Reign (A Royal Romantic Suspense Royal Secret Billionaire Novel) Read online

  Billionaires in Disguise: Maxence

  Series Order

  Rogue (Book #1)

  Order (Book #2)

  Prince (Book #3)

  Royal (Book #4)

  Reign (Book #5)

  For Julia Kent

  Who dragged me out of the dark pit of my own mind

  when the going got too tough and wrote with me over Zoom calls for months.

  You wouldn’t have the Max books if she hadn’t been there.

  ~Blair

  Contents

  1. Eclipse

  2. The Coup Will Be Livestreamed

  3. Honor

  4. A Good Ol’-Fashioned, Hair-Pullin’ Ass-Whuppin’

  5. For Life

  6. And They Say Monarchies Have Antiquated Habits

  7. The Dubious Mama

  8. The End of One Life

  9. And the Beginning of Another

  10. A Settlement

  11. A Much More Joyous Settlement

  12. The Last Settlement

  13. Further Developments in the Case

  14. Mairearad

  15. Confronting Arthur

  16. Stars

  17. High Noon

  18. Barn

  19. Leaving

  20. Phone Call

  21. Good Samaritan

  22. Schloss Southwestern

  23. A Ray of Light

  24. Steel Walls and Diamond Windows

  25. The Country Girl

  26. Poaching

  27. She Is Not A Tattoo Artist

  28. Prayer IV

  29. Cutter

  30. The Crownless Prince

  31. Malizia

  32. Enthronement

  33. Dial M

  34. Rear Window

  35. Traitors

  36. The Swan

  37. High Society

  38. The Wedding in Monaco

  39. Landing

  40. Altar

  41. Familiar

  42. Stalwart and Dutch

  43. Familiar II

  44. Fourteen Hours

  45. To Catch A Thief

  46. Under Parr

  47. Newcastle Golf Club

  A NOTE FROM BLAIR

  Also by Blair Babylon

  About Blair Babylon

  Don’t miss the exciting conclusion of the Billionaires in Disguise: Maxence series, REIGN.

  For one moment, Maxence had everything he wanted. The love of his life, Dree Clark, had said yes, Monaco was secure, and his future was clear and bright.

  For just one moment.

  Now, Maxence stares into the darkness of the barrel of an assault rifle hovering inches from his face, and he prays he can save Dree’s life.

  “Run,” he tells her, but she won’t leave him.

  Maxence thought he would REIGN in Monaco as the sovereign prince with Dree by his side, but now he’s fighting for both their lives.

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  Published by Malachite Publishing LLC

  Copyright 2021 by Malachite Publishing LLC

  Chapter One

  Eclipse

  Maxence

  An eclipse.

  The rifle’s muzzle at point-blank range was an eclipse that began as a pinprick of darkness and expanded as the mercenary walked toward where Maxence lay on the ground, covering Dree with his body.

  Under his back, Dree gasped.

  The gunmetal gray circle filled with darkness swallowed the throne room into its maw, becoming an enormous black hole punched out of the air as it hovered in front of Max’s face.

  Sulfurous gunpowder stink wafted from the muzzle of the gun, filling his sinuses and stinging the back of his throat.

  In the room around them, shouts and yelps parleyed as people bargained or begged for their lives.

  Maxence raised his hands, showing the mercenary holding the rifle he was unarmed.

  The levitating circle of darkness twitched to the side, indicating that Maxence should stand up.

  He rolled to his side, whispering to Dree, “Move away from me.”

  “No, I—”

  “Get out. I’ll distract them as long as I can.”

  As he turned over and his left side was downward, Maxence reached into his pants pocket and flipped his cell phone toward her.

  Dree caught it and tucked it into her skirt.

  Oh, good girl. That was the move of someone he could rely on to hold the castle despite anything that happened to him.

  Max slowly rose to his feet.

  Behind the circle of darkness, a long steel beam stretched to the man’s face and his squinting eyes resting atop the stock of the gun.

  As they made eye contact over the gunsight, the man’s black eyebrows furrowed on his pale skin.

  Maxence smiled at the mercenary over the gun. “It’s okay. We’re all okay here.”

  The man blinked, and his eyebrows lowered.

  Maxence tried speaking French to the man. “Why have you come here today?”

  The terrorist replied in the same language over the length of the rifle. He growled, “Because she has paid me.”

  “But what has she taken from you?” Maxence asked.

  The man’s eyes narrowed more.

  Maxence didn’t know exactly what he did when the wave of conviction rolled through him when he spoke, when the emotion in his body reached other people and filled them too, but he knew when he was doing it.

  And he knew how to make it happen when he needed to.

  Max said, “Marie-Therese always asks something in return. What is it?”

  The muzzle of the gun lowered slightly as the man stared at him.

