A piece of art formed into the Grimaldi coat of arms hung on the velvet curtains above the throne. Again, that red and white diamond checkerboard pattern filled a shield, just like the tattoo Maxence bore on his right forearm. Everywhere Dree went in the city-state, she wasn’t sure if Maxence had stamped his ownership on the country, or whether Monaco had claimed him by carving its symbol into his flesh.
While the throne room was beautiful and imposing, with an inlaid marble floor and enormous chandeliers hanging from the ceiling on velvet-wrapped chains, it wasn’t an expansive ballroom like one would find at a convention center.
It was a very large room for a medieval fortress that had been built in 1215.
Probably two hundred people were crowded into it, though, which meant the room was packed.
The people in the throne room seemed to have sorted themselves into two separate groups.
Most of the people clustered near the throne dais were nobles Dree recognized from Max’s office. The rock star Xan Valentine—oops, His Grace Alexandre Grimaldi, Duc de Valentinois—was standing in front of the throne. Alexandre’s blond hair flowed behind his shoulders and contrasted with the black suit and tie he wore. His arms were raised as he was shouting, “Prince Maxence has arrived. Everything that has transpired is null and void.”
With his arm in the air, Alex’s suit sleeve fell back, revealing a black cast on his left hand.
That was weird. She hadn’t noticed the cast when he’d been in Max’s office a few weeks ago, but he’d been sitting on the other side of his wife at the time with that arm on the far side.
From the center of the crowd, an older man yelled, “The vote is not void!”
Dree recognized him as Max’s great uncle Louis Grimaldi, one of the people Maxence had considered backing as the new sovereign.
Louis Grimaldi continued, “The Council has voted, and a new sovereign has been elected!”
The crowd rumbled, everyone seeming to disagree with the people standing next to them.
From the center, Maxence called out, “As the designated heir apparent, I declare this council meeting illegal. Notice of the date and time must be disseminated two weeks before the meeting.”
Like someone had turned up the heat under a boiling pot, the crowd’s arguing became louder, and their movements more erratic.
Other people, the ones pushed to the perimeter of the room, muttered among themselves. Over a hundred people stood around the walls or had commandeered the few red velvet chairs and couches on the edges of the room. An expanse of white marble floor inlaid with a blue-gray stone grid separated the onlookers from the electors.
Dree sneaked toward the back of the throne room, where she found a familiar face, Georgie Johnson, Alexandre/Xan Valentine’s wife, standing with her back to the wall and staring in horror at the chaos. Dree whispered, “I am so glad to see you.”
Georgie turned her head and looked down slightly at Dree. It took Georgie a beat before she recognized Dree, but then she exclaimed, “Oh! You’re Maxence’s secretary who is obviously not a secretary.”
She laughed, but her laugh came out a little high-pitched and hysterical, so she swallowed it down. “I’m Dree.”
“Right.” She gestured to herself. “Georgie. I cannot believe what the hell is going on here.”
“Is this the election?” Dree looked over the swarming crowd. “It looks more like a rugby game.”
Georgie nodded. “This is weird. I mean, I suppose the House of Commons in Great Britain can get rowdy, but this is nuts. When I think of an election, I think of people going to the fire station, tapping a square on the screen of an electronic voting machine, and getting their I voted sticker. This is not what I thought it would be.”
Dree pointed to Alexandre on the dais, who was waving his arms and calling for order. “Your husband seems to be in charge.”
Georgie shook her head, her brown eyes wide. “When Maxence didn’t show up, it looked like they were going to tear Alexandre apart like rabid dogs. That chubby guy, Prince Jules, made the motion to disqualify Maxence because he wasn’t here. Alex rocked forward on the balls of his feet toward Jules like he was going to punch him. When enough people went along with Jules’s motion, I thought Alexandre was going to wade into the crowd and start a brawl.” Georgie glanced at Dree. “He’s—volatile, sometimes. Not toward me. But toward people who threaten him or someone he’s protecting.”
