Pierre sat on a chair on the other side of the coffee table. “She won’t convert to Catholicism. She won’t even hear talk of it. Her family were Huguenots, persecuted Protestants in northern France.”
“And she’s not royal,” Flicka said.
“My uncle would never have allowed a dynastic marriage to her.”
“But I’m royal,” Flicka said. “I have an even better title than a principality.”
“Monaco has been trying to marry a Hannover princess for generations,” he laughed, “and we finally got one.”
Flicka flinched. Josephine had told her that Pierre was only after her title, but she hadn’t believed her. Who would have believed such a thing was even possible these days? “So I had the appropriate pedigree, like a show horse or a breeding dog.”
“It’s not like that, Flicka.”
“But she didn’t.”
“That sounds so snobbish, and it isn’t like that. She’s angry about me marrying you.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet.”
“But she understands.”
“Does she?” Flicka pushed another birth certificate aside, revealing a photocopy of a church record. “You married her in their church. Before God and their congregation, you said your vows to Abigai Caillemotte and married her six years ago.”
“Yes,” Pierre said, “but the Catholic Church won’t recognize it, and Monaco won’t recognize it. The French province and the national French government never recorded it. My uncle never gave permission for a dynastic marriage. It isn’t a legal marriage. She doesn’t have any claim to your title, and my children with her have no claim on our throne.”
A tear slipped out of Flicka’s eye, and she brushed it away. “Our deal was that you could screw around. This isn’t screwing around, Pierre. This is a marriage to another woman, a woman you love. I thought I got your heart.You saidthat I had your heart. No matter what you did with your dick, I thought youlovedme.”
“Flicka, I do love you.”
“Not like you love Abigai.”
“It’s different.”
A hot drop splashed on her hand. “What is it about her? Why did you fall in love with her and not with me?”
“I was involved with her before I met you. It was never a contest. You never lost. She never won. It’s just the situation we’re in.”
“What was it about her? Did you fall in insta-love with her the moment you met? Does she have a magic pussy or something?”
He shrugged, and his dark eyes drifted upward with thought.
At least he was thinking hard like he wanted to give her a real answer instead of pacifying her, like he had been doing.
Pierre sighed, and then he spoke slowly. “At first it was just a screw, like everyone else, but I spent time with her. When I was with her, I was away from—” Pierre gestured to his head of security, Quentin Sault, standing by the door, and then his hands widened, to encompass the room, the hotel, the extravaganza of a wedding she’d thrown, and maybe the insanity of being royal in a world without monarchs. “—All of this. She’s a world away from all of this.”
His wedding ring, platinum and discreetly paved with tiny diamonds, glittered in the light from the lamp by his chair as his expansive gesture included Flicka.
“All of this?” She gestured to the room.
“The pomp,” he said, musing, “the pompousness. The invasive press. The security every minute of the day. The fashion, and what happens if you wear the wrong thing. The arts, and what happens if you’re seen in the wrong place. The negotiations for publicity and tourism and events for Monaco. It’s exhausting.”
“If you don’t like it, you should abdicate.”
“Never,” he said, his voice lowering. “I was born to be the Prince of Monaco. I will live and die as the sovereign Prince of Monaco.”
“And yet you wouldn’t be, if your uncle had married someone.”
“That’s fate,” Pierre said. “I willnevergive up the crown. Iwantto be the Prince. I’ve been waiting for it my whole life. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
