“Then why was she acting like that?” Dree asked him.
He looked down at his shoes and the cobblestones underneath. “I’ll have a quick phone conversation with her to make sure everything’s okay. You shouldn’t take it personally. She’s not mad at you. She’s probably unsure of how to proceed in a situation like this.”
“In a situation like what?”
“I shouldn’t discuss it. I’m her employer, or at least the foundation I own and fund is her employer, which is essentially the same thing. I’m not sure how much it would be ethical for me to divulge. But I’ll make sure she’s okay, and I’ll make sure she’s okay with you. I don’t know if going to lunch will be something she’ll want to do, but I’ll make sure she’s okay.”
Dree shook her head. “I don’t like that you’re keeping secrets from me.”
“As her employer, there are some things I shouldn’t tell people about her if she doesn’t want me to.”
Dree chewed on her lip as they walked into the castle.
Mairearad had known all three of the guys, and Casimir and Arthur had seemed casual and relaxed when they talked with her and vice-versa. Arthur hadn’t stiffened until Dree had walked over, and Casimir hadn’t at all.
Maybe Mairearad had been their tattoo artist.
Dree filed that information away.
Chapter Fifteen
Confronting Arthur
Dree
Finally.
Finally, they were on the plane to go to New Mexico so Dree and Maxence could do this right.
Dree was a modern girl with modern inclinations, but she also did not want to hear for the rest of her life about how her husband didn’t do things in proper order from her daddy.
And her mother.
And all her brothers and sisters.
And her cousins, near and far.
When you’re a member of a large extended family that gets together for camping family reunions every year, where there are literally a couple of hundred people hanging around who look a little too much like you, people will take any opportunity to pick at anything.
Some people would think it was funny and a good reason to kid around.
Some of them would be nasty about it because that’s who they were.
And again, yes, she shouldn’t even have those people in her life, and she should walk away from that kind of toxicity.
Or she could just give them nothing to gripe about.
Maxence’s private plane was big enough for fifteen passengers or more, so the four of them—Maxence and Dree, Casimir and Arthur—had spread out and were quite comfortable on the flight.
Because they were flying directly from Nice, France to New Mexico, Maxence had dismissed the Rogue Security operators for the duration of their trip. They had nothing to worry about on an off-schedule jaunt into the heartland of the United States. Marie-Therese and her father were locked up, as was Matryona Sokolov.
They would be fine.
Dree had to agree with him. Her little brothers were probably better protection in the high desert of New Mexico than a bunch of European mercenaries who wouldn’t drink enough water and then fall over, dehydrated.
And they were going directly to Albuquerque, out to her family’s sheep ranch, and then turn around and head back. As long as some random assassin didn’t own a couple of MiGs to shoot the royal airplane out of the sky, what could really go wrong?
During the whole flight, however, Dree was keeping an eye on Arthur Finch-Hatten.
Yeah, Arthur pretended he was the life of the party with those pretty silvery eyes and droll British sense of humor, but she was going to have it out with that guy.
But every time she tried to get him alone, somebody interfered.
One time, she almost cornered him up by the cockpit, but the pilot came out and asked her if she would like to sit up front and fly the airplane.
Yes. Yes, she would.
Dree held onto the stick for a few minutes and “flew the airplane,” with the real pilot holding onto the other stick, of course.
Another time when she was stalking Arthur and trying to corner him, Maxence cornered her in a small luggage cubby off to the side of the main body of the airplane, and his scorching hot kiss had made her knees weak.
After supper, Arthur went to “the loo,” which was in the rear of the plane. The bathroom was across from the small galley kitchen where the flight attendants had been making them an impressive array of snacks and meals during the flight.
This time Dree was going to get him.
Arthur was just coming out of the small bathroom, ridiculously huge by airplane standards because it had a shower stall.
Dree was lurking, waiting for him across the aisle in the galley kitchen.
He saw her standing there but turned to walk down the aisle to where Maxence and Casimir were sitting at a table, close to the cockpit.
Dree reached out, grabbed Arthur’s tie like the leash of an ornery dog, and hauled him into the galley.
One of the attendants was standing in the small area between the counters, and she looked up when Arthur stumbled into the narrow space.
Dree hissed at her, “Get lost,” and the woman hurried out, leaving only a trail of jasmine perfume behind her.
Arthur yanked his tie out of her grip and smoothed it over his flat stomach, saying in his cut-glass British accent, “I believe there’s been some mistake. I’m a married man, and I love my wife.”
Dree growled at him, “I’m not making a pass at you, you stuck-up Brit. I’m going to beat the snot out of you for what you did to Maxence.”
Arthur leaned back against the counter, a very English smirk on his face as if he wasn’t afraid of her at all.
He ought to be afraid of her. Branding and castrating calves was a skill with many applications.
“Max doesn’t seem too put out,” Arthur said. “May I ask what this is regarding?”
“That tattoo on his back, you asshole. You designed it, didn’t you? Isn’t that what Casimir said at the election ceremony, that you designed all your back pieces?”