“I thought Alexandre had coordinated everything with his friends, and they were all going to vote the same way,” Dree whispered.
Georgie shook her head. “His coalition was falling apart, and it disintegrated when Maxence didn’t turn up. When we walked in, it was a done deal. They must have had it all planned out. Prince Jules called for a vote to disqualify Maxence because he hadn’t shown up for the Crown Council, and it passed, bam.”
“Holy cow.”
“The whole thing went so fast. Alexandre kept trying to stall or stop the proceedings by demanding debate time, but nothing worked. He even tried to install a committee to study whether it was legal or not to do this. He demanded Monaco’s Supreme Court review the proceedings before they could take a final vote, and it didn’t work. As someone who’s almost a lawyer, I was pretty impressed.”
“Oh, no,” Dree gasped. “Did they elect Prince Jules?”
“Nope. They elected his daughter, Marie-Therese, and you should’ve seen the look on Prince Jules’s face when Lady Emma Lorenzi popped up out of the crowd and nominated her. I’ve met that guy on a couple of occasions. Even though he pretends to be jolly, he’s always scheming underneath. When I was growing up, my mother was the same type. When I meet somebody like that, I get these crawly vibes all over me. I can pick a psychopath out of a crowd at fifteen paces,” Georgie confided to her.
Dree nodded. “I know the type.”
“When Lady Emma opened her mouth to nominate Marie-Therese, Prince Jules was preparing to walk up there and accept the nomination himself. Instead, Lady Emma pointed to Marie-Therese, and Marie-Therese walked up on the dais and accepted the nomination, and they voted. That was it. It was all over at that point. And I’m telling you, her father was shocked. I thought Jules was going to pass out right there in the middle of the crowd. He was so surprised that he didn’t get an objection in before some other guy called for a vote, and bam, again. Something weird is going on here.”
“I can’t believe they elected Marie-Therese so fast.”
Georgie shook her head. “The election has gone on too long. Most people here know they’re not going to be the sovereign, and they don’t care what happens anymore. The outcome doesn’t affect them personally. They just want this to end so they can leave.”
“Yeah,” Dree said, accidentally letting the sarcasm flow. “For the forty thousand citizens of Monaco, this election was going to decide which one person is going to make all the decisions about their economy and government policies and status in the world for the next fifty years or so. I’m so sorry that it’s intruding on these rich guys’ tee times.”
Georgie snort-laughed. “Right? They don’t give a crap about regular people. They just want to sail their yachts down to the Amalfi Coast or over to Morocco because it’s five degrees warmer there in January, and to Hell with these little people complaining about not having access to decent health care or not earning enough money to live on or getting thrown out of the country because the wrong person got elected. That’s not their problem. But God forbid these billionaires pay extra license plate fees on their little boats that go inside their bigger boats.”
Dree chuckled. “They don’t have any clue.”
Georgie shook her head. “Most of them don’t. They were born with diamond-studded silver spoons in their mouths, and they’ve never had to worry about how they’re going to pay the rent next month or what happens if their car breaks down. I’ve got to admit that my parents were comfortable when I was a kid, but things happened. I’ve been on my own since I was eighteen. Th
ere were some hard times.”
“I was raised on a poor sheep farm in New Mexico,” Dree confided.
“Sheep are nice,” Georgie said, obviously being polite about the sheep farm thing. She glanced down at Dree, this time taking in that she was scuffed up, probably had a black eye, and her hair was still damp from her shower. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I—uh—had a rough night.”
“Were you at the Sea Change Gala last night? I didn’t see you. We were right by the front doors when the shooting started. Alex picked me up and ran out. We walked back to his house because, you know, nothing is beyond walking distance in Monaco. We didn’t know what had happened until we got home.”
“I got there late,” Dree told her. “And then I was kidnapped by a Russian bratva’s goons because they think I owe them money. They held me hostage in a warehouse overnight. I just escaped a few hours ago.”
Georgie turned and peered at her. “Seriously?”
“Oh, yeah. Serious as a heart attack.”
“Are you okay?”
