Gen nodded. She had known that Roxanne was solid and would agree with her about the men. “Still, we would have slowed them down.”
Roxanne sighed. “Between my short legs and the earl in there,” she pointed at Gen’s burgeoning belly, “we definitely would have slowed them down. Have you decided what to name him yet?”
“Sam-Houston,” Gen said, grinning. “Hyphenated. We can call him Sam for short.”
“Sam-Houston Finch-Hatten,” Roxanne said, trying it out. “That’s quite a mouthful.”
“As big as Texas,” Gen said, and Roxanne nodded along with her, again, solid like that.
Roxanne gestured toward a store window. Inside, diamond jewelry caught the light and sparkled like a laser show. “Holy malony. Did you see these rocks? It would serve the guys right if they left us alone and we went shoppingfor diamonds.”
They marveled over the opulent gems and jewelry in the windows of the shops for a while and then sat down for a second breakfast at the patisserie in one arm of the center. The morning sunlight streamed through the skylight, ricocheted off the two enormous crystal chandeliers hanging in the mall, and threw spangles on the honey-colored and scarlet-inlaid marble floors.
At the next table, two women wearing black dresses were eating pastry and gossiping in French. Gen spoke enough French to eavesdrop but not enough to have a proper conversation.
Gen and Roxanne nibbled and relaxed, and Gen eased her flat shoes off her heels to give her swollen toes more breathing room.
One of the two women sitting at the table beside them said, “I think he’ll have a black eye, which means he’ll be in a foul mood. Last time Pierre and Maxence brawled like that and Pierre had a black eye, he demanded that a make-up artist come in every day and cover it up.”
“When was the last time this happened?” the other woman asked. “It seems like it happens often. Maxence seems volatile.”
“Pierre could make a saint snap and try to murder him,” the first woman laughed. “And I think it’s that Maxence is a better boxer than Pierre. No wonder Flicka Hannover left Pierre and disappeared.”
Gen caught her breath.
Roxanne asked, “What?”
Gen shook her head at Roxanne, flipping her fingers in the air, and kept listening to the two women.
Roxanne set her pastry down and leaned back in her chair, listening.
“And then Maxence stormed out,” the first woman said. “I heard he checked into the hotel near the casino and stayed at the roulette tables all night long.”
The other woman laughed. “That wouldn’t surprise me. When he was young, he used to lose so much money in that casino, not that it mattered in the slightest.”
They both laughed.
They talked about other things. Gen kept listening to them, but the topic of Pierre and Maxence’s fight didn’t come up again.
Another topic did, though.
The second woman said, “Did you see that battleship off the coast this morning?”
“I heard it is the third-largest yacht in the world after those Saudi ones. Some French billionaire owns it. I heard he is running guns in it.”
“Great, now we have an arms smuggler with contraband in our waters as well as the usual assortment of criminals.”
“I’ve heard Interpol is going to raid him.”
“Interpol never raids anybody in Monaco. It’s one of the benefits of citizenship here. That and no income taxes.”
“I heard he and his wife were in the casino last night. She was alone in the main rooms, while he gambled away three million dollars.”
A raucous snort of laughter. “And he won’t get that back.”
“These people think there’s no one watching, that we in service don’t count and don’t see.”
“No,” the second one said wistfully. “They know we see. They just don’t care because they think we’re nothing.”
