One Night in Monaco - Blair Babylon Page 0,1
find him.”
Rox flopped back onto the pillow and pulled up the duvet. “Max always throws his security. It’s traditional. He’s probably off playing Robin Hood or Galahad somewhere, or maybe he’s just on another global bender. Come back to bed.”
Casimir sighed. “Max was in Monaco when he went missing.”
She flipped around in the bed and ogled him with one very serious brown eye above the bedcovers. “Is he alive?”
“As far as Arthur knows.”
“Where’s Pierre?”
Pierre was Max’s older brother. “In Monaco.”
She grimaced. “Anybody else gone missing?”
“Arthur doesn’t know. I’m sure he’ll start calling in favors.”
Roxanne threw back the covers and slithered out of the bed, landing on the floor with a thump. “I’ll pack.”
“I’m not packing. I’m leaving right now.” He sniffed an undershirt he picked up from the floor, found it a bit musty, and traded it for a clean one in the drawer. “Go back to bed. I’ll be back soon.”
“Is Gen going?
“Arthur won’t let her go with him. If anyone knows about the dangerous stuff that Max might have gotten into, it’s Arthur. He wouldn’t let her near any danger.”
“You keep saying things like that about Arthur,” she said and yawned, stretching her arms to the side. “Like he knows stuff about stuff.”
Casimir wanted to nibble on her arms as he marveled at the way her white tee-shirt stretched across her breasts. “You’re not going.”
“Gen says she’s going,” Roxanne said, reading a text on her phone, “so I’m going, too. I’ll go get Juliana and pack a toy bag for her.”
“Just leave her with my sister and her cousins. Juliana won’t even notice we’re missing. She wouldn’t even come over and hug me today when I visited the nursery because she was having too much fun.” Their two-year-old was a bundle of gregarious lightning who loved playing with other kids. Casimir liked to think she took after him.
“You’re sure Anastasia won’t mind?” Roxanne asked, dithering.
“Ana has five of her own children and a full nursemaid staff. She probably won’t notice an extra one.”
Chapter Three
Nice, France
Roxanne
Roxanne Neil-van Amsberg hated helicopters.
She had never mentioned her helicopter-phobia to her husband, Casimir van Amsberg, because it had rarely been a problem. She’d been Casimir’s paralegal assistant for years, and they’d traveled together all over the world for business. All that time, riding in helicopters as a means of transportation had never happened.
Planes, trains, yachts, and limos, sure.
Helicopters? Why on fiddle-dee-dee Earth would anyone need to ride in a helicopter?
“Nope,” she said to Casimir as they walked across the tarmac from the plane at the private airport terminal. A chilly December wind blew from the west, even in Nice, which lies on the Mediterranean Sea. “Nope. Not happening.”
He held her hand, smiling gently. He looked like the Scandinavian he was in the harsh lights from the streetlamps, with ice-pale skin and green eyes, a bit of auburn and blond streaking his brown hair. “Roxanne, my rock, my darling, you were the one who wanted to come along.”
Roxanne planted her feet on the asphalt. They’d just landed after a quick, one-hour flight from Amsterdam to Nice, France. Arthur and Gen had already been waiting in the terminal for them because they’d arrived from Paris, which was closer. She said, “I am not getting into that whirring death trap. Why didn’t we just fly on the plane all the way to Monaco?”
“Monaco isn’t big enough for an airport,” Casimir said, taking her elbow and nudging her toward the helicopter.
“You are not fooling me with that. Lots of people go to Monaco all the time.”
“Monaco is not physically large enough for an airport,” Casimir corrected himself as they approached the whirlybird. “A runway would take up half the country. One flies into Nice and then takes a helicopter or a car to Monaco. The road is narrow and winds along the edges of cliffs. The helicopter is much faster and safer than driving in the dark.”
“Everywhere in Georgia could have a runway even if they don’t actually have one! Why would anyone live in a place too tiny for an airport?” she argued.
“Because Max was born there, I imagine. Come on. Quentin is going to think that we’re not grateful for him sending a chopper for us.”
“Gen!” Roxanne called back to where Countess Genevieve Finch-Hatten, Arthur’s wife, was walking with her husband. “You’re not getting on that overgrown bumblebee, are you?”
In the early-morning darkness, Gen shrugged, her tent-like black dress flowing over her pregnant tummy. “Seems okay to me.”
“These things crash all the time! They’re fundamentally