Arthur became a bit cooler as he stared down his nose at her with those eyes of silver ice. Jeez, all these guys were ridiculously tall. “If you don’t like his tattoo, take it up with him. It’s a bit too big for ablation, but perhaps he can modify it into something that you would prefer inked on your husband’s skin.”
“It doesn’t matter whether I like it or not. What kind of a friend would design a tattoo that is supposed to reflect his soul and make it devil wings?”
Arthur’s frown was confused, and he blinked. “It’s not devil wings.”
“Yes, it is.”
“They’re not. I made perfect angelic wings. Every feather, every calamus, every rachis, fluff, barb, and bit of down is precise and perfect. I modeled them after a swan and Archangel Gabriel’s wings from a painting of the Annunciation by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo.”
“They’re not an angel’s wings. They’re broken. They are the wings of a fallen angel, not Gabriel.”
Arthur squinted those fascinating eyes at her. “What do you mean, ‘they’re broken’?”
“They’re broken!” she whisper-shouted at him. If they got any louder, Max and Casimir were going to hear them, even over the roar of the engines from outside the fuselage. “The wings are slashed and shattered and broken! They look just like he fell from Heaven into the Pit and broke his angel wings!”
Arthur shook his head, his lips pursed. “I assure you, when Maxence left the tattoo parlor with me, they were the wings of an archangel, one whose soul is so pure that he will serve God in every facet of his life as he flies through the world, by whichever path he eventually chose.”
“But that’s not what’s on there.”
“I know what I drew, and I was at the tattoo parlor with the artist making sure it was perfect. Is that what he told you?”
“Yes,” she hissed at him.
Arthur’s expression turned troubl
ed. “Have you seen him naked? I would’ve thought, the way you two were necking back here like teenagers, that you certainly had scruffed like mad minks at some point. But now it seems that you haven’t seen his back, because if you had, you would have seen how every line of my design is crisp and forms perfect angelic wings. Why are you marrying him?”
Dree flinched backward, defensive. “Because I want to.”
“Maxence isn’t the type to wait. Trust me on that one.” He looked her up and down, his eyes narrowing. “And you don’t seem the type, either. You’re not playing virginal exploration games with him. Those are real moves. Why haven’t you shagged him yet?”
“I—we—we have!”
“And yet you’ve obviously never seen the tattoo on his back. Why is that?”
“Yes, I have. I’ve seen it.”
His scrutiny of her was turning angry. “We will ask him—”
That seemed like a very bad idea. “No. Don’t mention to him that I talked to you. I’ll figure out what’s going on.”
Arthur was watching her. “You seemed sure. You seemed like he told you it was of a devil’s wings for whatever reason, so you could pass an interrogation, perhaps, but you haven’t seen his skin.”
“Just—just don’t, okay? Maybe I misinterpreted it.”
“I don’t like secrets I don’t understand, especially when it comes to my friends.” He strolled away, his hands in his pockets.
Dree followed him to make sure Arthur didn’t narc to Max that she had been accosting him.
Chapter Sixteen
Stars
Dree
The flight from the airport in Nice, France to Albuquerque, New Mexico took twelve hours on the private plane, plus two hours for a refueling pit stop on the East Coast of the US. But Albuquerque was eight hours behind France in time zones, so therefore, though they left France at midnight, they would arrive at the Albuquerque International Airport at six o’clock in the morning.
Dree nodded along while the senior pilot explained the time changes. She could calculate mg/kg dosages in her head with the best of the nurses at Good Sam hospital, but time zones stymied her. It was like magic. She just knew that they were trying to outrun the sun coming up behind them.
The pilot was a lean, grizzled middle-aged lady. In the event of an equipment malfunction, she could probably shimmy down into the fuselage, crawl out on the wing, and jerry-rig an engine with chewing gum and titanium knitting needles.
Considering they’d arrive at six in the morning, though, and allowing some time for getting situated and the four-hour-plus drive out to her family’s ranch, Dree figured they’d get there right about in time for lunch.
That was important information.
In the meantime, however, Dree was cooped up on a flying cigar tube for over a half of one day of her life with three dudes whose arms and legs sprawled like tree branches and roots, growing all over everything. She tripped every time she tried to walk around.
And one of them kept snagging her, dragging her into little hideouts she hadn’t even noticed existed on the way from Nepal to Monaco, and kissing her and running his hands over her hips and ass like he’d already bought the cow.
Not that Dree was pushing Max off or anything.
Indeed, she’d loitered near the carry-on closet, clearing her throat for two whole minutes before Maxence had caught on, shoved her inside with him, and properly molested her for a few minutes.
After the plane had traveled for a few hours and they’d eaten their weight in meals and snacks, the two flight attendants transformed a couple of the reclining seats into single beds for Casimir and Arthur. Then they turned down the double bed in the bedroom located in the tail of the plane for Dree and Maxence.
Seriously, these royal folks were spoiled.
Dree hadn’t mentioned to them yet that, on her family’s farm, gentlemen visitors without wives slept in the barn for her sisters’ safety and modesty.
That might go over like a brick balloon.
She had the whole drive out to the farm to tell them about it, though.
After Maxence had closed the bedroom door behind them, Dree fretted, “But where will Malini and Ondina sleep tonight?”
