Prince: Royal Romantic Suspense (Billionaires in Disguise: Maxence Book 5) by Blair Babylon (best ereader for comics .TXT) 📗

Yeah, this was going to be tricky.

Dammit. She wrote, Merino wool can be expensive.

Alexandre lowered his voice and told his wife, “I went to Jules when I was seven because I thought I could trust him. He told my violin instructor I had tattled and to make sure I didn’t tell anyone again.”

Georgie grabbed his hand. “Jesus, Xan.”

Huh. Xan, again. Dree doodled a KV next to his name.

Maxence said, “Jules hit on Flicka when she came home from boarding school with Christine one summer.”

Alexandre frowned. “How old was she?”

“Fourteen.”

Everyone recoiled.

Ew. Dree drew another line through Jules’s name.

Maxence looked up from under his thick eyelashes at Alexandre. “So, we’re agreed? Whomever we recruit to be the next ruler, it can’t be us, and it can’t be Jules.”

Alexandre stared back at Maxence and blinked then shook his head. “Right. Almost anyone but Jules. I was already advocating against him, and that’s the hill I’ll die on. Quite honestly, I’d rather do it myself than let him have it, and I’d rather disembowel myself than take the job.”

“I’m sure it won’t come to that.” Maxence leaned back in his chair. He said, a wistful note in his voice, “Jules would abuse that power in the worst ways possible.”

Georgie said, “But if they’re going to offer it to people in order—”

Alexandre said to her, “They don’t have to do it in order. Traditionally, that’s how we’ve always done it, but it was to prevent a civil war when every nobleman had a personal army. With a country as small as Monaco, a civil war could have killed every adult in an afternoon.”

Georgie chuckled, though Dree thought it was a little grim. Georgie said, “I need to read up on the finer points of Monegasque constitutional law.”

“There isn’t much,” Maxence said. “The constitution is that the prince is the head of state of the principality. He appoints the ministers to the government bureaus, and he states what the laws are. It’s one of the few true absolute monarchies left in the world.”

“Wow,” Georgie said. “So this matters. It’s not like other countries where the king or queen is just a figurehead who opens the parliament and presides over parties and knightings.”

“Our monarch does that, too,” Maxence said, “Rainier put in eighteen-hour days for decades. Okay, so after Jules, next in line is Marie-Therese, and then our uncle Albert II. He’s a quiet guy. He’s the type who would think it was his duty and do a solid job of it. He might be a good choice.”

Alexandre shook his head. “He’s a great guy, but he hasn’t been politicking and drumming up support. He’s too quiet. Albert would be an uphill battle. And now we’re off in the weeds. At that point, if Christine, you, and I refuse it and we make sure Jules doesn’t get it, it’s a free-for-all. Anyone could put themselves forward for a vote.”

Maxence nodded. “That’s what I thought, too. I talked to Nico. He’s less than thrilled with the idea of a scrum for the position.”

“I’m not sure an open field would be a bad idea,” Georgie said. “Rather than trying to figure out how to get around you two, Jules, and Christine, we should be figuring out who you can elect. What’s wrong with Marie-Therese, anyway?”

Alexandre shook his head and shrugged. “She wouldn’t want it any more than we do. If we foisted it upon her, Jules is her father. He would manipulate her and rule through her.”

Maxence nodded. “In some ways, that might be worse. If she was a figurehead, Jules would have the ultimate deniability. He could enact truly heinous policies, and she would take the blame.”

Before Dree thought about what her place was in that particular room, she blurted, “Would Jules do that to his own daughter?”

She clapped her hand over her mouth. She should not be asking questions of all the royal people.

Maxence nodded. “I wouldn’t put anything past Jules.”

Well, she’d gotten away with asking a question, maybe she could say more. “He seemed so nice when we met him on the helipad.”

Oh, jeez. She sounded like a naïve ninny. They were going to laugh at her.

But they didn’t.

Alexandre and Maxence nodded slowly, almost sadly.

Georgie said quietly to her, “Psychopaths always seem like really nice people. One of my best friends is working on her Master’s in behavioral psychology. Rae wants to work with autistic kids, but she did a clinical rotation in a prison. She facilitated a therapy group for some inmates who scored high on the psychopathy scale. She said you never knew what they were thinking. Inside, they didn’t have any real emotions other than irritation and rage, so they pretended to show whatever emotion would be the right one. They had all become really good at hiding that they had no positive emotions at all, not friendship, not affection, not love, not even pity.”

Dree blinked, and her fingers clutching the stylus felt cold. “Back in the hospital I worked at, I think some of the surgeons were like that.”

Georgie nodded. “They say surgeons, CEOs, and certain politicians score high on the psychopathy scales, especially those who use hate and fear to get you to vote for them.”

Dree tried not to recoil, but her back curled as she shrank in the chair.

Alexandre said, “Jules will doubtlessly use negative emotions like hate and fear to garner votes for himself in the Council of Nobles.”

Maxence asked Alexandre, “And so the question remains, whom do we put forth as our candidate?”

Alexandre shrugged. “Christian? Andrea Casiraghi?”

Dree almost snorted. Well, would you look at that? Alexandre pronounced Andrea wrong, too. Ahn-DRAY-uh. How funny.

Georgie said, “I would think your first bet would be to figure out who wants it. You don’t want to go through all these negotiations and political theater to get everybody to vote for your candidate, and then your candidate renounces and runs away to Nome, Alaska.”

“You find somebody,” Alexandre