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

her left shoulder from a ribbon the same color as his necklet, which meant that she was a Lady of the same order, two grades below his. Their uncle Prince Rainier IV had always been stingy about handing out royal honors.

Maxence said to Marie-Therese, “Don’t let me keep you if you want to mingle.”

“I’ll break away in a few minutes, Maxsy, but we are attracting a great deal of attention from the press. It’s in Monaco’s best interests if we stay together for a few more minutes.”

As Maxence moved into the crowd, he caught a glimpse of a tall man with blond hair hanging down over his shoulders.

He managed to intercept his cousin. “Alexandre! I’m so glad you came to the gala.”

A firm handshake, and Alexandre introduced his wife, Georgie, to Marie-Therese. “Wouldn’t have missed it for the world, Max, and I’m glad to see we will wrap up our duties here tomorrow.”

Georgie was watching Marie-Therese closely, even scrutinizing her, but Maxence was more interested in the honors Alexandre was wearing. Alex wore a red and white sash across his chest like a beauty pageant contestant, pinned with a badge on his right hip and a silver and green star on his left shoulder. “Is that the Order of St. Charles? What rank are you?”

Alexandre’s smile turned smug. “I didn’t think you’d notice. It’s the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Charles.”

That was the highest rank in the highest order that Monaco awarded to anyone. Usually, only the Prince and his Princess Consort were members. “How the hell did you get that?”

Alexandre winked at him. “As always, it had to do with a bet.”

Georgie cocked her head to the side and asked, “Marie-Therese Grimaldi? Weren’t you a bridesmaid in Flicka’s wedding to Pierre in Paris?”

Marie-Therese nodded, smiling as always. “Yes, how kind of you to remember. Were you there?”

Georgie said, “I got there the next day, for the wedding of Wulfram von Hannover to Reagan Stone, my best friend.”

Marie-Therese pressed her lips together and her smile at Georgie turned a little chilly. “Maxence and I had already jetted back to Monaco early that morning. I wasn’t even aware of the von Hannover wedding until months later.”

“Yeah,” Georgie said, almost laughing, but she was still looking Marie-Therese dead-level in her eyes. “I heard.”

Marie-Therese clamped her hand around Maxence’s arm again. “So lovely to see you again, Alexandre, and so nice to finally meet your wife. You must bring her around more often.”

When they were out in the crowd again, Maxence asked her, “What was that about?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing,” Marie-Therese said, her jaw bulging oddly.

Crossing the floor of the Grimaldi Forum took an hour and a half. Maxence and Marie-Therese greeted old friends and VIPs, took selfies with people and caught up, but finally they reached one of the open bars to obtain drinks.

A moment presented itself when they were marginally less observed by everyone in the convention center. Maxence stirred his Macallan Rare Cask on the rocks and asked his cousin in a low voice, “What the hell were you thinking last night?”

Marie-Therese rolled her eyes so hard that he thought she would fling her false eyelashes against the glass wall between them and the glittering sea. “We need to make an alliance, Maxence. Other people in the Crown Council are moving to influence the election.”

That was news. “That explains absolutely nothing about how you ended up in my bed wearing trashy lingerie.”

Marie-Therese’s dark eyes flipped open further. “It was not trashy! It’s Myla.”

“I don’t care if it’s Bordelle Couture. I don’t expect my cousin to be wearing it in my bed.”

She pressed her lips together and flirted with him out of the corners of her eyes. “You like the more niche type of lingerie, do you? I’ll remember that next time.”

Maxence really should be more careful not to give anything about himself away, even to his cousins with whom he’d grown up. “There will not be a ‘next time.’ You’re a beautiful woman and any other man would be lucky to have you, but I’m your first cousin.”

“Oh, Maxsy.”

“Please don’t call me that.”

“Lots of people in our family have made alliances to keep others from taking the throne.”

“We’re not making that kind of alliance, and I thought you didn’t want the throne. I thought you wanted to be a social media influencer or whatever it is you do.”

She paused then said, “I thought you didn’t want the throne, either.”

“I don’t,” he said.

“But you don’t want certain other people getting it.”

“No.”

“And that’s why we need to make an alliance.”

“This explains nothing about last night.”

Marie-Therese leaned toward him and whispered, “Other people have been talking to the electors, not just you.”

Maxence did not roll his eyes. It took a lot of effort, but he did not. He felt one eyebrow creep down toward his eyelid, however. “I’ve counted the votes. My faction will win.”

“I don’t think you’re counting correctly.”

“They’ve assured me.”

“Some of them are assuring a lot of other people of their votes, too.”

“I’m confident in my assessment.”

“Max, I’m telling you that you shouldn’t be.”

“All of them have said they will vote with me.”

“No. A lot of them have said they’ll vote for you, not with you.”

“They all know I’m going to take Holy Orders and be a priest.”

Marie-Therese tilted her head to the side and squinted at him, a sardonic smile on her scarlet lips. “But do they?”

“Yes, all of them. I have assured every single one of them of it.”

“That’s not what people are saying. They think you’re talking to them because you’re standing for election, but you’re being coy about it.”

“But I’m not.”

“And that’s going to be a catastrophic shock to them, and they’re going to want to go down the line of succession in an orderly fashion after you, which means Alexandre, and then Christine, and then my father.”

“But we don’t have to go in order,” Maxence said. “You gave me that idea.”

“My father’s been picking off the weak members of your coalition. At this point,