She plunged her hand into the top of her sundress’s bodice between her sumptuous breasts, all the way to her wrist.
Maxence stepped between her and the audience. Casimir and Arthur closed ranks at his sides, facing out.
Truly, Max could count on those guys inanysituation, even weird ones.
Dree thrust her hand up into the air in triumph, her fingers clamped around the black jewelry box. “Got it!”
Arthur glanced over his shoulder before he stepped away, and Casimir followed suit.
Dree handed the box to Max, the velvet-covered box soft in his palm. “Here you go.”
He opened it and began to dig out the ring, but Dree shook her head. “Nuh-uh. I want the whole shmeer.”
Chuckling, Maxence lowered himself to one knee again. “You already said yes, right?”
She grinned and nodded, her blond bob flipping around her flushed cheeks.
Maxence held the box in one hand and flipped up the top with the other.
Dree stopped smiling.
Her hands raised to her mouth.
From her expression and for one horrible moment, Maxence was afraid that his grandmother’s ring had been lost, and a mouse had crawled into the box and died. He angled the black box and peeked through the side.
Nope, the ring with its enormous silver-white diamond, all ten-plus carats of it, and two smaller baguette diamonds lying on the band was still right there in the middle, and nothing else. “Don’t you like it?”
Dree looked down at him over her fingers that covered her mouth. She whispered, though her voice was muffled by her hands, “It looks like an ice cube.”
Maxence poked the ring. “It’s quite warm right now. Can’t imagine why.”
“It’s too big, Max. I can’t wear a ring that big!”
“Why not?”
“Because it’ll tear my non-latex gloves when I’m at work, that’s why. And because I might accidentally break huge windows with that enormous thing. And because I would probably lose it!”
Maxence was positive this was some sort of non-billionaire mindset he couldn’t quite understand, but he would bring her around eventually. “Why don’t you wear it right now, just as a test drive?”
Dree’s left hand drifted from her mouth and hovered, fingers spread and trembling like a starfish that had suddenly found itself flying through outer space. “You’re sure it’s okay?”
Maxence slid the ring onto Dree’s finger. “I’m positive.”
The nobles and aristocrats of Monaco were quite undignified as they applauded.
“I’m glad I didn’t lose it,” Dree said, admiring the flawless Cartier ring on her finger in the light from the chandeliers. “I’m surprised it didn’t fall out of my bra while I was break-dancing across the warehouse while I was kidnapped.”
He laughed and hugged her, and then he kissed her again because they could.
Camera flashes flicked in the crowd around them.
Her smile brushed all the thoughts out of Maxence’s mind.
Maxence took Dree into his arms and kissed her again, savoring the moment even though they had the rest of their lives.
Out of the corner of his eye, Maxence saw Prince Jules fiddling with the doors.
If he wanted to leave, fine. The meeting would be calmer without him there.
