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

“As I have repeatedly told everyone on the Crown Council and anyone who will listen, I have been given Holy Orders as a transitional deacon. I will be ordained as a priest as soon as possible, which I believe will be directly after the election of a new prince. I’m not allowed to marry. I am not eligible to be the sovereign. I’m only here to facilitate the election and coronation.”

Dree wasn’t sure what to write, but her heart seized upon hearing him say it so plainly.

“But the Sea Change Gala is scheduled for a few weeks from now,” the pudgy man said. “Surely, we’ll have a new sovereign by then.”

Dree wrote Sea Change Gala in bright letters on her screen. Few weeks from now.

Maxence shrugged. “It’s several weeks away, and it seems like an artificial deadline. There’s no reason to elect or crown a new sovereign prince Prince of Monaco before a particular charitable fundraiser.”

Dree scratched out few and wrote more than three weeks away.

“But the sovereign prince always hosts the gala and opens the dancing.”

Maxence’s slight frown was just the merest, dignified wrinkle between his eyes. “Anyone can be tapped to host the gala. There’s no reason to rush the election.”

The guy’s jolly face condensed into a frown. “Anyone named as the official host will be seen as the front runner to the Council and the press.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s true. It would probably marginally change the odds in Vegas and with the London bookies for who will be crowned, but that doesn’t matter to us.”

“Appearances do matter. Someone will have to host the ball.”

Maxence raised his head and looked at where the paparazzi were splayed against the chain-link fence, frantically snapping photos. “Conflicting speculation might be good publicity. We do derive an obscene amount of revenue from tourism.”

“If there is no one else, I could do it,” Head Elf said.

Maxence tipped his head slightly to the side. “Are you angling for front-runner status, Prince Jules?”

Dree had been thumb-tapping notes while the two men spoke, writing gala host will be seen as frontrunner, when Maxence called the man that she thought of as Santa’s Head Elf, “Prince Jules.”

Prince Jules?

She’d been exhausted in Nepal, but Maxence had told her a story about how his uncle Prince Jules was utterly corrupt and had been removed from a government ministry position. He’d abused his authority and demanded bribes, or else he threatened to revoke people’s citizenship. The wealthy paid him from their yachts with wire transfers. Middle-class citizens couldn’t begin to afford to pay up, and he’d been throwing Monegasque citizens out of the country on fake, trumped-up charges.

This jolly little guy was the evil Prince Jules?

Jules Grimaldi laughed his good-natured chortle. “Me? I don’t want the throne. I’m set in my ways, and I’m rubbish at maintaining my temper through interminable public appearances. I just want to make sure there is a monarch on the throne because, otherwise, France will have the legal right to re-absorb Monaco. I don’t want to end up paying French income taxes or their wealth tax. I have far more to lose if no one is on the throne.”

Max’s disinterested smile never wavered at his uncle’s words. “Of course.”

“Although, as you and Alexandre have stated you will not accept the crown, I am next in the line of succession after his sister, Christine.”

“Yes, Prince Jules.”

“And the Crown Council must offer the throne to each successor in order.”

“That is the tradition,” Maxence said.

The tone in Max’s voice prickled the back of Dree’s neck, a grind that resonated like the adamant denials of a drug addict.

“And it’s in the constitution.”

“As you said.”

“Anyway, I don’t want to keep you. You must’ve had a tiring trip, with your flight and having been in the wilds of Nepal for a month. I wanted to be the first to greet you, Prince Maxence, upon your return to Monaco.”

“Thank you for greeting me upon my return to Monaco, Your Highness, Prince Jules. I look forward to working with you and the Council as we elect and crown a new Prince of Monaco.” Maxence bowed slightly from his waist, a sharp movement that Dree was surprised wasn’t preceded by Maxence tapping his heels together like a graduate of an old German university.

Maxence turned and walked away from his uncle.

That icy formality was the creepiest thing she’d ever seen Maxence do.

That curt wave of Max’s hand must be a signal for Dree to catch up, so she swung her backpack over her shoulder and trotted after him.

They walked through the small terminal of the heliport, a utilitarian little building with vending windows for selling tickets for the helicopter rides and large posters of scenic Monaco, and out the front doors where a line of limousines was waiting for them.

He didn’t look at her the whole time.

A rear door was already being held open for Max by a chauffeur in a black hat.

Maxence muttered under his breath, “You’ll ride with the other staff.” He folded himself into the back seat of the limo.

The chauffeur slammed the car door behind him and gazed down at Dree impassively with a blankness that bordered on a sneer.

Dree was so lower-class that she didn’t even fit in with the royal servants.

She plodded toward the rear of the line of limousines, her thumbs hooked under her backpack straps.

Even the license plates on every car had that squared-off, checkerboard shield that was on his arm. It was everywhere.

She found a seat on the minibus sent for the security guys.

The lower-ranked bodyguards filed onto the bus and crouched as they walked toward the back, joking and talking to each other as they collapsed onto the bench seats.

Dree sat directly behind the driver, her arms wrapped around her backpack resting in her lap in case somebody needed to sit on the seat beside her.

The minibus rumbled to life and jerked as it accelerated in the small traffic circle in front of the terminal. Dree swayed as it drove on the exceedingly narrow streets