Seriously, he was so prim sometimes. The security staff probably wasn’t even reading his texts, so it would be just fine if he texted her to come to his bedroom and blow him or meet him in bed, naked.
Just the thought of him saying that made her bra feel tight and her mouth wet. She had to swallow so she wouldn’t drool.
Dree slipped her work dress back on but took off her panties because even princes deserved a surprise now and then, and she trotted through the palace to his apartment.
In the serene glow from the antique wall sconces, the polished marble floors took on a warm patina from centuries of careful care. Every single item she passed—whether it was the majestic chandelier in the anteroom or a small hallway table with a lamp for extra light placed in a corner—was an example of exquisite craftsmanship, probably from hundreds of years before.
When Dree had been a kid and watching Disney princesses, she’d thought a palace would be slathered in gold, gilded from the walls to the floor to the faucets and toilets.
After the refined elegance of the Prince’s Palace, such bling-bling was obviously vulgar. Even the Palace of Versailles showed elegance and restraint, and it was so ostentatious that taxpayers had invented the guillotine. Only a childish narcissist would crap in a gold toilet.
At the door to Maxence’s apartment, Dree looked around carefully before she took the key from her handbag and unlocked the door. She hadn’t been seen at Max’s apartment since she’d gotten lost that one time when Marie-Therese had saved her from wandering around the castle endlessly.
Getting lost like that was kind of mortifying.
As always, Dree nudged the spring-suspended door, and it swung open gently even though the dark wood looked like it weighed a ton. She stepped inside and pressed it closed.
The living room was mostly dark except for small lamps that burned all night on the coffee table and the grand piano over by the windows that overlooked the dark harbor far below, but the double doors to Maxence’s bedroom stood open.
Bright light crept out and formed a bent square on the carpeting.
Bedsprings creaked.
Sheets rustled.
A woman’s giggle fluttered in the air.
Dree froze in the middle of the dark living room in mid-step.
Her face stung like she’d been slapped.
She wasn’t with Maxence all day, every day. He went out to all those balls and galas and cocktail hours and everything else alone,without her.
Of course, he was screwing around. He was richer than a billionaire. He was thede factosovereign prince of a whole country, even if it was a tiny country. He had wealthandreal power. Women must be throwing themselves at him all the time.
Of course, he must be taking some of them up on it.
Men were trash that way.
And just because Dree had thought Maxence was better than that, that he wasdifferent,didn’t mean he was.
You’d think Dree would’ve learned her lesson from when her drug-stealing ex-boyfriend had told his narcotic overlords Dree had the money he owed them before they killed him. Somewhere out there, powerful drug dealers wanted a piece of her hide, which was why she couldn’t go home.
It was weird that Max had texted her to come over, though. It’s one thing to get caught; it’s an entirely different thing to set yourself up to make sure you would be.
Unless he just wanted to have a huge fight to break up and get it over with. Some guys did that. They cheated and were stupid about it, so they got caught. That way, when the girl broke up with them, the girl screamed instead of cried.
But they cried later. Dree had held many of her friends when they’d cried afterward. The guy didn’t have to see the heartbreak he’d caused.
Just cheating and a nasty, brutal fight, and it was over.
Well, if Maxence wanted a nasty, brutal fight, he’d picked the right cowgirl.
Or, you know, sheep farm girl.
But definitelythe right one.
Dree screwed up her face and sucked in a deep breath through her nose. Balling her hands into fists and ready to fight, she stalked toward Max’s bedroom.