“I think so.” As a nurse practitioner and medical professional, Dree knew that she was somewhere between shock and denial in the five stages of grief model, but it was working for her, so she wasn’t going to examine the terror lurking in her chest.
“Jeez, what is it with these Russian criminal oligarchs?” Georgie asked, shaking her head. “Literally, just over a month ago, my narcissistic mother was going to let one of them kill me because she owed them money and wouldn’t come out of her panic room.”
With that, Dree felt a kindred soul standing beside her. “What did you do to get away from them?”
Georgie winced. “Long story. People died. What about you?”
“I was tied up, so I flopped my way toward a door like I was breakdancing the inchworm, and Maxence carried me out with friends and a helicopter.”
“That was lucky.”
“I’ll say.”
“I’m so glad Maxence wasn’t hurt last night. Alexandre was freaking out and calling everybody to make sure they were okay, but at least we didn’t have to worry about Max. The news said his security dragged him right out of there and flew him off in a helicopter from the roof. That was smart of them to have it staged up there, just in case.”
“Oh, that’s not what happened,” Dree said. “Some of Monaco’s Secret Service guys committed treason and kidnapped him. He only figured it out when they were dragging him out of the convention center.”
Georgie stared at her. “Holy crap! That’s not what the news said.”
“Yeah, I think they made it look like that on purpose.”
“How did he get away? Did he fight them off?”
“I never got a straight answer out of him. He just shrugged and said he walked away when they weren’t looking.”
Georgie frowned. “But, they had him in a helicopter. Where’d they take him?”
“He didn’t say,” Dree told her, getting more concerned by the minute.
“And he just—walked away.”
“That’s what he told me.”
Georgie’s brown eyebrows dropped. “I guess that could happen.”
“Right? I think he’s not telling me everything.”
She nodded. “It took me a long time to pry some stuff out of Alexandre. He still needs to be prodded sometimes.”
Dree asked Georgie, “So, you’ve seen the news, you said. How many people didn’t make it out last night?”
Georgie bit one side of her lip, and her eyebrows dipped hard. “They’re saying twenty people confirmed dead and six more in the hospital.”
Dree cringed inwardly, remembering the damage high-power guns inflicted on human bodies. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”
Georgie nodded. “And all the saints.”
Marie-Therese Grimaldi, Maxence’s first cousin, wore a red dress that hugged her slim body and was laughing as she spoke with some of the other people Dree recognized from Maxence’s office visits. She seemed elated by the turn of events, an effervescent laugh bubbling up her body as she held court for the people around her. Marie-Therese’s long black hair was curled and trailed over her shoulders and somehow, perfectly framed her boobs. It must have been hair-sprayed onto the fabric of her dress.
She didn’t look like she’d been thrown in a delivery van and dragged around the French countryside all night.
Really, Marie-Therese looked like she’d just stepped out of a salon.
Instagram-ready, so to speak.
Huh.
Marie-Therese’s father, the short and stocky Prince Jules, stood beside her, plucking at her arm. Every so often, she said something to him, grinning, and then returned to posing for the cell phones.
Dree nodded toward Marie-Therese and her entourage in the middle of the throne room. “Doesn’t look like she’s too surprised about the turn of events. Why am I not shocked?”
Georgie shot a glance at Dree. “You know her?”
Dree bobbled her head back and forth. “She was nice to me a couple of times, but she sneaked into Maxence’s bed and tried to have her way with him a few nights ago. It was weird.”
Georgie’s jaw dropped. “Did he sleep with her?”
“I walked in right after he had hurtled out of bed. He was holding a pillow over his dick and defending his honor.”
Georgie laughed. “They’re first cousins, right? I mean, Marie-Therese is Alexandre’s first cousin, and Alexandre is Max’s first cousin. That’s the transitive property, right? I was never very good at math.”
“Yeah, first cousins. They would’ve had babies with three heads.”
“Ew,” Georgie said. “And, between you and me, typical.”
