Prince: Royal Romantic Suspense (Billionaires in Disguise: Maxence Book 5) Read online

  Prince

  Billionaires in Disguise: Maxence

  Blair Babylon

  Billionaires in Disguise: Maxence

  Series Order

  Free Series Starters:

  Indecent Proposal (Book #1)

  A Game of Billionaires (Book #2)

  Main Series:

  Rogue (Book #3)

  Order (Book #4)

  Prince (Book #5)

  Royal (Book #6)

  Reign (Book #7)

  The first two books are free series starters. They contain part of Rogue so people can read a longer, expanded sample rather than just what the “sample” allows.

  It’s fine to start with Rogue. You didn’t miss anything. Keep reading.

  Contents

  Prince

  1. Appearance

  2. Sea Breeze

  3. Prayer

  4. Nicostrato Grimaldi

  5. Kissin’ Cousins

  6. Michael Rossi

  7. Kir Sokolov

  8. Marie-Therese Grimaldi

  9. The Desk

  10. New Year’s Eve

  11. Conclusion

  12. Lady Christine Grimaldi

  13. Boats

  14. Caught

  15. The Little Prince of Monagasquay

  16. Prayer II

  17. His Highness, Prince Jules Grimaldi

  18. The Pigeon Tunnel

  19. Norberta von und Lichtenstein

  20. Downstairs

  21. The Good Sisters

  22. App

  23. Death by Tiny Toddler Stomping

  24. Prayer III

  25. Taking Notes

  26. Kir Sokolov, Again

  27. Some Hillbilly Stuff

  28. Temptation

  29. Cinderelly

  30. The Sea Change Gala

  31. An Extravagant Honeymoon

  32. A Decent Proposal

  33. Kidnapped

  34. Dark

  To my husband, who is always my Prince.

  Prince

  Billionaires in Disguise: Maxence

  By: Blair Babylon

  Giving away a billion dollars shouldn’t be this hard.

  Maxence saved Dree Clark from some bad guys in a Parisian bar, then he turned up on a charity mission to Nepal, so how the heck is he the Prince of Monaco?

  Or, well, not the prince. A prince. He’s the not head honcho because Monaco doesn’t have a sovereign prince right now. But it needs one.

  Maxence is the next person in line for the throne, but he doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want anything to do with it. But other people do want the throne and the billions in wealth that go with it, people with evil agendas or who just want the money. Max is the only guy who stands in their way.

  And good people seem to be in short supply.

  Plus, he’s distracted by the constant thorn in his side, Dree Clark, whom he’s conscripted to be his new secretary. Her curves drive him out of his mind, and her sweet soul is more than he’s ever hoped for. He wants to chase her around the desk and then run away with her to somewhere safe.

  Because Monaco is anything but safe for Prince Maxence.

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  Published by Malachite Publishing LLC

  Copyright 2020 by Malachite Publishing LLC

  “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.”

  The Gospel of Matthew 6:24

  Chapter One

  Appearance

  Maxence

  In the rear bathroom of the private airplane, Deacon Father Maxence Grimaldi braced his hands on the teak countertop and stared into the mirror at his own dark eyes.

  Dree was going to see him differently soon.

  Beyond the oversized porthole window, emerald forests and pastel granite streaked the crumpled Southeast Asian landscape in the afternoon sunlight. The engines near the tail of the Bombardier Global 5000 growled through the walls and the floor under Max’s feet.

  The black shirt Maxence wore had a square ecclesiastical collar, into which he’d inserted a white tab that marked him as a Catholic religious. He lifted his hands and touched the pristine square, intending to pry it loose and tuck it into his suitcase since he wasn’t going to need it for the foreseeable future, but he paused.

  The black shirt and white tab sometimes seemed to be a suit of armor he wore, and other times, a disguise. Either way, he donned the ecclesiastical garb willingly for months at a time, trying to live up to the ideals it represented.

  His hands returned to the wooden bathroom counter as he hesitated, drawing out these last few moments before he stripped off the shirt.

  His cheeks and jaw weren’t gaunt under the black scruff of his thick, two-day beard, just a little harder than usual. Max had only been in the field for a month this time. When he returned from extended missions of six months or longer, his eyes sank behind his too-prominent cheekbones as his ribs surfaced along his sides. Losing thirty, forty, or even fifty pounds over the course of one of those charity ventures didn’t concern him because he packed muscle on again when he returned to Europe.

  As soon as he’d boarded the plane in Kathmandu, a flight attendant had handed him a plate piled high with sandwiches before they’d even begun to taxi toward the runway. The savory scent of roasting meat had wafted from the galley soon after they’d taken off. He suspected that a memo went out among his friends and staff to press food upon him because it seemed to be a coordinated effort.

