Over in the bedroom, Maxence growled,“What the hell?”
Sheets scuffled.
Then, an odd clatter, like furniture banging a wall.
Like a headboard.
Oh, Dree was gonnahave it outwith this guy.
She wasn’t going to punch the girl. The girl may or may not have known that Maxence had been saying that he “cared for” someone, that they needed “to get to know each other” in case there was a “long term” and othercraplike that. The girl just probably wanted a quick roll in the hay with a hot, rich dude who did not have a publicly acknowledged girlfriend.
She probably thought he was single.
Dree was going in to pick a fight withMaxence.
He’d grown up in a frou-frou boarding school where teachers probably stopped slap-fests before they started, and Dree had grown up with four older brothers.
Dree bet she could take him.
She marched across the room and slammed the bedroom door all the way open, her fingers splayed on the wood, ready to tell Prince Maxence of Monagasquay what she thought of him.
Cheater.
Liar.
Coward.
Instead, she found Maxence standing butt-naked with his backside pressed against his dresser and a pillow clamped over his junk. He was holding one finger up toward the brunette on the bed like he was trying to ward her off. His jaw was set in stern anger.
Black ink curled around the tops of his shoulders and over his ribs from the massive tattoo on his back.
Dree had seen him starkers before, obviously, but she had to admit the man was packed with strong, hard muscle. The vee of his Adonis belt that pointed to where he clutched the pillow was the kind of carved meat that made women stupid. Plus, with striated thighs and bulging calves like that, the man did not skip leg day.
Masses of luxurious black curls obscured the face of the lithe woman crawling over the mattress toward him, but she wore bright red, lace lingerie and scarlet stiletto sandals.
A thick silk robe lay on the carpeting at Dree’s feet.
Maxence caught his breath when he saw Dree standing in the doorway. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
The woman on the bed flipped her long hair back over her shoulder and rose to her knees. She was slim to the point where Dree, a licensed nurse practitioner, worried about undiagnosed anorexia nervosa.
Oh,but Dreeknewthis chick.
Marie-Therese Grimaldi said, “Oh, look, Maxence. It’s your little admin, Dree Clark. I wonder what she’s doing in your apartment in the middle of the night,again.”
Max said, “I swear to God, Dree. This is not what it looks like.”
Considering Maxence’s defensive posture and Marie-Therese’s predatory one, Dree had a pretty good idea of what was going on. “Jesus, Marie-Therese. This is gross. He’s yourfirstcousin. Your dads arebrothers.If you screwed him, you’d have babies with three heads.”
Marie-Therese said to Max, “This is absolutelynoneofthe staff’sbusiness.”
Dree drew herself up to every inch she could muster, which wasn’t a whole lot but she wasn’t a shrimpy. “I may look like a simple admin to you, Lady Marie-Therese, but I am His Highness Prince Maxence’spersonal assistant.”She turned to Max. “Your Serene Highness, this woman is not on your schedule at this time. As keeper of your schedule, shall I remove her?”
Maxence said, “Lady Grimaldi was just leaving.”
Dree scooped up the robe at her feet and held it open. “My lady, if you please. Prince Maxence’s schedule does not accommodate unscheduled appointments.”
Marie-Therese looked back and forth between the two of them, flummoxed by their officious display, but they both kept it up believably enough that she had to go along with it. She stomped over to where Dree was holding the robe for her, at least as much as she could stomp in those chopstick-heels she was wearing, snatched the silk out of Dree’s hand, and whirled it around her as she walked out of the bedroom.