Dree turned and looked straight at Georgie. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t want to say anything if she’s a friend of yours—”
“I just said she tried to screw my boyfriend.”
“Good point. Anyway, one of my best friends is Reagan Stone-von Hannover.”
Dree came up with nothing. “You said that like I should know who she is.”
Georgie looked up like she was trying to do a difficult mathematical calculation. “So, if you start with Max’s older brother, Pierre, his ex-wife is Flicka von Hannover. My friend Rae married Flicka’s older brother, Wulf von Hannover.”
“I wouldn’t have followed that at all, except for Flicka. She and Maxence used to—date.”
Georgie raised her eyebrows. “Oh?”
“I’m not saying anything bad about Flicka because I’ve never met the woman, and she has the perfect right to do what she wants to with her life and should not be obliged to marry someone she doesn’t love because otherwise the guy will be sad, but I’m still picking up pieces of Maxence.”
Georgie’s eyes widened, and she nodded. “Oh.”
“I get the feeling that these royal people should’ve started branching out earlier in their dating processes. They’ve all broken each other’s hearts at least once.”
Georgie continued, “Anyway, after Rae and Wulf were married, they took a babymoon down to Argentina to go skiing last June. Marie-Therese showed up at the ski resort in Argentina and tried to steal Wulf away from my best friend. Marie-Therese had some song and dance about how Wulf’s father had put her up to it and she didn’t know they were married already, but Marie-Therese obviously has few scruples about poaching. I mean, everybody in this upper-upper-upper class social circle knew Rae and Wulf were together. He was kind of notorious for not dating anyone for forever, and then they were seen together at several events all of a sudden. Everybody knew. Marie-Therese must have known, even if she did go down there with the intention of stealing a fiancé and not a husband.”
Dree nodded, biting her lip. “And two nights ago she ended up in bed with Max, her first cousin, wearing trashy red lingerie.”
Georgie rolled her eyes. “Like I said, par for the course.”
Dree stared across the room at Marie-Therese, who was still accepting congra
tulations from her friends and had draped herself over the shoulder of a tall, extraordinarily handsome man whom Dree had never met.
She would’ve remembered a guy like that.
His hair was a dark brown that looked like it might be auburn in the sunlight, and his shoulders appeared broad enough to balance several girls on them at one time. His pale blue, Nordic eyes scanned the room.
When Marie Therese melted against his side, he glanced down at her and raised one eyebrow. Marie-Therese looked exhausted with just how pleased she was with herself.
Maxence raised his arms like he was about to announce something.
Dree asked Georgie, “Can we just walk over there, or is that area just for the electors?”
Georgie shrugged. “That giant guy in the uniform over by the doors told me to stay in the back. He was herding people earlier. I think that guy that Marie Therese appears to be climbing isn’t one of the electors. I saw him standing over in the corner. He had been sitting on the couch by the far doors, but there was an older lady standing beside him, so he gave his seat to her.”
When Georgie pointed out the uniformed giant, Dree glanced around the room. Ten uniformed guys, all with guns, were stationed around the room.
Dree scowled. “Screw it. I’m not from Monaco. These security dudes don’t have any authority over me.”
She strode across the throne room toward Maxence and Marie-Therese.
Chapter Twenty-One
Princess Marie-Therese
Maxence
Near the dais, arguments broke out among the electors. Accusations of betrayal were thrown between friends and family members with rancor.
Prince Maxence Grimaldi watched his chance at the throne slip away.
He could leave Monaco forever.
He should turn on his heel and walk right out of that throne room, free to marry Dree or take Holy Orders or change the world with his charity projects.
This was what he’d always wanted.
This, right here.
But Marie-Therese would rule as a puppet for her father, Prince Jules, rubber-stamping his racist agenda and kleptocratic policies. She was vapid, morally bankrupt, with no scruples. Either they had planned this to rule together, or Jules would manipulate her, or she would party and graft her way to Monaco’s ruin.
Royal: A Royal Billionaire Novel (Billionaires in Disguise: Maxence Book 6) Page 13
