Dree was twitching at Max’s side.
He introduced her. “Dree, I’d like to introduce Wulfram von Hannover. He was a few years ahead of us at Le Rosey, and he was my brother’s roommate for years while we were there. His younger sister, Flicka, was also briefly married to Pierre. Wulf, may I present my fiancée, Ms. Dree Clark of New Mexico.”
Wulfram’s eyebrows rose just the slightest bit as he examined her. “My pleasure.”
Dree said, “Pleased to meet you.Is that a baby?”
Wulf smiled, and it wasn’t the chilly smile that Maxence remembered, which had been almost devoid of humanity. He turned sideways so the baby’s tiny face and chubby cheeks faced them. “May I present Victoria Augusta,Prinzessinvon Hannover und Cumberland, Princess of Great Britain and Ireland.”
Maxence chuckled as he wandered over, but Dree had beaten him across the kitchen and was peering at the child. She asked Wulf, “Can I touch her?”
“Go ahead. Her hand is right there.”
Dree rolled her finger under Victoria Augusta’s tiny, fringe-like fingers, gently inserting her finger in the baby’s hand with the delicacy of curling pea-vine tendrils around her fingertips. “She’s so beautiful.”
The child opened her eyes, revealing irises as crystal blue as her father’s.
Maxence stood beside Dree and exclaimed properly over the infant, but he watched Dree, enjoying her wonder and happiness at just seeing a baby.
They should probably talk about things like when and how many, but the possessiveness radiating off of Wulfram as he watched even Dree’s tiny interference with his daughter was magnetic.
Maxence could see himself holding a tiny infant of his own someday and guarding them just as jealously.
Chapter Twenty-Three
A Ray of Light
Dree
Supper at Wulfram von Hannover’s mansion was served in a formal dining room at a table that could have seated at least thirty instead of just the four of them clustered at one end near the serving doors. The silverware shone with a luster Dree had never seen before, and she suspected they were made out of actualsilver metal.A thin gold edge rimmed the china plates, and the candelabras placed in the center of the table were taller than most toddlers.
Between those fancy candlesticks and the chandeliers above the table, they appeared to be caught in a rainstorm of glittering crystal.
Earlier, when they’d had a few minutes to freshen up in one of the several bedroom suites that were just standing around unoccupied in that enormous house, Maxence told Dree the basics about their hosts.
Prince Wulfram von Hannover was an unanointed king of a country that no longer existed, despite his title. The Kingdom of Hannover had been absorbed into Germany when it had picked the wrong side in a war.
Nevertheless, Wulfram owned a fairytale castle on a hill in Germany but preferred to live in the US, quietly, due to a childhood tragedy that Max could tell her about later. He also had an uncanny nose for stock market corrections. He usually texted a few friends, including Maxence, with a general suggestion to sell their stocks about two weeks before the markets fell off a cliff.
He’d met his wife under circumstances no one entirely understood. She’d sprung into existence wearing Hannover family jewelry, which everyone had realized the significance ofimmediately,when she’d been Wulfram’s plus-one at Flicka’s wedding to Pierre in Paris nearly a year before.
Maxence had seen their entrance at the reception and been thoroughly shocked that the reclusive Prince of Hannover had emerged from his fortress, and even more so that he had a woman on his arm. “A hush fell over the enormous lobby of the Louvre. Several major royals picked their jaws up off the floor.”
“But it was his sister’s wedding to his high school roommate,” Dree said. “Why wouldn’t he be there?”
“Because he is Prince Wulfram von Hannover. That’s why.”
Earlier in the kitchen, Dree hadn’t been able to see beyondthe baby. She was a gorgeous baby, all sweet little puffy flesh and healthy proportions.
At supper, Dree had gotten a closer look at Prince Wulf.
Maxence was movie-star glamorous, the most perfectly chiseled man she’d ever seen, the absolute incarnation of tall, dark, and handsome. Now that she knew his grandmother wasGrace Kelly,perhaps the most beautiful movie star ever, Dree could see the idealized form of Max’s bone structure and physical form.
Maxence looked like a master artist had crafted an Italian marble statue of a cocky, debonair, testosterone-fueled man, breathed life into him, and set him loose upon the world to ransack and pillage hearts and bodies.
Prince Wulfram von Hannover was something else.
It wasn’t that he wasmorehandsome. Dree didn’t think anyone could be more masculinely handsome than Maxence. Wulfram von Hannover looked like he’d been cast out of gold and silver and set with star sapphires for eyes.
