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

casino. Most of Monaco’s income now comes from tourism and billionaires seeking to escape income taxes, but in my grandfather’s time, almost all of Monaco’s treasury was funded by the casino.”

After they toured the public areas, Maxence led her deeper into the casino.

She said, “I love the arched doors, but this room seems familiar.”

Dark wood paneling lined the walls to about eight feet, where subtle gold and sage green accents took over and soared to the ceiling five stories or more above.

Maxence said, “This is the Salle Médecin. It used to be James Bond’s special haunt to play baccarat and roulette, but now the space is more often used for galas, tournaments, and private events.”

“This is amazing.”

When Maxence looked down at Dree, her eyes were sparkling with wonder. “I’m glad you think so.”

They walked out of the rear doors onto a wide terrace and wandered through the small botanical gardens back there. Finally, they came to a white railing that overlooked the sapphire harbor filled with superyachts, cruise ships, and hundreds of smaller watercraft.

Dree sighed and shuffled closer to him, and Maxence looped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side again. Before he even noticed what he was doing, he leaned down and kissed her forehead.

He shouldn’t be too affectionate because that might lead to misunderstandings, but it was fun to play for a while.

It was a lot of fun to play for a while.

Dree pointed downward from the terrace on which they stood. “What’s that?”

A peninsula jutted out into the Mediterranean Sea, and a rainbow mosaic had been tiled onto the roof of a large hexagonal building. “That’s the Auditorium Rainier III. The Philharmonic plays there a lot, and it holds a lot of different cultural events. That mosaic on the roof is called the Hexa Grace. The auditorium has only been there for a little while. Before that, there was a sporting club.”

“Oh?”

Maxence stared into the air drenched with sunshine. “When I came home to Monaco for school vacations, I ran around the casino and the other gardens. When I was a boy, and I must have been pretty young, there were pigeon nests on the casino roof, hundreds of them. I went up there as a child to count the eggs and watch them hatch.”

For absolutely no good reason, Maxence kept talking.

“They were homing pigeons. They always came back. Generations of pigeons laid their eggs up there, hatched, and grew up. And there were traps up there.”

Dree frowned, confused. “Traps? I’m surprised they didn’t have spikes up there to make them go away.”

He nodded, even though he wasn’t surprised. “After the birds were trapped, the cages were taken down to the sporting club. There, they were stuffed into a tunnel. It must have been terrifying in there, dark and hot and crowded. The Riviera gets steamy in the summers. They must have been praying for God to free them. When they reached the other end, the birds emerged and flew into the sky, where the hunters were waiting with their shotguns.”

Her small gasp disappeared into the breeze. “Max, you’re going to give me nightmares.”

“Some of them escaped. Some were only winged.” His mouth kept talking like his soul was trying to fly into the air and away over the sea. “But those that survived, like all pigeons, returned to where they were hatched, which was the roof of the Monte Carlo casino, where the traps were waiting.”

She blinked. “Oh, my God. Wait, so when people shoot shotguns at those ceramic disks they call ‘clay pigeons,’ they used real pigeons? Like, the birds?”

“That is what it refers to.”

“Ew. I would never shoot an animal I didn’t intend to eat.”

“Monaco used live homing pigeons for years after everyone else had gone to clay pigeons because it was decadent and callously elite to kill live birds for fun, sort of like trophy-hunting endangered animals on a game ranch. It’s a blood sport. The wealthy like blood sports.”

Dree’s lip lifted. “That’s disgusting.”

Maxence couldn’t seem to shut up. “Live birds were considered more sporting. Clay disks sail in a trajectory preordained by physics. Birds fly erratically and have free will. You have to be a better shot to hit a bird.”

“That is gross.”

Maxence surveyed the harbor, the pristine water crammed with the ships and yachts of the uberwealthy, the ones who engaged in blood sports to whet their appetite for domination. “It seems that I’m just another Monte Carlo homing pigeon who returns to the traps on the rooftop. It calls me back. I can’t stay away.”

And yet, he was a Grimaldi, so he was also the hunter.

The sun had drifted westward, and it was time to return to the palace.

Maxence turned back to the terrace and the gardens behind the casino where tourists milled, gawking and pointing.

Sunlight showered the plants and people, shining and glinting on the people’s vibrant afternoon clothes as they strolled along the Riviera next to the Mediterranean Sea.

Except for one man.

He wore a dark gray boxy suit, and the sunshine glinted on the silver in his close-cropped hair.

Quentin Sault stared straight at Maxence, touched his ear and said something, and then faded into the crowd like a puff of pale smoke.

Chapter Nineteen

Norberta von und Lichtenstein

Maxence

The cool days accumulated into weeks. The calendar on Max’s phone told him where to go every minute of the day.

Maxence wished Dree was at his side for that evening’s cocktail party, but the electors on the Crown Council would look askance at him if he escorted an admin to a royal soirée.

The event had been “sponsored” by a large wealth management firm. Their sizeable contribution to Monaco’s coffers had purchased pictures with Monaco’s royal family standing on their red carpet in front of a large screen with their logo embossed on it. The firm would also pay a percentage of their annual gross revenue into Monaco’s treasury the next year.

Pierre had enjoyed photo ops and networking opportunities like this one. If