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

from boarding school. He was sailing along, outside the breakwater of the harbor, when a dark red motorboat—” He trailed off.

Dree watched the muscles in his jaw shift as he clenched them. She stretched her fingers over his chest, where his heart flailed under his skin.

He continued, “The boat that pulled up beside him was red, that glittering acrylic paint that looks an inch deep.”

Dree nodded. “My cousin Bonk had a red motorcycle with that kind of paint.”

The skin around Max’s eyes tightened as he squinted, thinking. “The tender that shuttled us out to the yacht for the party tonight was painted with the same red acrylic paint.” He squinted down at her. “Your cousin’s name is ‘Bonk’?”

“Nickname. He was never any good at driving that motorcycle.” Ah, now they were getting somewhere. The party that night had been on a boat. “So, did the tender tonight look like the boat that the pirates used to kidnap the little prince?”

“It certainly wasn’t the same boat, not even close. The tender was much closer to the size of the dinghy sailboat, while the motorboat that sped alongside the little prince’s boat was probably four times the size.”

“But it was red. And it was a boat,” she said.

Maxence nodded. “I’ve only been on boats or ships a handful of times since. That was the first time I’d ridden a tender out and transferred to the larger ship.”

“And then what happened to the little prince?”

“The kidnappers were amateurs in search of ransom. They were pirates and revolutionaries, not professional criminals. They took him to a tanker ship that reeked of oil and diesel exhaust. They’d probably stolen it, or it had been derelict.” He stopped talking again.

“So, exhaust fumes?” she prompted.

Maxence nodded. “The tender tonight had a diesel engine, and the pilot didn’t stop the motor before the tender was dragged inside the yacht’s garage.”

Dree propped herself up on her elbow again. “Are you telling me that the big boat has a garage, like the big boat was pregnant with the litter of little boats?”

A smile ghosted across Maxence’s face, and his shoulders lowered perceptibly. “Superyachts of that size cannot come into a harbor. Small speedboats, tenders, are used to shuttle people to and from the land.”

“And tanker ships can’t pull right into a small port like Monaco, either?”

Maxence shook his head. “They need a deep-water port, but they were hiding out on the Mediterranean, anyway. The pirates were using speedboats as tenders. They hauled them out of the sea with ropes and pulleys to a landing bolted to the side of the ship, and then we had to climb a ladder to the deck. I didn’t have to do that tonight, of course. The yacht tonight had an elevator the size of a closet.”

She winced. “Sounds claustrophobic.”

Maxence nodded slowly. “It was.”

Claustrophobia was a problem for him. She’d seen him very quietly not-quite freak out more than once. Claustrophobia-plus-boat must’ve been agonizing. “And then what happened to the little prince?”

“They threw him into an unused, windowless storeroom and locked the door. The little prince’s royal family didn’t notice he was missing for a week because the little prince was unimportant. He wasn’t the heir to the throne. He was just a younger, extra prince, a spare repository of royal genetic material in case something happened to his older brother.”

Dree wrapped her arms more tightly around Maxence. This was the part of the story that had broken her heart when they’d been in Nepal. “On the farm when I was growing up, we always knew where each other were. It didn’t matter if one of my brothers was three mountains over finding lost sheep or whether my little sister wandered off toward the creek. We could just point. My mom has a sixth sense, a radar for where all of her chicks are. I’ve seen her stop in the middle of kneading bread dough and hightail it out of the kitchen and grab my little sister or cousin just before a bobcat got them.”

Max’s laugh was one chuff. “That’s a useful skill.”

“It’s an important one in rural New Mexico.”

“It’s a pity that the little prince’s royal parents didn’t have an uncanny ability to locate their son. They ignored the pirates’ demands for ransom, believing that the little prince was safe with his nanny, while the nanny thought the little prince was studying with his summer tutor. The summer tutor assumed one of the prince’s aunts had liberated him to play with his cousins for a few days. Meanwhile, the pirates forgot the little prince existed for days at a time, ignoring the banging coming from the sealed storeroom, only occasionally remembering to toss food or fresh water inside. The metal walls were hot to the touch from the summer sunlight, and the air was a steam bath that stank of sweat and fear and shit. It was midnight-dark for days.”

Dree tightened her hold on him, trying to force his senses to place him in the here-and-now. “Tell me what happened.”

“They served supper in a dining room inside the yacht. There was a shocking lack of windows on that yacht,” Maxence mused. “Most private ships of that size are fitted with large windows so the owner can enjoy the fact that they own a sea-going yacht and may be reminded of their wealth and class at every opportunity.”

Dree kept her snickering to herself. It was pretty funny when the prince of Monaco snarked about privilege. “Anything else?”

One of his broad shoulders lifted, a gesture that seemed both dismissive and helpless. “The universe seemed to be conspiring to remind me of the time I spent aboard that other ship. There was no reason for the rolling of the waves to be any different today than they usually are, but because the ship was anchored and not underway, more motion was perceptible.”

Dree asked, “A little choppy, huh?”

“Barely noticeable to everyone else. If a ship is underway, the motion bothers me less because the deck’s movement underfoot is