  He was still staring at the white tab embedded in the square opening of his shirt collar.

  Moping in a bathroom was pathetic.

  Besides, once Maxence’s feet hit the soil of Monaco, he no longer held the position of deacon in the Catholic Church, at least according to that odd clause Pope Vincent had inserted into his ordination. That clause had been a compromise among Maxence, who’d desperately wanted to be ordained as a priest, Pope Vincent, who’d understood his vocation, and Max’s uncle, Prince Rainier IV of Monaco, who’d insisted Maxence not be allowed to take Holy Orders until Monaco’s line of succession was assured.

  He suspected it was less of a compromise than a Faustian bargain.

  Max grabbed the stiff collar insert and wrenched it loose, tossing it in the outside pocket of his toiletries bag. Several similar white strips in there rattled as it hit them. He unbuttoned the top few buttons of his shirt and dragged it off over his head then yanked the rest of his clothes off before stepping into the shower.

  Hot water cascaded over him, easily the best shower he’d had since his stay in the rectory before he’d decamped for the rural areas of Nepal nearly a month before. He soaked and soaped a loofah and scrubbed the rounded, creased muscles of his body until the layers of dirt, dried sweat, and every flake of dead skin sluiced off and ran down the drain. Scraping off the thick shadow of his beard over the sink took another few minutes.

  These transitions—from who he wanted to be to who he was—felt like taking off a mask. The revelation of his true self always held an instant of revulsion before he remembered he had never really been anything else.

  In the bedroom adjoining the bath, a garment bag had
been stowed in the closet for him, and Maxence dressed in the clothes inside: a navy-blue Armani suit in a wool and silk blend with a sleek, modern cut. His clothes were more fashionable than his friend Arthur’s conservative, Saville Row suits that Max had borrowed in Paris. Dree’s impression of him might change now that he wasn’t dressing to Arthur’s dowdy taste.

  Yes, Dree’s impression of him was about to change drastically.

  He paused while buttoning the immaculate white shirt and sighed, but it was necessary.

  Around his wrist, he buckled his Patek Philippe watch, a Christmas gift from Arthur that had cost more than most high-end sports cars, a solid and sensible gift.

  Last year, Maxence had given the Englishman a half-wild, tiny puppy he’d picked up on the streets of Kinshasa because, though Arthur was a classic introvert, Max had sensed a desperate loneliness in his friend that had deepened over the years. Ruckus had been a very spoiled dog until Arthur had married. His sensible wife, Gen, had trained Ruckus and given him the calm attention and exercise he’d craved.

  The same could be said about Arthur.

  Max left his collar unbuttoned and his Hermès tie in the pocket of the garment bag. The flight had five more hours before they reached Nice.

  Quentin Sault, head of palace security, had brought reinforcements when he’d shanghaied Max back to Monaco, so he’d also commandeered the larger of the two jets allotted to the royal family. The Bombardier flew at just over a thousand kilometers per hour, much faster than a commercial jet.

  Maxence straightened his shirt cuffs under his suit jacket and risked a glance at the mirror again.

  With the shower, a shave, the Italian suit, and a few minutes to reacquaint himself with who he’d been born to be, the man looking out of the mirror at Max was a cosmopolitan sophisticate, versed in the minutiae of upper-crust society manners and at ease driving an Italian supercar, lounging in a palace, or flying on an elaborate private plane, such as he did now.

  Dree would soon discover for herself what Maxence Grimaldi was really like, and he felt his brows lower without even an intention of frowning.

  Max tossed his laundry back into his duffel bag because he was still accustomed to picking up after himself after a month in the field, then he emerged from the bathroom.

  Quentin Sault, the head of Monaco’s militarized palace security, lingered in the galley between the bedroom suite and the main cabin.

  Max motioned for Quentin to step closer. He lowered his voice to his deepest bass tones and told Sault, “As far as you’re concerned, Ms. Clark was an efficient staff member for my charity whom I pressed into service as an administrative assistant, and that is all. The entire extent of our relationship is a business arrangement and nothing more. There is nothing personal to our interactions.”

  Sault’s demeanor remained bland. His graying hair, clipped short, did not even twitch. “Yes, sir.”

  “You will not discuss any aspect of our relationship with anyone, no matter who is asking. She is merely another administrative assistant added to my staff.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Any relationship which may have preceded our business relationship is over, so there is no need to discuss it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you understand that I will tolerate no discussion of her person or our relationship?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Max gestured toward the several commandoes already asleep near the middle of the plane. “And your associates will say the same?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” Max turned on his heel and walked away from Quentin, praying that even this little bit of trust he’d put in the career military officer was not misplaced.

  Time to make it real.

  Maxence strolled the length of the plane, passing wide seats upholstered in golden-beige leather grouped around a teak table where four special-forces commandoes played cards.

