Prince: Royal Romantic Suspense (Billionaires in Disguise: Maxence Book 5) by Blair Babylon (best books to read fiction txt) 📕

past soccer fields where children were practicing. The young kids out there, probably eight or nine years old from the look of them, were significantly better than the varsity team at her high school.

An enormous sports stadium loomed on the other side of the street, just feet away from the whizzing traffic. A sign on the front read Stade Louis II.

A tap on her shoulder surprised Dree, and she flinched.

When she turned, the guy behind her was smiling. “So, are you to be quartered in the palace?”

Dree shrugged and hoped she didn’t look too much like a wide-eyed country bumpkin, even though that’s what she was. “That’s where I was told I would be staying, but I have no idea what I’m doing.”

The guy chuckled. He was about her dad’s age, maybe fifty, although he was a heck of a lot more fit than her dad was. “That’s where they’re dropping us off, too. I know where the staff office is. I’ll make sure you get there.”

The minibus rolled through the narrow, winding streets of Monaco. Dree was glad that she was in a large, safe vehicle. Cars that she had only seen in James Bond movies like Lamborghinis and Ferraris whipped through traffic, attaining ridiculous speeds in only a few hundred feet before slamming on their brakes. Other low-slung cars that she could not begin to identify clung to the pavement as they snaked around corners.

The engine of the minibus labored as it climbed hills and sped through traffic. Even though it was nearly January, most of the trees lining the street or in the gardens were green and lush.

The guy tapped her shoulder again and gestured out the window. “That’s the palace.”

Outside her window, a sheer cliff rose from the ground as if the road were winding along the bottom of a canyon. Dree craned her neck to look up. Medieval fortifications perched on the top of the cliff, a literal castle on a hill.

She twisted to look at the guy sitting behind her. “This bus isn’t going to be able to climb that road.”

The guy laughed. “There’s no way to drive up from this side. We’ll go through the tunnels. There’s an area below the castle where we’ll get out.”

Just then, the sky turned black as the minibus dove into a tunnel and sped deep into the earth.

Dree held onto the back of her seat and a pole beside the driver as the minibus navigated the flying traffic. One quick turn led them into a small side tunnel.

The security guys all stood and grabbed their packs, so Dree did the same.

The bodyguard led Dree up a stairwell to a small office and explained the situation to the people there.

A reed-thin man wearing a pale gray suit pursed his lips and looked Dree up and down. “And who told you that you would have accommodations in the palace?”

Dree said, “I was a worker on one of Prince Maxence’s charity missions. He hired me away from the charity to be his admin for a few weeks. He said there was somewhere I can stay here.”

The administrator’s lips crawled inside his mouth. “I was not informed.”

Dree started to apologize, but the bodyguard next to her said, “Come on, Sam. She’s been tramping around the countryside of Nepal for a month with Prince Maxence on another one of his charity jaunts. She’s exhausted and needs a room in the palace for at least a couple of days. I’m not sure if she’s going to be here permanently or just while she gets her bearings. In any case, she needs a place to stay tonight, and it needs to be here.”

Sam the administrator-guy shrugged and said, “I can assign her one of the scullery maid’s quarters in the back.”

Dree didn’t even rate being an admin anymore. Now she was a scullery maid.

Story of her life.

The guy clapped Sam on the shoulder and nearly sent him reeling into a wall. “I knew you had space in here somewhere. Now get someone to show her to it.”

A young woman was summoned, a slim secretarial-type wearing a black sheath dress and modest heels. Her dark blond hair was knotted tightly at the back of her head. She clasped her hands delicately at her waist and seemed to be perpetually leaning forward to listen to directions. She smiled faintly and led Dree through the rabbit warren of hallways to a small bedroom with an accompanying bathroom.

Dree slung her backpack off her shoulder and let it fall onto the bed. “Oh, thank God, it has a shower.”

The woman’s faint smile didn’t waver. “And what will you be doing for His Highness?”

She shrugged. “He said he needed an admin. I have a hard time believing you guys don’t have hot and cold running admins around here.”

The woman nodded, a measured movement that didn’t give anything away.

Dree asked her, “Do you know where I can go shopping around here? He said that I had to be ‘professionally attired,’ and I’m not even sure what that means.”

The woman cocked her head almost robotically. “Weren’t you an administrative assistant before?”

Dree shook her head. “I’m a nurse practitioner. I was out in the wilds of Nepal, treating infections and vitamin deficiencies, and now suddenly, I’m here. I’ve never been to Monaco before. Heck, before last month, I’d never been out of the southwestern United States.”

The woman blinked, and her expression softened to allow the tiniest bit of worry. “Oh, you poor thing.”

“And he just picked me up, told me I was his admin now, and dumped me here with the command to be in his office at eight o’clock tomorrow morning and not look like a slob who’s just gotten back from camping for a month. I have a few pairs of jeans, some thermal underwear, and ski pants. I don’t think that’s going to work.”

The woman looked at her watch. “It’s six o’clock.”

“What time do the shops close around here?”

The woman turned and started for the bedroom door. “The shopping center