and stillness inside of him, and he let it shine in his eyes and waves of it overflow and wash over Simone.
That’s how he thought about it. It was just a thing. It wasn’t magic. It certainly wasn’t a science.
He wasn’t a saint, as he’d feared.
He’d been assured of that.
Sometimes, with laughter.
More often, with sarcasm.
It wasn’t hypnosis because he’d never learned how to do it, and he didn’t swing a pocket watch in front of people or use a hypnotic cadence when he spoke.
It was just a thing he did, that he’d always been able to do, ever since he could remember.
He could talk to people.
He could reach them on a different level than normal.
He could make people feel what he did, if the subject was important enough, if he loved it enough.
Maxence held the world in his mind and told her, “You’re safe with me. I’ll take care of you, and I’ll take care of everything. No crying. People look at you when you’re crying. We don’t want that. I’m helping you now, so you don’t need to cry. No more crying. We smile, and we walk through this crowd like it’s nothing, like we’re all alone, just you and me.”
She nodded and blinked hard, but she was looking at him.
He had her full attention.
She believed.
Maxence whispered to her, “Good. Shoulders back. Chin up. We’ll go out through the Buddha Bar at the end of the building.”
“It’s not connected to the casino,” Simone said.
“I know a way through. Here we go.”
They emerged from the smaller casino rooms painted in gaudy bright blues and golds toward the more exclusive rooms in the back. Maxence shuffled her down a hall toward the very private gambling rooms in the back, but her husband and his staff might be in one of those. Estebe was a high roller. He was almost certainly back there.
Maxence quickened his pace.
Simone kept up with him, nearly prancing with her stiletto heels on her long, curvaceous legs that Max would definitely admire later. He placed his hand on her back near her waist in case she slipped on the slick tile. She was clutching his jacket around her shoulders and the scarf over her hair and looking straight ahead as they ducked between people, which wouldn’t draw unwanted attention. Good. She was doing the right things so they wouldn’t catch people’s eyes.
He dodged into a side hallway with yet more Christmas trees, guiding her with him, where a security guard raised a hand. He stopped with his arm half-raised as his eyes widened, and then he let his hand fall as he stared back into the casino.
The security guard and the man in the casino had both recognized Maxence.
They had to run.
Her warmth under his fingers and palm, even through his tuxedo jacket, distracted Maxence for an instant.
He pointed at the corner ahead of them. “Left.”
They pivoted around the corner, dashed down another hallway, and pushed through swinging doors into the lounge of the Buddha Bar.
Like the Buddha Bar in Paris and others around the world, an enormous ebony statue of a seated Buddha towered over the deep red and obsidian lounge. Curving staircases led to the upper floors with restaurant food service. Rock music pulsed from the block of speakers in the middle of the lounge.
The crowd in there was more intent on each other than gambling, so Maxence slowed.
Again, they shouldn’t stand out.
Maxence and Simone wound between the tables and the knots of people, scooting sideways when necessary, and emerged from the bar’s doors into the chilly December night.
Stars glowed in the sky. The moon painted bright stripes on the waves of the Mediterranean Sea.
Maxence said to her, “Let’s go this way, toward the sea. We can go down the terrace and into the garden.”
“And then what?” she asked, her voice tight.
Maxence grinned, a little high from the adrenalin coursing through his body. “I haven’t the foggiest.”
Chapter Eight
Hotel de Paris
Roxanne
The room service staff delivered an enormous breakfast, easily enough for four people or more, to Roxanne and Casimir’s room at seven o’clock the next morning, even though they hadn’t ordered anything.
A steel commercial-sized barrel of coffee with two carafes for the table was wheeled in directly after the food.
Roxanne flopped back into the sheets. “We’ve only slept for two hours.”
Casimir blinked sleepily, dropping a pillow over his head as he grumbled, “Dammit.”
Casimir had briefed Rox on how Arthur had hacked the casino’s security system the night before, which seemed like an odd skill for the Earl