  Dree Clark, the pretty little blonde he’d picked up in Paris on a whim and with whom he’d been subsequently thrown together during a charity mission in Nepal, sat at the table near the front part of the plane, reading a magazine. He lowered himself into the seat across from her. She was a curvaceous, vivacious little woman who’d been an entertaining vacation companion in Paris, a rock-solid nurse who’d worked herself to exhaustion every day for the impoverished people of the rural mountain district, and after sharing a small tent for a month, she now knew more about him than almost anyone on Earth.

  And she was about to learn a great deal more, sadly.

  Max looked up as the stewardess sashayed by, and he waggled a finger in her direction. “Scotch.”

  Dree laughed, an effervescent thrill that tickled the skin of his arms and shoulders. “It’s barely noon.”

  Maxence dealt with Monaco and the palace better if he had a slight buzz. “So it is.”

  Dree was watching him warily, her blue eyes scanning the slim-cut Italian suit he wore and his face. “You look different.”

  He didn’t allow his expression to change. “No, I don’t.”

  “You practically swaggered down that aisle.”

  “I don’t swagger. Ms. Clark, we need to discuss your position.”

  Dree twisted in the leather chair that dwarfed her, glancing behind herself toward the plane’s cockpit. “‘Ms. Clark?’ Is my mother on this plane?”

  He continued, “When we arrive in Nice, we’ll transfer to a helicopter to take us to Monaco.”

  “After that bumpy ride from the Jumla District to Kathmandu this morning, I do not like helicopters anymore.”

  The stewardess presented the tumbler of dark brown Scotch and ice to Maxence on a silver tray. Max lifted the glass and jerked his chin up to acknowledge that she could remove the tray. “When we arrive in Monaco, you’ll have the rest of the day to freshen up and rest from our prolonged expedition in Nepal. The staff will assign you a room in the palace.”

  Sunlight from the porthole window on the plane’s wall shone on Dree’s bright blond hair and porcelain skin, lightening her blue eyes as she squinted at him with her head tilted to the left. “What’s going on with you?”

  He continued, “Tomorrow morning, I’ll expect you in my office at eight o’clock, sharp.”

  Leaning forward and resting her elbows on the table between them, she grinned at him. “For what?”

  Maxence did not allow himself any sort of recognition of her innuendo, though his dick weighed with rushing blood and his heartbeat galloped from merely sitting across the table from her. She was so close that he could almost smell her. If he buried his face in her neck and bit her, the cucumber-rose soap from the hostel last night and the wood smoke from the hotel’s towels and sheets would scent her flesh under his mouth.

  He said, “As the heir apparent, I’ll be taking over the sovereign’s business office. I’ll mention to the receptionist to expect your arrival. The office is well-supplied with notepads, pens, computers, so you don’t need to requisition anything before you present yourself. Have one of the staff members find you some clothes commensurate with your position as my personal assistant. Eight o’clock, sharp. Thank you.”

  He took his phone from his pocket and clicked it. The screen brightened, displaying a stack of texts that had downloaded when he’d connected to the plane’s WiFi system.

  Hundreds, it appeared, which was to be expected.

  “Max,” Dree said.

  He didn’t look up. “You’re dismissed.”

  “Augustine.”

  He glanced at her before he could restrain himself. “What?”

  Her eyes were flared open, and he could have sworn that the color was angry blue. “You want me to be your secretary?”

  He nodded. “Personal assistant. Admin.”

  “I don’t think so. Dude, I have a master’s degree in nursing and am a highly trained medical professional. I am not your secretary.”

  He looked her straight in her eyes. “You said you’d go with me and do whate
ver I wanted. This foray into palace politics is going to be difficult. I need an admin I can trust. This is what I want.”

  “This is like the joke where the prostitute tells the guy that for a hundred bucks, she’ll do anything he can say in three words. So he gives her a C-note and says, ‘Paint my house.’”

  “Amusing. Eight o’clock.” He glanced at the road-stained, red ski jacket and, by extension, the grimy jeans she was wearing. “Professional attire.”

  “What’s really going on?” she asked.

  “Nothing.” Maxence went back to his phone. “And when we disembark from the plane in Nice and the helicopter in Monaco, you should stay back with the other staff.”

  Because the media would be plastered to the fences, snapping their cameras and shouting obvious questions, Max was sure.

  The number of texts to return seemed insurmountable. He scrolled, scanning the names and a few words of the messages. Texts spun up his phone’s screen.

  From the corner of his eye, Maxence could see Dree’s immobile form, her pale skin and silvery golden hair shining. A beam of sunshine slithered across the polished wood of the table and climbed over her hand as the plane banked, the floor slanting underneath Maxence’s feet.

  More texts continuously arrived and flowed down the screen of his phone.