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

bunch of business folks because they were all wearing suits or, for some of the women, professional-looking black dresses.

One bald, rotund man with a bouncy gait looked like a pink balloon in a beige suit as he bobbed across the asphalt. He approached Max with his hand extended.

Maxence shook the man’s hand and inclined his head while the man spoke.

Dree couldn’t stop staring at Max. He did look at home here, alighting from a helicopter, with his herald on it, while dark limousines stood waiting in the traffic circle on the other side of the fence.

The wind picked up, growling in her ear and dragging her clothes against her body. She pulled her coat more closely around her chest and crossed her arms against the chill.

Maxence saw her watching him and caught her eye.

Dree must look pathetic loitering on the tarmac, huddling to keep herself warm from the first ocean breeze she’d ever felt. The other guys who’d ridden on her helicopter had grabbed their stuff and moved away, walking along the fence line toward the terminal, so she’d ended up isolated and conspicuous, staring at the big water.

The guy Maxence was talking to followed his line of sight and saw her. He jutted his thumb toward her and bobbed his chin up, probably asking Max something like Who’s the dumbass blonde staring at the waves like she’s never seen any water bigger than a swimming pool before?

Maxence brushed at the air with his hand and turned back to him, but the guy glanced at Dree again, an impish grin on his pink face, and held out his hand toward her.

Dree was just about to look away from Max when he held out his arm and sharply pointed at the asphalt by his foot, commanding Dree to move herself to the spot that he had designated she should stand.

She hurried past the helicopters toward him.

Sadly, she didn’t even disobey the hereditary prince, because her family had been peasants all the way back to the time when they had been serfs. Her genes obeyed his.

Far away at the other end of the heliport, another helicopter landed, transporting the last few security guys who’d been in Nepal. The thundering blades chopped the air, and the prop wash blew Dree’s hair back, chilling her more.

As she neared Maxence, he dropped his arm and looked away from her, back to the bouncy guy who’d met him at the heliport.

The bubble of a man turned, his bright blue eyes seeking Dree as she approached. “And who’s this?”

Max shook his head, disregarding Dree as a person worth mentioning. He folded his hands behind his back and leaned toward the man. “She was working for my charity when I was on the tour of Nepal. I poached her because I’ll need a decent admin for the next few weeks.”

She didn’t rate an introduction, it looked like. At some point, she was going to have to take offense at this.

To Dree, Max said, “Take notes.”

Dree dropped her backpack and pawed through it, finally coming up with her phone. She got the feeling that Max didn’t roll his eyes because exasperation at subordinates was beneath his royal dignity.

Staff was not even worth his disdain. Or even a name. She was totally a nameless administrative cog to these guys.

A notepad app was on her main screen, and she thumbed it.

Max turned back to the other guy, “You were saying?”

The guy didn’t look at Dree again and said to Maxence, “I assume you’ll be staying in the hotel, as usual?”

Maxence shook his head. “I won’t be over at the casino nearly so much, I dare say, so I won’t need a room at the hotel.”

The other man laughed, his blue eyes dancing while the wind from the landing helicopter and the sea blew his few sparse hairs that lay over his pink scalp. “Oh, Maxence, you old rogue, you. I’ll bet you’ll get to the casino at least a few times. I heard about the trouble you got in last month, you naughty boy.”

The new guy looked like one of Santa’s elves, Dree decided, with his little button-nose and bell-like laugh. Yeah, if you shoved a red sock-hat with a white poof-ball on the end of it over his bald pate, he would definitely be the Head Elf in Santa’s Workshop with the list of children trailing on the floor, standing at one end of the assembly room and calling out the names of the good boys and girls who would get toys that year.

Maxence said, “Time will be scarce, Uncle.”

Oh, Dree was supposed to be taking notes.

She thumbed into her app, Max will stay in the palace, not casino hotel.

“But now that you’re here and Alexandre is on his way back,” he said, “we can convene the Council of Nobles and elect you. We could be finished with this election by the weekend.”

What day of the week was it? After working day-in and day-out in Nepal, Dree could hardly tell. The priest who’d traveled with them had offered Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation, but she hadn’t kept track. When she’d crawled out of her tent and seen the altar was set up, she’d attended Mass. If not, she’d eaten her breakfast and worked her butt off, providing healthcare for people who rarely had access to it.

“I don’t think it’s going to work like that,” Maxence said to the guy. His tone was decidedly neutral. What he said wasn’t a threat nor a promise. It simply was.

Santa’s Head Elf laughed. “But you returned to be crowned after Pierre’s tragic and untimely death, didn’t you?”

Dree caught just the slightest whiff of sarcasm from the guy about the recent demise of Max’s brother, which was odd. She didn’t like speaking ill of the dead. Not that she believed in spirits or ghosts, but it still seemed disrespectful. Or unlucky. Or like something that decent people just didn’t do. Guy expects Max to be prince thing.

“No,” Maxence said to the man.