  “Monaco and France have been allies for a thousand years,” Maxence said to him. “Tell me.”

  “My honor,” the terrorist said with a crack in his voice. “I have traded my honor for her money.”

  With one finger, Max slowly moved the barrel of the gun aside.

  Chapter Two

  The Coup Will Be Livestreamed

  Dree

  As Maxence rolled off of Dree, she saw him slip his hand into his pocket and pull out his phone, and it toppled from his fingers toward hers.

  Because she was a nurse, she could catch a falling scalpel by the handle end before it stabbed a patient’s foot, so she snagged the phone out of the air and shoved it in the pocket of her sundress.

  It vibrated furiously beside her thigh.

  As Maxence climbed to his feet, Dree sat up and scooted backward with her heels and butt toward the rear of the dais.

  The mercenaries were circling the room, moving into position.

  Dree tutted at the intruders as her back touched the velvet curtains behind the throne. If their forward line curled around any more, they were going to form a circular firing squad, and Dree’s opinion of them would lower even more. Anyone who had been bird hunting with buddies knew how to maintain their position in the line better than that.

  Max’s phone thrashed in her skirt pocket like a furious mouse.

  Dree clamped it against her leg and then withdrew the top of it from her pocket, glancing at the screen from the sides of her eyes.

  The text across the screen read, We require your current status. We are at
tempting entry within minutes.

  The contact’s name was Magnus Rogue Sec.

  Dree tapped in Max’s passcode, which was her birthday, and slid her thumb across the phone’s screen while she cringed beside the throne, trying to look terrified instead of like she was communicating with someone outside. Max & I on dais at front. 12 mercs armed with HK416s on perimeter.

  She wasn’t terrified, of course. Dree was pissed as hell at these tactical amateurs who couldn’t stage a damn coup correctly. If she’d been in charge of the insurrection, it would already be over. She sneered her disdain for those feckless terrorists.

  Magnus Jensen’s text came back, Dree Clark?

  Y, she texted back.

  Are people standing near the doors?

  Civilians and mercs.

  Are you in immediate danger?

  I’m near the wall at the front. Gunmen at ready arms. No shooting yet. But it’s coming. A guy is aiming at Max.

  Maxence was standing with his back toward Dree. He was saying something quietly to the terrorist who was pointing the rifle at his face, and then he moved the guy’s gun to the side with one finger until it pointed past his shoulder.

  After another few lines of conversation, the merc lowered his weapon. The muzzle pointed at the ground.

  But now he’s not anymore, Dree typed. Guy lowered his gun.

  Marie-Therese strode into the crowd until she reached the center of the room, where she announced, “The election is ended. The prior result stands. Our constitution doesn’t allow for a second round of voting.”

  Maxence replied to her, his voice booming over the crowd, “Our constitution doesn’t allow for one round of voting. In the past, we’ve had a confirmation vote of confidence for the next person in the hereditary line. Because Princes Rainier III and Rainier IV were both the heirs apparent, we haven’t needed to address the fact that the election doesn’t really exist. You were never legally elected, either.”

  Marie-Therese glanced in confusion at her father, who still stood near the double doors to the antechamber. “But that doesn’t matter. This is how we elect a sovereign. We have one round of voting.”

  Dree huddled more closely to the throne, clicking on the video camera from Magnus’s text feed. Magnus texted, We are placing shaped charges on the door.

  Wait, she texted back.

  “That’s not true,” Maxence told Marie-Therese, speaking from the front of the dais. “Rainier IV took three rounds of voting, even though he was the heir apparent at the time. That’s why my brother, Pierre, was politicking so hard. A deadlocked election is always a possibility.”

  Marie-Therese raised her arms, looking like Evita in a red dress. Her raven-black hair spilled over her shoulders and down her back. “The election is over, and I have won! I am the Sovereign Princess of Monaco.”

  Dree picked up the phone and, without interrupting the video feed, texted Magnus, Be ready when I say to go.

  Chapter Three

  Honor

  Maxence

  “No, it’s not over,” Maxence told the room, his voice carrying even though he sounded thoughtful. He was looking up at the ceiling, where Alexander the Great was surrendering.

  Even Alexander the Great had been defeated when he overreached, an important analogy for that afternoon. Marie-Therese was grasping at too much.

  “Yes, it is over!” Marie-Therese retorted. “Go ahead and say it again, Maxence. I can do this all day because I’ve already won.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Maxence saw Dree edging off the side of the dais. God, he prayed, let her get to safety. Let her find an unlocked door and run.

  “Lady Valentina,” Maxence called. She stood near the front and on the other side of the dais. Talking to her would draw the terrorists’ attention away from Dree creeping into the crowd. “Do you believe the election is over?”

