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

Dree snorted a laugh. “You are so funny when you try to be subtle.” She turned the key over in her hands, examining it. “So, am I supposed to come tonight?”

“Yes, you’re supposed to come tonight.”

The office door flew open.

Dree crammed the key into her satchel under her chair.

Alexandre and Georgie strode in, trailed by another brunette.

Maxence rose. “Christine.”

Chapter Twelve

Lady Christine Grimaldi

Dree

When Xan Valentine and Georgie walked in, Dree knew she had to act like a secretary, so she scuttled off to the archivist’s chair like a good little serving wench.

As soon as Maxence said, “Christine,” Dree turned back for a sneak peek.

Lady Christine Grimaldi was tall for a woman but not as giant as Maxence or Alexander. She was statuesque, Dree decided, a slim and beautiful brunette who could probably be imposing if she wanted to be.

The way Maxence hugged her and kissed both her cheeks was more affectionate than some of his other greetings. He held her at arm’s length for a moment, asking her how she was, and she murmured back to him.

Near her foot on the floor, Dree’s purse buzzed.

She really shouldn’t look at it during work. When she’d been at the hospital, she’d just shoved it in her locker during her shifts. Most of the nurses did that. The doctors didn’t, but you know, doctors.

Her phone buzzed so much that her purse slumped over and started to crawl across the carpeting.

She kicked the little pouch back under her chair.

Dree could still hear them talking in the back of the room, though they’d switched to some other Italian-sounding language.

Her phone buzzed and buzzed, which meant those were individual texts coming through, not a phone call.

She could check it real quick. Those guys probably wouldn’t even notice her looking at her phone.

Dree dumped her writing tablet on the desk and scrambled after her purse, digging through it to find her little phone that was having an absolute fit.

As she’d suspected, they were texts. Indeed, it seemed that her US cellular account must have connected to the Wi-Fi in the palace again. Dree wasn’t even sure how her phone bill was getting paid those days. She didn’t think there was any money in her bank account back in Phoenix after Francis had robbed her blind.

Some of the texts were family, including her sister Mandi, who was thanking Dree again for the enormous amount of money she’d sent a month ago that was paying for Victor’s new and more intensive therapy. She’d sent pictures of Victor, her son with severe, non-verbal autism, who did look calmer and more interested in whatever that was the therapist was shoving underneath his nose.

Some of the texts were from acquaintances and work friends, wanting to know why they hadn’t heard from her. Dree had only sent cryptic texts to a few of her closest friends to assure them that she was all right when she’d been in Paris a month ago and then again when she’d finally got Wi-Fi there in Monaco. She didn’t want to worry people, but after receiving those death threats from the guys who had killed her ex-boyfriend, she wasn’t going to tell people where she was, either.

But more death threats had scrolled onto her phone.

Where are you, little girl? We want the money you owe us. Francis Senft told us all about you before he died. You know that we will find you. You can’t go to work because we will find you there. You can’t go back to your apartment because we will find you there. We are watching your friends and all the places you like to go. Contact us so that we can arrange payment. You need to call me, Kir Sokolov, and he gave his phone number again.

There were more after that one, threatening more, insisting that they would find her.

She’d have to go down to Colonel Sault’s office again and show him the new ones. And then he would want her to go to the police station again to update their records. The policeman she talked to earlier had been very kind and told her that they would watch out for her, but he’d also assured her that Monaco was the safest country in the world and that the palace was the safest place in Monaco.

Still, the amount of money the drug dealer said that she owed him freaked her out. She could probably never go home.

Maybe she would move to California or just go back to New Mexico.

There wasn’t anything much in Phoenix for her, anyway.

Dree turned her phone off. It wasn’t like anybody important called her.

Footsteps plodded on the carpet behind her, and the four of them reached the desk. The two ladies sat, and Maxence called for another chair. Alexandre leaned his butt against Maxence’s desk and crossed his long legs at the ankle.

Georgie caught Dree’s eye and grinned at her. “Hello, again. Fancy meeting you here.”

Dree shrugged back at her, trying for an impish look, and turned in her chair to face the desk.

The others chattered until the chair was brought, and then Georgie insisted that another cup of hot cocoa be brought for Dree.

Maxence mumbled, “I ordered four cups because I didn’t know you’d have Christine with you.”

Georgie told him, “But everyone needs a cup of cocoa.”

Alexandre laughed at them. “Give up, Max. She’s a pit bull lawyer when she has a cause.”

Another cup was procured, and Dree drank hot cocoa with the rest of them.

When everybody was settled, Maxence turned to Dree and reintroduced Alexandre and Georgie, and then said, “The final guest is Lady Christine Grimaldi, currently third in line for the throne in the traditional line of succession.”

Christine waved with her fingertips at Dree, who dutifully wrote down the name.

Maxence turned and looked at Dree, and his direct stare into her eyes startled her for a minute. She was supposed to be the invisible secretary, not somebody who got looked at by the prince. Max said, “Today’s