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

Lady Valentina again pressed her lips together before she answered. “Sport is good for disadvantaged youths.”

Maxence wasn’t sure what Nico had thought when he had suggested Lady Valentina might be a qualified candidate for the monarchy if this was how she spent her time. He suspected charity was not how she spent her time, of course, and she had selected useless charities so she wouldn’t be obliged to do much for them.

He asked her, “About the upcoming election—”

Lady Valentina cut him off. “Of course, I shall be voting for you. It is customary that the eldest male of the line should inherit, and tradition is an important part of Monegasque culture.”

He asked her, his voice low, “But what if the heir apparent didn’t have to inherit?”

“Maxence, I have heard wild conspiracy theories that some people are trying to leapfrog you in the line of succession. I disapprove of such liberal nonsense. You need not lobby me, child. As the heir apparent, you have my vote.”

“Wait, you’ve heard what?” Alexandre or Nico must have been flapping their lips. “Who was talking about straying from the usual line of succession?”

“It seems like everyone, but don’t you worry, Maxence. There are plenty of us traditionalists who would never, ever consider such a travesty.”

Maxence needed to talk to Alexandre and Nico right away. “Thank you for your support, Lady Valentina. I have some things to discuss with my uncle Louis.”

Lady Valentina glanced toward the stand of tropical neon trees. “It’ll have to wait until tomorrow. He’s over there with Matryona Sokolov, so he’ll be high as a kite for the rest of the evening.”

The music seemed to stop in Max’s ears. “I beg your pardon?”

“Matryona supplies many of our set with off-label pharmaceuticals to get through the day. After Louis had back surgery eight years ago, he couldn’t quite kick the pain pill habit. It looks like she brought him some extra so he could have fun at the party. Oxycontin pairs so nicely with Chablis.”

The rope that suspended Max’s hopes broke and thudded into a tangled coil in the pit of his stomach. “Uncle Louis is addicted to pain pills?”

“Do you think that he and his friends would be undulating over there if they were merely drinking alcohol?”

The small group of middle-aged adults and seventy-somethings writhed to the approximate beat of the dissonant music.

Maxence turned back. “Thank you so much for your input, Lady Valentina. You’ve given me a lot to think about tonight.”

He moved away into the crowd, intent on getting to the door and out of this stupid surreal party. His two possible candidates for the throne had been dashed in one conversation, and so Max needed to make a Venn diagram or an Excel spreadsheet or something to help him figure out who to put forth to the Council to be the next Prince of Monaco.

Maxence stepped between people, intent on making his way to the bright rectangle and the exit when he almost bumped into a feminine figure in a scarlet gown with matching opera gloves.

“Maxence! How lovely to see you.”

“Nora, lovely to see you.” Double kiss. “What on Earth are you doing in Monaco?”

Princess Norberta von und Lichtenstein was the younger sister of Prince Antonius von und Liechtenstein, heir to the tiny country’s throne with the same name.

Not that Prince Maxence of Monaco should be calling any other country tiny.

Norberta was second in line to the throne after her older brother, and she was one of Europe’s more sought-after princesses.

The zaftig brunette smiled up at him, her tiny nose wrinkling. She slipped her hand under his elbow and snuggled up next to his side. “It’s so good to see you again. It seems like I never see anybody now that we are all out of college. And you are never anywhere when we get together.”

Nora was another boarding-school friend from Max’s childhood. “I’m not asocial.”

“Oh, of course not, but when everybody congregates on someone’s yacht or there is a wedding to go to, you are never anywhere to be found. You skipped your own brother’s engagement party last year. God rest his soul.”

Bringing up Pierre was an odd choice in the conversation.

Nora had steered Maxence over to one of the open bars where they claimed flutes of champagne. The effervescence popped and fizzled in Maxence’s mouth and sinuses. “My life after school has been a busy one.”

As was usual for boarding-school friends, they gossiped for a few minutes about other alumni, discussing who was doing what and who was in trouble with whom.

When Nora brought up one of the odd ducks in their class, Triston King, Maxence told her, “I heard Twist was hanging out at the yacht club here in Monte Carlo. Caz said he’s algorithm-trading global stocks and utilizing Monaco’s 5G network to outfox competitors.”

Nora batted her dark eyes up at him. “So unusual that you have the inside scoop on our classmates, but of course it makes sense that you know everything that’s going on in Monaco. Have you seen anyone else?”

Still odd. Max didn’t like it. “I saw Micah Shine in Paris a month or so ago.”

Nora smiled. “Slumming it with the scholarship kids, are you?”

“He was at a ball at Versailles. Micah looks like he was doing quite well for himself, not slumming it at all.”

Nora finished her champagne and set it on the tray of a waiter who was bussing tables as they passed. She cuddled herself closer to Maxence’s side. “I just meant that the scholarship kids aren’t like us.”

Maxence wasn’t sure if her comment was mere classism or an attempt to emphasize what the two of them had in common, which was enough royal blood to turn the floor sapphire blue. “They always seemed like good chaps.”

“You said you talked to Casimir. How is he doing these days?”

Casimir was a prince of the Netherlands, and another example of like-us. “Living the quiet life in California as his sister pushes him down the line of succession with each new baby.”

“How terrible