Maxence stared into his scotch, a frown gathering. “Yeah.”
“Maybe you should go to Paris,” Gen suggested. “Arthur and I will be in Paris for a while. We can hang out.”
Arthur cleared his throat.
“Yes?” Gen asked him.
Arthur said, “We’re needed at home.”
Enough said.“Well then, I guess we’ll be heading back to the UK. Maybe you could go to Amsterdam with Roxanne and Caz?”
Casimir nodded, but Roxanne shook her head. “I got a text from our office a few hours ago. They got swamped, Cash. We need to get back to Los Angeles.”
Maxence turned his tumbler in his palm. “I think I could probably go to Paris, anyway. I can get lost in Paris. You’re right. Monaco isn’t the place for me right now.”
Casimir stood. “I’ll talk to the captain about taking us up to Nice instead of to Monaco. My plane is still there.” He walked off.
Roxanne puttered after him, “Hey, wait. Take a look at this brief.”
Gen should take a look at her clerk’s emails soon.
Ah, back to normal life for the four of them, then.
Maxence stood, still contemplating his drink. “I need to make a phone call or two while we’ve still got cellular signal. I’ll be back in a moment.” He walked toward the deck, and his phone chimed as he turned it on.
Good Lord, Max had his phone turned off. No wonder no one had been able to raise him. Gen returned to sipping her ginger ale.
Arthur was sitting beside her, staring into a vodka tonic and frowning.
She took his hand again. “Are you all right, my love?”
“Of course,” he said, because he always did.
Gen mentioned, as if it were a casual subject, “It was worrisome when Max was missing.”
“Indeed.”
“Are you going to bawl him out some more?”
“I think the time for that has passed.”
“What’s up now, my love?”
He pivoted toward her on the velvet couch, and the sunlight shining off the sea outside the bay window touched the hard slashes of his cheekbones. “I shouldn’t have let you come to Monaco.”
“I don’t remember you having much say in the matter,” she said.
His silver eyes were level and sober as he poured his heart out. “You can’t do this anymore. I can’t have you risking even your slightest discomfort, let alone your safety. I need you to be safe.”
She’d known this was coming. “Okay. I’ll be better.”
“I need you and Roxanne to stay away from us tonight, away from Casimir and me, while we get Maxence settled in Paris. I don’t want you anywhere in his vicinity.”
“It’s that important?”
He nodded, his blue-gray eyes still so serious.
“All right. We’ll stay in the hotel or go out, and we’ll stay away from you boys in Paris. I’ll clear it with Roxanne.”
