Dree looked down at the black pumps she wore.
Max looked, too. The high heels made her ankles and calves even more shapely below the hemline of her dress that fell just above her knees.
She said, “Um, thanks.”
He hadn’t meant to do that. They needed to keep this relationship professional, completely formal, and not look like they were sleeping with each other. “Ms. Clark, we need to discuss your role in this organization and whether you should be here in Monaco at all. Please sit?”
Dree strolled through the long office, and he watched her high-heeled shoes stepping sexily on the red and white Oriental carpet.
She said, “I made the bargain to come with you to Monaco. I don’t welch on deals.”
“It’s not reneging on a promise if we both agree you would be safer someplace else.” His voice was unexpectedly gravelly. Maybe he needed more brandy to clear his throat.
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t be safer in Phoenix. Those drug dealers Francis ripped off aren’t going to forget about the money they think I owe them. It’s only been a month. I’m not sure I can ever go back there.”
Maxence sat in the large manager’s chair behind the desk and spread his palms on the rich wood. “You could go to Paris.”
“I don’t speak French.”
“You could go somewhere else in the United States.”
She scrunched her red, succulent mouth to the side. “You sure are trying to get rid of me.”
“You could lose yourself in the crowds of New York or hide out in a small town in the Midwest. Nurses are needed everywhere.”
Dree hesitated before she spoke, her lips pressed firmly together. “It seemed like the police officer I talked to may have been part of the problem. If that’s the case, it would be easy for him to put an alert on my passport. He’d know when I entered the country and where I went. Those official databases are connected. They would know where I was within days.”
Maxence nodded, trying to appear wise but stalling for time. “With my bodyguards and the Monegasque police, the palace might be safer than Phoenix, but that might not be the only problem.”
“Yeah, murderous Uncle Jules.”
“To start with, yes.”
“Are you sure you’re not blowing things out of proportion? Everybody here has been so nice.”
“Laying aside the fact that people who grow up very wealthy tend to view other human beings as disposable because they never had to develop empathy, there is a great amount of money at stake. Whoever is elected to be the Prince of Monaco will control well over a billion dollars, probably closer to $1.2 billion.”
“That’s a lot of money,” she said and then rolled her eyes. “I mean,obviously.I’m not stating the obvious or anything.Ugh.”
Maxence told her, “It’s more than enough money to push people to murder. It’s happened before. During the election when my uncle, Rainier IV, was elected, well before I was born and in gentler times, a high-caliber bullet smashed through a window and buried itself in the wall beside his head. Luckily, in those days, telescopic sights had not yet been perfected, and targeting computers that can correct an assassin’s aim for the distance, wind, temperature, and humidity hadn’t been invented. The more ruthless candidates for the current position are probably quite confident that it would be immediately hushed up if an assassination occurred now. Monaco could not afford to let the world know that our princely election had turned deadly.”
Dree asked, “Who did it?”
Maxence’s tone turned grim. “The assassin shot himself before he could be arrested. It must be noted that after my uncle Rainier, my father was next in line for the throne, had the most to gain, and was certainly capable of it.”
Dree winced. “And now, here you are.”
“I won’t stand for election, and I won’t accept if they elect me.”
“Oh, that’s why. Because your dad might’ve tried to have your uncle killed for it. That makes sense.”
He shook his head. “I am temperamentally unsuited to be a sovereign of any country.”
Dree’s quick frown was sweet. “I don’t think you’re ‘unsuitable.’”
“While Monaco is a tiny country, its influence is larger than one would expect. We are a celebrity among nations. Everyone wants to be seen at James Bond’s baccarat table. Everyone wants to befriend one of the few sovereigns left in the world with absolute power. Everyone wants to attendroyalgalas. That kind of power is—heady.”
“Ah. Power corrupts—”
