Prince: Royal Romantic Suspense (Billionaires in Disguise: Maxence Book 5) Blair Babylon (ebook reader screen txt) 📖

“No, but I don’t see—”

“And then, like, you walked back in and took over. You literally strolled into the palace and announced the king had returned, and all the servants bowed down to you.”

“That’s hyperbole,” he said, dismissing it.

“Nuh-uh. You called people into meetings, and they came, and then you talked to them until they were ready to do anything you wanted. I watched it happen time after time because I didn’t have to take notes. I was just writing down whatever, so I’ve had plenty of time and brain capacity to watch what you were doing. When you talk, people listen.”

“But I’m next in line. If I wanted to, I could just call the Crown Council and say, ‘Elect me,’ and they would. It would be mine if I wanted it.”

Dree flipped over and pushed herself up on her elbows. “Yeah, everything is yours, if you want it. Whether it’s the throne of Monaco or a pirate ship, you walk in and take command.”

Chapter Sixteen

Prayer II

Maxence

Maxence pressed his palms together, his shoulders and pectoral muscles straining.

Sweat dripped off his eyebrow in the shadowy closet.

He spent hours praying the Major Hours of the Liturgy every day.

Every Sunday and other days of holy obligation when he was at home in Monaco, Maxence and his security staff strolled from the palace to the Cathedral of Our Lady Immaculate, which was over a century old and held the bodies of Maxence’s ancestors, parents, and older brother. The ten-minute walk through the medieval town of Monaco-Ville on the headlands high above the harbor allowed Maxence a few moments to reflect before they entered the Cathedral and Maxence sat with the congregation outside of the altar rail. He did not attempt to assist during the Mass as he would have outside of Monaco. In this tiny city-state conquered by his ancestors, Maxence was just another soldier, not a priest.

No matter how he longed to stand above the altar and take the consecrated host from the priest.

They could tell him that he wasn’t a cleric when he was in Monaco, but they couldn’t take prayer away from him.

But that afternoon was different.

He’d dug into the back of his closet and found his duffel bag from Nepal. The musty, sweaty shirt he’d been wearing when Quentin Sault found him was crumpled into a ball in the bottom corner, and he’d put it on. The white square had been in a pocket of his toiletries bag, and he’d wedged it into the clerical collar, scraping his Adam’s apple in the process.

The shirt stank of grime and labor. The stench of an unwashed man had ripened into something genuinely foul.

He hated the smell of his unwashed body and his own filth, but wearing the shirt was the last time he’d felt close to the Divine.

So he endured it, his soul crying out to God in the small, dim closet.

Light from a small overhead lamp bathed the crucifix. The closed door behind him muffled any sound or vibration.

His consciousness shrank to the confines of the closet.

Maxence reached out his hand and slammed the switch above his head where he kneeled.

The light above the crucifix extinguished, and the darkness that snapped through the tiny, enclosed closet was absolute.

The inside of Maxence’s head screamed.

His skin crawled under the reek of the shirt.

The blackness and the tiny space, filled with his own breath and his stench, pressed on his flesh, smashing him.

I give you my pain.

I give you my fear.

I will endure anything if you show me the way.

Give me a sign, or give me certainty, or give me the strength to put my feet on the right path.

When Maxence couldn’t stand it anymore, he slapped the light switch to turn the light back on.

He was lying on his side on the rough carpeting, staring up at the silent wooden carving.

Chapter Seventeen

His Highness, Prince Jules Grimaldi

Maxence

January days turned into January weeks.

Another dawn and another day Maxence spent at the office dealing with the minutiae of Monaco and the interminable quest for the next sovereign prince.

Dree Clark was installed in her admin’s chair, ostensibly taking notes for the palace archives but actually writing down whatever he told her to, which usually did not resemble the conversation in the slightest. She was lovely, sitting there in a pearl pink dress and ivory shoes the color of her skin. Maybe if they had a moment between appointments, he would have her sit on his desk with one foot on either side of his hips so he could run his hands up those shapely legs of hers to her panties and see if they were wet.

And if they weren’t, they would be soon enough.

He wanted to take her somewhere remote, somewhere far away, where he could have a week with her for all the depraved things he craved, not stolen minutes between meetings or after midnight.

Maxence was considering clawing his way out of the palace through the walls to spirit her away. That inclination increased tenfold when the office phone at his elbow clicked and the receptionist said, “Your next appointment is here, His Highness, Prince Jules Grimaldi.”

Seriously, the medieval walls were probably only a foot of stone and plaster. Max could probably dig his way through with his hot chocolate spoon.

The door at the end of the long office opened.

Maxence wondered if his uncle Prince Rainier IV had ever had that trapdoor and secret passage installed under his desk as he’d griped about for years.

Jules Grimaldi bounded up the long carpet, his hand extended to shake as he grinned. “Maxence, so good to see you again.”

He rose and extended his hand in return. “Uncle, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

His uncle Jules’s hand was cool and damp like shaking a fish, and Jules grinned a mischievous smile. “I heard both Duke Alexandre and Lady Christine Grimaldi have returned to Monaco!”

Maxence shrugged. “I hadn’t heard.”

“But this