Page 103 of Prince

Of course, he had practically adopted those two kids, and so if he had to choose between her and the kids, Majambu Milandu and Mpata Majambu would win that competition, too, and rightly so. Not that people should be in a competition for love. That wasn’t a real choice, and Dree would have never made him choose between the children he loved and herself. If he had a commitment to those girls—and he might—Dree would have figured out how to make it work for all of them.

But Dree wasnotgoing to screw a priest.

She didn’t want to screw around with a forbidden guy because it was dirty. She’d admired and cared for the man she’d known as Augustine in Paris, who’d been kind and fun, and a little naughty, and genuinely phenomenal in bed.

And then in Nepal, she learned so much more about Maxence, the depth of his love for humanity, and his willingness to sacrifice himself for others.

And now back in Monaco, Prince Maxence resisted corruption even though power corrupts absolutely, and he was trying his damnedest to save forty thousand people because he loved them, even though it seemed like no one in that little country had loved him enough to notice he’d been abducted and was being tortured.

But Dree was nobody’s temptation, and she was nobody’s sin.

Maxence was a perfect human being, and he would be an amazing priest.

But he wasn’t hers, and her heart was still broken.

And so Dree cried for what felt like an eternity in the gray nothingness of limbo with her face buried in her pillow, only coming up for quiet gasps of air when necessary.

Until there was a quiet knock on her door.

“Dammit,”she whispered. And then louder, “Just a second!”

She hurried to the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face, desperately trying to take down the swelling in her pink nose and rosy eyelids.

Oh, she looked like crap. The cold water had done nothing.

But she couldn’t leave the person standing out there in the hallway forever, so Dree slathered a handful of the bright green tea tree oil and clay mask that Chiara’s cosmetologist had insisted would calm her skin all over her face, making sure to build it up good over her red nose.

She hurried to the door.“Coming!Coming, I’m right here!” Dree flung open the door and grinned. “You caught me in the middle of my beauty routine.”

Her friend Chiara stood outside in the hallway. As always, she was perfectly put together, her lipstick sharp and her earrings straight. She asked, “Have you been crying?”

Dree dissolved into sobs again.

Chiara stepped inside her room, pressed the door closed behind herself, and locked it. “Oh, no! Oh no, my dear Andrea. What has happened?”

“I’m so stupid! Don’t be nice to me because I’m so stupid!”

Chiara led Dree over to the small table and two tiny chairs on the far wall and held her hand across the table. “Was it Prince Maxence?”

Dree grabbed a dirty tee-shirt from the suitcase behind her and buried her face in it, nodding.

“I am so sorry. These Grimaldi are all the same.Malizia,the whole family of them. You must not cry over him. These Grimaldi have made too many girls cry.”

“I’m so stupid. I believed him, and I still believe him.”

“Has he made you pregnant? Is he forcing you to have an abortion?”

Dree lifted her head to look at Chiara. A green copy of her face was printed on the tee shirt in tea tree oil mask. “I don’t think Maxence would do that.”

“Oh, how many women his brother forced into that.”

“Oh, no, Chiara. Did he do that to you?”

She set her jaw. “My grief was years ago. What has thismaliziaGrimaldi done to you?”

“I thought he loved me.”

“Malizia.Did he say that he would marry you?”