Prince Rainier IV so they could sack Jules without a messy public investigation.
Max should talk to her about what had happened. Maybe there was a reason she’d sneaked into his bed in the middle of the night, wearing red lingerie.
He needed to not think about that anymore.
Marie-Therese clung to his arm as they walked inside the Sea Change Gala.
It was just as well that she was sticking close to him, but not too close. They were co-hosting the event, which meant they would open the dancing after supper. If Marie-Therese were hanging on his arm, he wouldn’t have to send Quentin to find her.
Maxence and Marie-Therese walked into the enormous convention center, which was packed to the rafters with the rich and famous of the world, especially the rich because their donations were larger. Some of the famous thought their presence should be their gift to the charity, and they were wrong. The chatter of human voices and laughter rang above the jazz band playing at the other end of the ground floor and through the speakers.
The crowd packed into the Grimaldi Forum was mostly decked in black. The men wore tuxedos, the vast majority of which were severe black. For the ladies, black gowns also seem to be the norm, either thin silk sheaths that skimmed their figures or satin constructions that might have been architectural marvels under the fabric. A few people wore daring shades of midnight blue or darkest burgundy. With perhaps a thousand people milling about the convention center, Maxence got the impression of a crowded chessboard where all the pieces were black.
His security team spread out, moving through the crowd but still arranged in a circle around him. Quentin Sault caught Max’s eye
for a moment while they were walking into the main foyer, and then he resumed scanning the room for abnormal movements.
Unlike previous events, the Sea Change Gala occupied the entire building of the Grimaldi Forum, from the expansive ground-floor lobby, to the upper decks for the bars and meal, to the ballrooms at the top for dancing. A few helicopters had landed on the rooftop helipad with the more important guests who didn’t want to be driven on the streets of Monaco with the riffraff or with those who had flown from their superyachts anchored offshore directly to the convention center.
Max could have taken a helicopter from the palace, but he liked to see Monaco from the ground.
That night, Max wore a Kiton tuxedo, hurriedly commissioned because his favorite Tom Ford tux had seen rough use a few months ago. The tuxedo was sewn with platinum thread and had cost about the same as a mid-range Lexus. He’d tucked a red silk scarf under his black jacket, setting off the white shirt, and a matching red square in the pocket. When he was at these events, Monaco’s national colors of red and white were always woven into his outfit.
A few years before, the overt connection of the royal family to his country had been important.
As Maxence was a ranking member of the royal family, he’d been granted royal honors to wear when he’d turned eighteen, a decade and more before. Because their uncle had meant to have several ceremonies to present Maxence and his brother Pierre with ever-increasing honors, he had only granted Max the rank of Commander in the Order of the Crown, a mid-level rank in an order that wasn’t even the highest. Therefore, Maxence wore a necklet of dark olive-green ribbon with a narrow red stripe to hold the badge, a silver and gold cross with filagree and the prince’s crown in the middle. If one looked carefully at the gold curls, one could discern the initials of Max’s grandfather, Prince Rainier III.
Max should probably award himself a higher rank as the acting Prince of Monaco before he left, but everything seemed pointless.
Prince: Royal Romantic Suspense (Billionaires in Disguise: Maxence Book 5) Page 25
