To Maxence, people made a home, not a particular building or room.
As a child, he’d never been able to become attached to a particular Le Rosey dormitory room or another. His home had been the triple that he’d shared with Casimir and Arthur for most of his time at the boarding school. When he’d been assigned to the Democratic Republic of Congo, he traveled between the orphanage and the rectory, and a few other residences associated with the Catholic Church. Home was where the good sisters Ndaya and Disanka had adopted him into their little circle, and then where he’d cared for Majambu and Mpata after they’d arrived.
Buildings meant nothing to Maxence, even when the building was a palace. But here, in this small apartment where Dree Clark was usually waiting for him, where a few of her clothes hung in his closet and more were folded into two drawers of his dresser, where he looked forward to sleeping with her in their bed, this was home.
He tried to slow everything down and let the moment shimmer in the air, slow his breath to not live through this moment too fast, calm his pulse lest his heart explode from being too full, but the furniture’s shadows slid sideways as the sun traveled outside the windows.
Dree was still lying on his chest, the top of her head just below his chin, and her breathing was so measured and deep that he thought she must be asleep. With a quick glance at his Patek Philippe watch, a gift from Arthur which he now knew was a homing beacon, he saw that the watch’s hands had moved to the right side of its face, and the time was five minutes after three o’clock.
Nearly three hours remained until the Crown Council meeting.
Maxence should call some people, especially ones he suspected might be wavering in their support of him and his ambitious plan to elect someone else as the Prince of Monaco. He should hold a press conference. He should call a journalist friend and schedule an interview for a half-hour hence for publicity before the election.
Maxence almost dozed.
An odd whir, like a windowpane rattling in a windstorm, buzzed from the living room.
Maxence had left the door to the living room ajar when he’d carried Dree to the shower.
There it was again.
He closed his eyes and almost rested for a moment.
The odd sound continued, paused, and then continued again.
From underneath his chin, Dree mumbled, “What is that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’ll go away.”
“I’m so tired. I don’t think I slept any because I kept trying to get away.”
“Me, too.”
The brittle rattle was not stopping its intermittent fizz.
“Dammit.” Dree started to slither off of his chest.
“You stay here.” Maxence reached for the floor with one foot. “I’ll go see what it is. You stay under the covers.”
“Okay.” Dree wrapped the duvet more tightly under her chin.
Maxence snagged a discarded towel off the floor and tucked it around his waist as he walked toward the living room, idly hoping Rogue Security hadn’t stationed someone in his front room. If they had, they’d probably just heard something they could never unhear, but Maxence wasn’t ashamed of his performance.
He closed the bedroom door behind himself. Dree might actually die of embarrassment, so maybe he could shuffle the mercenary out if that was the case.
But no one was in his living room.
As usual, the sitting areas were unoccupied. The piano was likewise. His preferred reading chair was also empty.
Maxence waited for the rattle again and followed the buzz to its source, which was his phone, lying face down on the coffee table of the living room. “What the hell is that?”
He walked over, feeling the strain in his hamstrings, and picked up his phone.
A message in capital letters filled the short preview area. When he swiped the phone open, the most recent text from his cousin Alexandre read,WHERE THE LIVING HELL ARE YOU?
Maxence scrolled back to read other texts.
Max, where are you? It’s starting NOW.
