Georgie turned her head and looked down slightly at Dree. It took Georgie a beat before she recognized Dree, but then she exclaimed, “Oh! You’re Maxence’s secretary who is obviously not a secretary.”
She laughed, but her laugh came out a little high-pitched and hysterical, so she swallowed it down. “I’m Dree.”
“Right.” She gestured to herself. “Georgie. I cannot believe what the hell is going on here.”
“Is this the election?” Dree looked over the swarming crowd. “It looks more like a rugby game.”
Georgie nodded. “This isweird.I mean, I suppose the House of Commons in Great Britain can get rowdy, but this isnuts.When I think of an election, I think of people going to the fire station, tapping a square on the screen of an electronic voting machine, and getting theirI votedsticker. This isnotwhat I thought it would be.”
Dree pointed to Alexandre on the dais, who was waving his arms and calling for order. “Your husband seems to be in charge.”
Georgie shook her head, her brown eyes wide. “When Maxence didn’t show up, it looked like they were going to tear Alexandre apart like rabid dogs. That chubby guy, Prince Jules, made the motion to disqualify Maxence because he wasn’t here. Alex rocked forward on the balls of his feet toward Jules like he was going to punch him. When enough people went along with Jules’s motion, I thought Alexandre was going to wade into the crowd and start a brawl.” Georgie glanced at Dree. “He’s—volatile,sometimes. Not toward me. But toward people who threaten him or someone he’s protecting.”
“I thought Alexandre had coordinated everything with his friends, and they were all going to vote the same way,” Dree whispered.
Georgie shook her head. “His coalition was falling apart, and itdisintegratedwhen Maxence didn’t turn up. When we walked in, it was a done deal. They must have had it all planned out. Prince Jules called for a vote to disqualify Maxence because he hadn’t shown up for the Crown Council, and it passed,bam.”
“Holy cow.”
“The whole thing went sofast.Alexandre kept trying to stall or stop the proceedings by demanding debate time, but nothing worked. He even tried to install a committee to study whether it was legal or not to do this. He demanded Monaco’s Supreme Court review the proceedings before they could take a final vote, and it didn’t work. As someone who’s almost a lawyer, I was pretty impressed.”
“Oh, no,” Dree gasped. “Did they elect Prince Jules?”
“Nope. They electedhis daughter,Marie-Therese, and you should’ve seen the look on Prince Jules’s face when Lady Emma Lorenzi popped up out of the crowd and nominated her. I’ve met that guy on a couple of occasions. Even though he pretends to be jolly, he’s always scheming underneath. When I was growing up, my mother was the same type. When I meet somebody like that, I get these crawly vibes all over me. I can pick a psychopath out of a crowd at fifteen paces,” Georgie confided to her.
Dree nodded. “I know the type.”
“When Lady Emma opened her mouth to nominate Marie-Therese, Prince Jules was preparing to walk up there and accept the nomination himself. Instead, Lady Emma pointed to Marie-Therese, and Marie-Therese walked up on the dais and accepted the nomination, and they voted. That wasit.It wasall overat that point. And I’m telling you, her father wasshocked.I thought Jules was going to pass out right there in the middle of the crowd. He was so surprised that he didn’t get an objection in before some other guy called for a vote, andbam,again. Somethingweirdis going on here.”
“I can’t believe they elected Marie-Therese so fast.”
Georgie shook her head. “The election has gone on too long. Most people here know they’re not going to be the sovereign, and they don’t care what happens anymore. The outcome doesn’t affect them personally. They just want this to end so they can leave.”
“Yeah,” Dree said, accidentally letting the sarcasm flow. “For the forty thousand citizens of Monaco, this election was going to decide whichone personis going to make all the decisions about their economy and government policies and status in the world for the next fifty years or so. I’m so sorry that it’s intruding on these rich guys’ tee times.”
Georgie snort-laughed. “Right? They don’t give a crap about regular people. They just want to sail their yachts down to the Amalfi Coast or over to Morocco because it’s five degrees warmer there in January, and to Hell with theselittle peoplecomplaining about not having access to decent health care or not earning enough money to live on or getting thrown out of the country because the wrong person got elected. That’s nottheirproblem. But God forbid these billionaires pay extra license plate fees on their little boats that go inside their bigger boats.”
Dree chuckled. “They don’t have any clue.”
Georgie shook her head. “Most of them don’t. They were born with diamond-studded silver spoons in their mouths, and they’ve never had to worry about how they’re going to pay the rent next month or what happens if their car breaks down. I’ve got to admit that my parents were comfortable when I was a kid, but things happened. I’ve been on my own since I was eighteen. There were some hard times.”
“I was raised on a poor sheep farm in New Mexico,” Dree confided.
“Sheep are nice,” Georgie said, obviously being polite about the sheep farm thing. She glanced down at Dree, this time taking in that she was scuffed up, probably had a black eye, and her hair was still damp from her shower. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I—uh—had a rough night.”
“Were you at the Sea Change Gala last night? I didn’t see you. We were right by the front doors when the shooting started. Alex picked me up and ran out. We walked back to his house because, you know, nothing is beyond walking distance in Monaco. We didn’t know what had happened until we got home.”
“I got there late,” Dree told her. “And then I was kidnapped by a Russian bratva’s goons because they think I owe them money. They held me hostage in a warehouse overnight. I just escaped a few hours ago.”
Georgie turned and peered at her. “Seriously?”
“Oh, yeah. Serious as a heart attack.”
“Are you okay?”
“I think so.” As a nurse practitioner and medical professional, Dree knew that she was somewhere between shock and denial in the five stages of grief model, but it was working for her, so she wasn’t going to examine the terror lurking in her chest.
