Maxence couldn’t look away. God, she was beautiful, like a blazing fire. “Yes, but I can do that without being the Prince, and surely I can fight evil if I am a priest. The very fact that the crown and Monaco tempt me, that I want to take it andrule,proves that it is a sin to lust for that kind of power and wealth.”
She glanced down at his chest, maybe even to his groin, and his cock jumped as if her eyes had stroked him through his clothes. She said, “Like you’ve never given in to temptation before.”
His fingers found hers. “I was always meant to walk away,” he told her. “That was my role, to support Pierre in his bid for the throne because he was older and it was his right. I was never meant to be the Prince, so I found something else to want.”
Dree glanced at Quentin Sault and the two soldiers by the door. She leaned over and whispered to him, and her gentle breath feathered his ear. “No man who fucks like you dowantsto be a priest.”
He tightened his hand on her fingers.
Dree yelled over at Sault, “How long is this Crown Council thing going to take?”
Quentin Sault shrugged. “The palace is in chaos. Prince Jules has called for a council meeting this weekend, but Duke Alexandre and his faction have refused to attend anything sooner than three months.”
“Can he do that?” Max asked him.
“There is a quorum requirement,” Sault told him. “As long as enough nobles stand with Alexandre and refuse to attend, a new prince cannot be elected.”
“So, it could take three months,” Dree said, her voice firm.
Max said, “If it takes longer than that, France will rumble that the treaties have been violated, and their army will march in our streets.”
Dree turned so that she was kneeling in front of where Max sat on the floor. She knotted her fist around one lapel of his black leather motorcycle jacket and pulled his ear closer to her mouth. “Hear me out. For three months, go back to Monaco and take care of business. Live as a prince again instead of a priest.”
“I can’t be trusted to do the right thing.” He leaned back. His spine pressed against the wall. “I should not be trusted with that kind of power. I should be locked into a hierarchal organization where others define what I do with it. I am an unguided missile. I am a brandished gun.”
“Max, you’re smarter than that.”
He muttered, “Even though I wanted to be a priest, I couldn’t keep my cock in my pants.”
“Which is proof they never really controlled you. Those weren’t ‘slips.’ Those weredecisions.You’ve always made your own decisions.”
“Like when I—” He raised an eyebrow.
She grinned. “Oh, yeah.Especiallythat.”
“Dree, you’re funny. You’re damn funny. But the decisions to break my vows were fundamentally wrong.” He released his eye contact with her and stared at his heavily callused, deeply tanned hands clasped on his knees. “I never do the right thing. I should work harder on becoming a priest, not give in tothis.I should take Holy Orders and go to a cloistered monastery. I should be locked inside the Vatican so I’m not tempted.”
She raised an eyebrow again and whispered, “Men don’t tempt you?”
He sighed, resigned to the fact that she was, indeed, a living, breathing bullshit detector.
“Yeah, okay.” She whispered, her voice throaty and too close to his skin, “If you go back, if you break your vows, for three months,you can have me.”
Maxence looked up. God help him, he was weak. “I’m listening.”
“Anythingyou want,” she said, and her eyes glistened with excitement as she stared at him.“Everythingyou want, just like Paris, but forthree months.”
“What—but why—” Formulating the question zinging around his head took a few tries. “Why would you do that?”
“Because you said I’m an angel,” Dree told him, “and no one’s ever said that to me before. Because angels fight evil, and if this guy Prince Jules is as bad as you say—”
“Worse,”both Maxence and Sault said at the same time, and they glanced at each other, startled.
“Then I don’t want him in a position of power,” Dree said. “The world is awful and brutal, and we should havekindpeople running countries. The world should be better.You’rea kind and good person.”
“I’m not,” he murmured.
“You’rethe type of person who should run the world, Maxence. You should rule Monaco.”