  Valentina Martini was still glaring down the barrel of a rifle at another terrorist. She didn’t break eye contact as she said, “The election is not over. We will count all the votes.”

  Dree’s white sundress swished as she slipped between bystanders.

  Maxence sighed, “Excellent, and Duc Alexandre?”

  “It’s not over,” Alexandre called from where he had backed his wife, Georgie, and his sister, Christine, against a wall, his long arms and legs fencing them in and shielding them.

  Casimir and Arthur were both on their knees with their hands behind their heads. Arthur glanced up at Max, his eyes the blue-white fire of ignited magnesium that could burn down cities.

  “Lord Lorenzi, what do you—”

  “Not over,” Lorenzi grunted from where he had tackled and spread himself over his struggling teenaged son.

  The terrorists were beginning to waver, listening more to Maxence and concentrating less on their initial plan.

  “And why not?” Maxence asked the room. “Why shouldn’t we stop the election now?”

  Lady Valentina finally turned away from the terrorist holding the gun on her to glare at Max. “Because Marie-Therese and Jules would be a disaster for Monaco.”

  Yes. “We all want what is best for Monaco,” Maxence said. “We want a better, stronger, more just Monaco. And that means that everyone gets a vote.”

  The nobles were beginning to stir as their immediate panic ebbed.

  “This isn’t how we do things,” Maxence said, gesturing to the guns and mercenaries. “We’re better than this. Monaco has been the shining city on the hill of Europe for a millennium. We’ve calmly transferred power from one prince to the next with no infighting, no assassination, no civil wars, and no bloody conspiracies and murders like the other great houses of Europe. There are no bones of little princes to be found in our towers, and none of our sovereigns have died suddenly of suspected poisoning.”

  The noblemen and women eyed each other even as they watched the mercenaries for sudden movements.

  He said, “Monaco’s sovereigns have always put our people first. Monaco is our family. We Monegasques have always stuck together, surviving on this scrap of land and harbor because we stay together.”

  The mercenaries were listening too, turning their gazes away from the sights of their guns.

  Maxence said, “We Grimaldi have held Monaco peacefully for nearly a thousand years. Together, we hold this fortress on Le Rocher over the harbor. We stood together against the cities of Italy that attacked us, and we closed our borders when the Vichy government wanted to use our harbor to collaborate with the Nazis. We stand together. That is our strength.”

  The mercenaries fidgeted and watched him.

  Maxence boomed over the crowd, talking more specifically to the French mercenaries Marie-Therese had bought. “Monaco and France have been the closest of allies, our peoples working together as one. We guard our shores against the same enemies. Our honor is your honor.”

  The mercenaries’ weapons drooped as they listened to Maxence’s voice roll over them.

  “We’ve stood together for a thousand years. Our honor binds us together in a holy alliance based on our mutual past.”

  The guns in the crowd lowered still farther.

  Marie-Therese called out, “Enough of this. I am the sovereign of Monaco.”

  Maxence surveyed the crowd, but he didn’t see Dree’s bright blonde hair bobbing among the nobles. Surely, she had found somewhere to hide, somewhere low, behind something solid. He said, “Marie-Therese, if you have enough votes to win the election, then you have nothing to fear from another casting of the vote.”

  “Why would I allow another vote to be cast when I have already won?” she sneered. “I have nothing to gain from this.”

  “Except respectability,” Maxence said. “And integrity, and honor.”

  Another one of Marie-Therese’s mercenaries who had been pointing a gun at Max perked up when he said honor, and then he fidgeted, scuffing his combat boots on the marble under his feet and staring off into the distance instead of watching the situation evolving in the
throne room.

  Maxence continued talking directly to Marie-Therese. “If you stop now, people will whisper about the way you ‘won’ the election, from how you influenced the votes to how your mercenaries pointed weapons at the nobles during the vote.”

  “It won’t matter,” she said. “I’ll be the sovereign. If anyone says shit to me, I’ll throw them in jail. I’ll be untouchable.”

  “Maybe,” Maxence said. “But if you win a re-vote, no one will be able to say that you didn’t win.”

  Marie-Therese paused, her bright red lips pursed.

  “It could be sixty years or more, Marie-Therese,” Maxence said. “Can you imagine people whispering behind your back that you cheated for sixty years?”

  Marie-Therese looked up at him, her dark eyes staring right at him. “You’re right. I could not stand all of you whispering behind my back for sixty years that I didn’t really win. But we will not have a new vote.”

  Maxence had been delaying the inevitable, and he prayed that he had delayed it long enough for Dree to escape or hide.

  Marie-Therese announced, “I am the Sovereign Princess of Monaco from this moment forward, and I am the absolute ruler of this principality. I don’t need any of you anymore.”