Roxanne smirked at her husband. “You tell him, buckeroo.”
Maxence tried to explain himself, “I had to get Simone Maina onto a flight out of Genoa. Her husband’s an asshole and hurt her, and she’s pregnant. She’s on her way back to Mauritius now, where her family will take care of her. I had to watch her plane take off.”
Gen sucked in a breath, trying not to throttle him. Yep, Maxence had been off playing Sir Galahad or Sir Lancelot or whatever, because he would rescue any maiden in distress.
“She’ll be okay now,” Max said. “She’s beyond Estebe’s reach. I’d like to see him try to get to her once she’s on Mauritius. Her family would make sure he never washed up on the beach.”
Arthur, stalwart British gentleman that he was, did not harangue Maxence. He placed his feet firmly on the steps as he ascended to the main deck.
Maxence was laughing at Casimir’s ongoing diatribe. “I wasn’t in any danger!”
Casimir continued quarreling with Max as the yacht pitched under their feet. “Estebe Fournier wants to cut off your head and drop it overboard for the sharks! You aremost certainlyin danger!”
“In a week, he’ll forget all about who gave Simone a ride to the airport and go back to screwing his cabin staff. Estebe’s always had the attention span of a hyperactive Chihuahua.”
Arthur reached the top of the staircase but didn’t stop walking. He shoved past Casimir and advanced on Max.
Gen suspected that her husband wasn’t going to be able to keep it British. Arthur put on an excellent veneer of a calm and slightly bored English lord, but he was a deeply emotional man under it all.
Arthur grabbed Maxence around his neck fiercely, practically clamping him in a headlock.
Directly after dangerous situations, staunchly English Arthur became—gasp—ahugger.
Maxence’s dark eyes bulged in surprise.
Gen stood back, smiling, and watched her husband squeeze his eyes shut and whisper angrily to Maxence, “You’d better never do this ever again, you gormless twatwaffle.”
Maxence clapped his arms around Arthur’s shoulders. “I won’t. I didn’t know Pierre was going to call you guys. He usually doesn’t care if I’m incommunicado for months.”
Arthur broke off and shoved Maxence back, stalking away to stand beside Gen. He stared at the sea behind them asFlirting with Disasteraccelerated to a faster cruising speed, though not all the way to the breakneck rate at which they’d traveled to Genoa.
Gen very quietly moved her hand, tangling her fingers with her husband’s.
Arthur gripped her hand tightly and continued to stare at the sea and sky, his face impassive, as he composed himself.
Slowing down for a few minutes and the boat’s current, more sedate pace calmed her stomach a bit. If she drank some ginger ale now, Gen might survive this without blowing chunks. She announced, “Come on, folks. It gets windy on the decks when this boat gets up to speed. Let’s go down and have a drink before we get back to Monaco.”
In one of the lounging areas on a lower deck, where the entire back wall was an enormous window that overlooked the yacht’s wake, they settled on long couches.
The staff handed them drinks. Gen asked for a ginger ale, which wasn’t as good as Issouf’s pregnancy tea but still hit the spot.
When they had all taken a breath or two, Gen asked them, “Should we be going back to Monaco?”
Casimir waved a finger around them, indicating the yacht. “I think Xan would be pissed if I kept his boat.”
“Xan?” Maxence asked, looking up from his triple scotch. “This is Alexandre’s yacht? I thought I recognized it.”
“Yeah, he’s a client of mine,” Casimir said, sipping a cocktail.
Max nodded. “Oh, yeah. Intellectual property rights.”
They weren’t talking about the obvious thing Gen needed them to discuss. She announced, “Let me put it another way. I don’t think Maxence should go back to Monaco.”
The others pondered this for a moment.
Maxence said, “Nothing’s going to happen. I’m only staying for another week, anyway.”
“I don’t think you should go there at all,” Gen said. “Between Estebe and Pierre, you have a problem.”
