“I will,” Maxence said. “Look at me. Listen to me.”
His fingers trailed up her bare arms and cradled her head on both sides, his palms warm against her jaw.
Dree’s thoughts quieted. Her focus turned to Maxence, to his dark eyes, to his sensuous lips.
“I am going to renounce my vows,” he said, pronouncing it carefully as if he were cementing it in his mind as much as emphasizing it to her. “I want—”
She couldn’t look away. She couldn’t even breathe from the intensity rolling off of him.
“—I care about you,” he said slowly.
She felt his words through her body like a wave of sensation from the movement of his lips.
He stopped talking, and he blinked.
Dree gasped in a breath of air because she hadn’t been able to inhale while he was telling her that.
He said, “Breathe. Don’t hold your breath.”
Dree gulped air. “I’m okay.”
“Keep breathing, butbelieve me.”
“But you said you’ve always wanted to be a priest, and I saw you give the homily in Kathmandu. Youshouldbe a priest.”
“I doubt my vocation. Every priest I’ve ever met, given enough time, has doubted my vocation.Two popeshave doubted my vocation. I have prayed and prayed, butI feel nothing.”
Dree frowned. “I feel like I’m interfering in something I shouldn’t, like I’m destroying something good.”
“I want to be a priest, but even billionaires can’t have everything they want.”
“I don’t want to be the reason you give it up.”
“If it’s wrong for me, then I should walk away.”
“But Max—”
Hope softened his gaze, and wonder lightened his voice. “We’ll go away together, someplace else, someplace where we can think and be together, someplace far away from Monaco.”
Anything like that seemed impossible. “There are an awful lot of people depending on you here. I don’t know if youcanleave. What if no one else can be the prince?”
Maxence brushed the air impatiently. “Many others could sit on the throne. It’s a matter of convincing someone decent to take the job.”
“But I think people are counting on you.”
He continued, “There is a defined line of succession. It doesn’t stop with me. And even if it did, the loopholes that were exploited when Princess Charlotte was named successor can surely come into play again. She was the illegitimate daughter of the prior prince, who hadn’t managed to sire a surviving child with his legal wife. He adopted Charlotte when she was over eighteen, all of which is specifically outlawed by the French treaties, though it’s quite certain she was his biological daughter. If all of that can be forgiven, skipping a few people in the line of succession shouldn’t be a problem.”
Dree said, “So, I was talking with some of the other staff, and they seem to be fixated on you.”
He shrugged. “Yes, the royal family of Monaco and Monegasque citizens have a special, affectionate relationship that is unique in Europe. Many of them probably believe that the line of succession should be adhered to, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best outcome for Monaco. It doesn’t mean that I’m the best person for the job. As a matter of fact, I can guarantee I’m not.”
“It seems like you know everything about Monaco. In all those meetings about the land reclamation project and the price of fish and stuff, it seems like you always have something interesting to say. I think you’re making good decisions.”
Maxence blinked, and his expression fell. “In many ways, you know me better than anyone else in the world. I have older friends, but they haven’t seen me like I am with you. They haven’t seen me lose control like I do with you. They haven’t seen how easy it is for me to lose control. You, of all people, should know that I wouldnotbe a good Prince of Monaco.”
She shook her head, reluctantly contradicting him. She didn’t like to. It was a Western thing to agree with people, but this was important. “You’re too hard on yourself. You’re better at this than you think you are.”
“If you think that, maybe you don’t know me so well. So, while we’re here, I want you to know who I am,allof who I am. In the end, whether it’s weeks or months from now, the Pope will laicize me, and we can decide where to go from there. But you need toknowwho I am.”
