“Oh, it gets worse. My first name,Andrea,is a diminutive of the name of Grace Kelly’s character in her next-to-last movie,The Swan,when she was PrincessAlexandra.And my communion name, Catherine, was her character’s name inGreen Fire.”
Maxence grabbed the edge of the table beside him. His knuckles turned white.
She asked, “You didn’t notice my siblings’ names, Carrie, Grant, and Kelly?”
He sat down heavily in a chair, gasping slightly.
And that’s when Dree started laughing.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The Wedding in Monaco
Dree
Dree hovered over her phone while her stylist Émilienne yanked at her hair, ratting, teasing, and smoothing her short tresses around the hairpiece that formed a smooth bun on the back of her head.
Her thumbs flew over the screen, typing out,Did they make it?
Maxence typed back,Arthur said they were all on the plane. I haven’t gotten any texts since then. Surely, he has Wi-Fi on the plane. What kind of a computer hacker doesn’t have Wi-Fi on their private plane?
Maybe they’re just having too much fun,Dree texted.Maybe they’re all fine and just playing cards and drinking and stuff, and none of them had a minute to check their phones.
Maxence’s text flashed on her phone’s screen.We might have to postpone the wedding.
Dree looked up at her reflection in the expansive mirror in the bathroom in the penthouse suite of the Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo.
Her face looked porcelain-flawless because she’d had a dermablading a few days ago, which had truly freaked Dree out at having someonewithout any proper medical trainingtake a scalpel to her face. Émilienne had applied four layers of foundation makeup for two hours, swirling the brush to ensure each square millimeter of her skin was as matte as the Mona Lisa, before perfectly sculpting her face with contour and highlighter.
Dree’s hair was twisted back in a sleek blond chignon that was perfectly the color of the hairpiece bun at the nape of her neck. Princess Grace’s tiara nestled in her hair, the five diamond scallops looping up out of her hairdo like Nessie the Loch Ness Monster’s snaky humps cresting out of the water,but in diamonds.
Her wedding gown was hanging in the next room, perfectly pressed without the tiniest crease anywhere on the ivory silk, the cathedral-length train pinned to the walls so it wouldn’t wrinkle or get stepped on.
Her reception dress was also pressed and hanging on a different wall, and the coordinating shoes and tiny clutch purse sat beside it. In the purse, she’d tucked an extra lipstick and the napkin from the Buddha Bar that had started this crazy, crazy journey a few months prior.
Nearly half the items had been crossed off, includingFind someone to love who loves you and is worthy of your love, and hold onto them your whole life.
Their relationship had begun with one crazy night to fulfill an item on the Guidance of the Napkin.
Dree’s mom was going to hold the purse during the wedding, and then Dree could carry it to the reception. It just seemed like good luck if the napkin was present at the result of it.
She’d been getting texts all morning from Chiara at the palace with updates about the ceremony and from Alcide over at the convention center, noting that the chefs were hitting the time stamps for the preparation of the appetizers, supper, and desserts for over a thousand people perfectly.
Dree had been watching the guests arrive at the palace for an hour via the television coverage. People were crowding inside the castle walls in the Court of Honor and outside to watch the wedding on the Jumbotrons bolted atop the walls. She’d been flipping back and forth between the English channel and the one where the journalists were speaking Monegasque, which she was just beginning to understand here and there. Each one of the wedding guests looked as impeccably put together as Dree was going to in exactly five minutes when Émilienne was going to lace her into her underwear and dress.
She texted back to Maxence,Let’s not do anything drastic.
They couldn’t fly in the storm yesterday,Maxence texted to her.I told them both that they should come for a week before and make a vacation out of it, but Casimir had some big studio negotiation and Arthur was being typically vague. I dropped everything and was at both of their weddings. I flew from Africa to Los Angeles when Casimir had a freak out because he had a scar on his face.
Dree texted back,Yes, dear.
And then Arthur ran afoul of his own government and I had to swoop in and pluck him out of London before 007 got 86’d.
Dree texted back,Yes, dear.
I practically saved both of their lives several times, and they couldn’t even get to my damn wedding on time.
Dree texted back,Yes, dear.
