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

his neck where black feathers from the tattoo inked on his back curled over his shoulder. She touched them, the ink so dark that it was amazing that his skin was smooth.

“There is my girl,” Maxence whispered into her hair. “There’s my little chérie. You don’t have to cry. I know you’re not the kind of girl who likes to be choked. I made you do it. Everything is what I do to you.”

Dree whispered, “But what if I am?”

Maxence chuckled. “Then you’re in luck because I’m the kind of man who will choke you.”

“Maybe I am the kind of girl who likes to be choked, or more, or worse.”

His hand slid down over her bare hip underneath the blanket and cupped her butt cheek. “I’ve always thought you might be curious about more than you let on.”

A delightful frisson cascaded through her body.

Before she could stop her mouth from talking, Dree said, “Hey, if I’ll sleep with a priest, I guess I am a depraved slut who will sleep with anything.”

Maxence leaned back and gazed down at her in the dim light. A few of the lamps in the room had been turned on, though Dree really didn’t remember any of that. “It’s still bothering you.”

Dree looked down, breaking eye contact with him. “Of course, it’s still bothering me.”

He dragged a finger underneath her jaw and tipped her head up. His fathomless dark eyes were solemn. “As soon as a new prince sits on the throne of Monaco, I’ll renounce my vows as a deacon and be officially laicized by Pope Vincent de Paul.”

A stupid spark of hope floated up to Dree’s head. “You will?”

“I can’t do it now. My Holy Orders as a deacon and theoretically, someday, as a priest, are the basis for my argument that I am fundamentally ineligible to be the Prince of Monaco. If I renounce my vows now, the Crown Council will try to elect me, and my life will surely be in danger. Too many people want that throne. As a religious, I’m safe.”

Doubt filtered in.

Her ex-boyfriend, Francis Senft, had lied to her about everything, and she’d believed every single lying word Francis had ever said with all her heart, even when her B.S. detector had tingled her neck like she’d hit the funny bone on her whole spine.

Francis loved her. He wanted to get married. He was a nice guy and not a criminal and a drug dealer at all.

She’d wanted to believe Francis so much. Her church, her family, and her friends all told her that if she was sleeping with him, then she needed to marry him, so she’d demanded it.

What a sap she was.

Part of her didn’t want to believe anyone about anything, even Max, who’d only lied to her when she’d told him to. “Oh. Okay.”

“I will,” Maxence said. “Look at me. Listen to me.”

His fingers trailed up her bare arms and cradled her head on both sides, his palms warm against her jaw.

Dree’s thoughts quieted. Her focus turned to Maxence, to his dark eyes, to his sensuous lips.

“I am going to renounce my vows,” he said, pronouncing it carefully as if he were cementing it in his mind as much as emphasizing it to her. “I want—”

She couldn’t look away. She couldn’t even breathe from the intensity rolling off of him.

“—I care about you,” he said slowly.

She felt his words through her body like a wave of sensation from the movement of his lips.

He stopped talking, and he blinked.

Dree gasped in a breath of air because she hadn’t been able to inhale while he was telling her that.

He said, “Breathe. Don’t hold your breath.”

Dree gulped air. “I’m okay.”

“Keep breathing, but believe me.”

“But you said you’ve always wanted to be a priest, and I saw you give the homily in Kathmandu. You should be a priest.”

“I doubt my vocation. Every priest I’ve ever met, given enough time, has doubted my vocation. Two popes have doubted my vocation. I have prayed and prayed, but I feel nothing.”

Dree frowned. “I feel like I’m interfering in something I shouldn’t, like I’m destroying something good.”

“I want to be a priest, but even billionaires can’t have everything they want.”

“I don’t want to be the reason you give it up.”

“If it’s wrong for me, then I should walk away.”

“But Max—”

Hope softened his gaze, and wonder lightened his voice. “We’ll go away together, someplace else, someplace where we can think and be together, someplace far away from Monaco.”

Anything like that seemed impossible. “There are an awful lot of people depending on you here. I don’t know if you can leave. What if no one else can be the prince?”

Maxence brushed the air impatiently. “Many others could sit on the throne. It’s a matter of convincing someone decent to take the job.”

“But I think people are counting on you.”

He continued, “There is a defined line of succession. It doesn’t stop with me. And even if it did, the loopholes that were exploited when Princess Charlotte was named successor can surely come into play again. She was the illegitimate daughter of the prior prince, who hadn’t managed to sire a surviving child with his legal wife. He adopted Charlotte when she was over eighteen, all of which is specifically outlawed by the French treaties, though it’s quite certain she was his biological daughter. If all of that can be forgiven, skipping a few people in the line of succession shouldn’t be a problem.”

Dree said, “So, I was talking with some of the other staff, and they seem to be fixated on you.”

He shrugged. “Yes, the royal family of Monaco and Monegasque citizens have a special, affectionate relationship that is unique in Europe. Many of them probably believe that the line of succession should be adhered to, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best outcome for Monaco. It doesn’t mean that I’m the best person for the job. As a matter of fact, I can guarantee I’m not.”

“It seems like you know everything about Monaco. In all