But again, Maxence was leaving the next morning, and Jules would not be able to send mercenaries to follow Maxence to where he was going and kidnap him.
Probably.
His uncle Jules Grimaldi was exactly the type who would send assassins, even more so than Pierre.
From Max’s cousin Alexandre:Something happened with Christine. She won’t tell me what, but she’s freaked out. She quit the symphony and says she’s leaving.
Christine was Alexandre’s younger sister and a violinist. She was one of the steadiest members of Max’s family. If she was freaked out and leaving—
—something bad was going on at home.
Maxence quietly waited in the living room of the hotel suite, running the tip of one finger over his Patek Philippe watch on his left wrist. There was no need to rush. The charity ball could start without them. Indeed, Max preferred to arrive later, near the end of the hors d’oeuvres and just before supper.
Plus, he needed time to reflect.
And time to plan. He sent emails to his household in the Congo.Three-month assignment. Prepare to move house. You’ll meet me there.
Whenever the thought of Father Moses arose, Maxence’s mind darted away. He was keenly aware that he had one night left with Dree before he went back to his other life.
He’d caught a glimpse of Dree when she came back from the spa, her hair carefully arranged and wearing perfectly applied makeup, but she’d flitted into the bedroom and told him not to peek.
They dodged around each other for an hour while he showered, shaved, and dressed in the tuxedo Arthur had also left in the closet. It was conservative, unobtrusive, and unrelieved somber black, which was not Maxence’s style at all. The Tom Ford tux he’d worn a few nights ago in Monte Carlo was midnight blue, which in a tuxedo is a dashing fashion statement.
The door from the bedroom opened. Dree emerged, dressed in the scarlet and black body-hugging sheath he had picked out for her at the Alexander McQueen boutique. Her soft blond hair curled like a halo on her head, and her make-up accentuated her already generous but beautiful features.
With her hair and makeup done, Dree was an absolute bombshell. The black eyeliner drew out her eyes to be flirty and sensual.
He hoped she felt as good as she looked.
The oxblood lipstick on her full lips drew him.
Her garnet fingernails with very subtle glimmers of gold nearly made him drop his phone and take her to bed.
He sauntered over and offered her an elbow. “You look absolutely beautiful, and I shall be the envy of every other man tonight.”
She beamed a dazzling smile at him. “Hush your mouth, Augustine. You’ll turn my head.”
He’d arranged for the hotel’s car to pick them up in the underground parking garage. The ride to the Palace of Versailles took only about forty minutes, even with traffic.
They walked into the glorious palace with her hand on his arm.
Watching Dree as she saw the cavernous Gallery of Great Battles, one of the grand salons in the palace, for the first time was enchanting. King Louis-Philippe had constructed the sumptuous gallery in the early eighteen-hundreds to exhibit thirty-five enormous paintings depicting fifteen centuries of France’s glorious military history. The salon’s purpose was to instill pride for the magnificence of France’s many accomplishments in its citizens and to intimidate foreign dignitaries into meek silence. Busts of the illustrious military leaders rested at the base of each of the paintings.
Maxence had seen too much of colonialism’s damage to the rest of the world to enjoy the gallery anymore.
Christmas trees sparkling with red lights and ribbons were arranged in groups of three and five in the corners and near the walls. Evergreen boughs and wreaths adorned the crown molding and chandeliers far above them and scented the air with fresh pine.
Maxence could see that Dree was trying to repress her reaction to the magnificent palace, but occasionally delight overwhelmed her and she giggled or gasped. She’d been quiet when she got home from the spa, and seeing her happy again was gratifying.
A few of Maxence’s friends had been in France that week and decided to attend this charity event benefiting clean water access in impoverished parts of the world. Most of them were school chums, as was not surprising. Attending a boarding school marketed to the world’s wealthiest families tended to leave one with filthy rich friends who attended charity events.
Micah Shine stood over by the bar, drinking a flute of champagne and soberly listening while an older, bald Black man said something of great importance that he punctuated by stabbing the air with a forefinger that was the same color, texture, and length of a cigar stub. Micah listened seemingly without comment, only nodding when the man seemed to be winding down.
Maxence always liked Micah. They both preferred their literature and social studies classes to their sciences or maths classes, and they’d often discussed the novels and poetry that they had been forced to read far beyond what would be expected to study for a test. Micah hadn’t been born into wealth like the rest of them. He’d been part of a scholarship program, probably instituted to raise the academic credentials of the school rather than any real attempt at charity. Micah had been purported to be starting a company, but Maxence had heard that on several previous occasions. The other companies were rumored to have failed, which amused some other Le Rosey alumni who did not need to and would never stoop to working for a living.
Maxence took Dree by the hand and swam through the crowd to stand beside his old school friend, tucking Dree behind him for just a moment. “Micah! So good to see you, old sod.”
Micah angled toward Maxence and offered his hand. “Maxence Grimaldi, a pleasure to see you again.” His accent was carefully neutral American, perfectly measured and expressionless. Micah had sported a thick Brooklyn accent when he had arrived at Le Rosey for high school.
