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

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