“Near the cockpit, there are accordion walls that pull out, and there are single beds up there. The pilots can switch off, too,” Maxence said as he found his pajamas in his carry-on.
“This is so weird that somebody else packed my luggage,” Dree said, pulling an oversized sleepshirt out of her carry-on that matched Maxence’s. “Oh, they packed the one from the Four Seasons George V Hotel in Paris.”
“Is that all right?”
“Oh, yes, of course! I was just surprised to see it. It feels like it’s been a while.”
“That is the trade-off of having the valets pack your luggage. Unless you specify exactly what you want, they do their jobs, which means you have perfectly appropriate and proper clothes, if not exactly the ones you particularly wanted. When we do a tour with state dinners, we have consultations ahead of time to discuss attire, and there are fittings, of course.”
Dree was watching Maxence, waiting for him to take off his shirt to put on his pajamas so she could get another look at that tattoo of his to see if she had misconstrued what Max had said somehow, but Maxence went in the bathroom to change and brush his teeth.
Dammit.
After he came out wearing pajama pants and a light blue T-shirt that completely covered his back and shoulders, Dree went into the little bathroom and got ready for bed.
When she returned, Maxence was sitting up in the bed, checking something on his phone and frowning. When he was unamused like that, the middle of his lips pulled up a little bit and, the square of his jaw became even more pronounced.
Damn, the man was sexy.
“What’s up?” Dree asked, bouncing on the bed, which was surprisingly springy under her hands and knees, considering that it looked like a futon mattress at first glance.
Maxence looked up, and he must’ve decided to stop frowning because his eyebrows waggled as he blinked, like he was stretching away the frown lines between his dark, luminous eyes. “It’s fine. The Monegasque police were able to apprehend Matryona Sokolov within hours after the election and the coup attempt, but there’s still no sign of Kir Sokolov. Interpol has put out a bulletin for him. I’m sure he’ll be arrested soon.”
“I guess it’s a good thing we’re getting out of Europe for a few days,” Dree said. “Let the police do their job. By the time we get back, they’ll probably have everything sewn up.”
Maxence’s smile became a little more genuine, less like he was trying to cover up worry. “An excellent thought.” He spread his arms in welcome.
Dree clambered the last few feet across the mattress and flopped herself against his broad, muscular chest, her hand sliding around his waist and under the back of his shirt.
Around his waist, his flesh felt smooth under her palm, other than the hard rolls of muscle under his skin.
Examining his tattoo that way wasn’t going to work either.
Dree plastered a huge grin to her face and sat up on her knees, reaching for Max’s tee shirt hem.
Maxence’s smile brightened more. He grabbed Dree around her waist and tossed her onto her back.
Giggling, she reached for his tee shirt again to pull it off of him.
She snagged the soft cotton with the tips of her fingers and dragged it upward.
Maxence lifted his arms over his head, his rounded biceps bulging as his arms bent, and Dree hopped up on her knees to wrestle it off of him.
Maxence had put on a few pounds since they’d returned to Monaco because he’d been eating large portions at every meal, much more than he’d been eating in Nepal, but none of it seemed to be deposited on his body as fat. The rounds of his muscles had engorged, filling out his chest and arms with a more muscular physique, but his lean waist was still tight. Furrows cut between each set of muscles that wrapped his arms and tor
so. He looked like he was training to be a movie star.
Dree was momentarily too distracted to get around behind him and get a good look at that tattoo.
He stretched, crawling on his hands and knees to reach for the lamp beside the bed, and he clicked it off.
No way.
She asked him, “Are you sure? Usually, you like the light.”
“We can see the stars through the portholes,” he said, his deep voice rough with passion already.
Outside the rounded-rectangular windows set into the hull of the plane, pinpricks and smears of stars burned blue and purple in the deep night. They were flying over the Atlantic Ocean, as far from any light pollution as was possible, and the stars were even brighter than when she was a little girl out on the sheep ranch hundreds of miles away from civilization.
“Oh.” Dree was drawn to the long porthole window. She knelt on the bed and set her fingers against the cool plastic separating her from the deep space void outside. “It’s so pretty.”
Belts of stars and constellation clusters frosted the sky, and the occasional twinkle of another airplane in the distance raced through the glitter.
It was almost like being on a spaceship flying through a galaxy.
In the dark, Maxence’s warm fingers touched her shoulder and stroked down her arm. He lifted her wrists and pinned them against the wall of the airplane above the window. “Don’t move.”
His hands roamed over her body, his lips close behind, a soft exploration of her skin and secret places that sent shivers through her until she whispered, begging him to take her.
He did, still locking her wrists against the wall and pressing her breasts against the cool plastic of the window, his thick erection sliding up inside her and stroking, his other hand pulling her hips back over him.
When she was whimpering, almost crying out because her body had wound tightly and she couldn’t breathe because the tension was too tight inside of her, his fingers slipped around the curve of her pelvis to her clit and slowly rubbed long strokes of friction around where he penetrated her.
Reign: A Royal Romantic Suspense Novel (Billionaires in Disguise: Maxence Book 5) Page 7
