Chapter 2
THREE WEEKS LATER
MCCARRANINTERNATIONALAIRPORT,LASVEGAS,NEVADA,USA
My brother always had a perverse sense of humor.
Somehow when he said he was sending me to a conference on gambling, Las Vegas was the last location I’d thought of. Conference and keynote speech had me picturing some boring banquet hall, not the sparkle and promise of Sin City.
I had ten whole days in Las Vegas.I could really do some damage here. Maybe my brother wasn’t such a prat after all.
My anticipation fed me through the eleven-hour flight—right up until my assistant, Aristide, leaned across the aisle with a piece of paper in his outstretched hand.
“Here’s the updated itinerary, Your Highness.”
I clenched my jaw at the title he insisted on calling me. Ten months and he still couldn’t bring himselfto call me Prince Lucien or, heaven forbid, Luc. Hell, I’d settle formonsieurlike most of the security team call me. But Aristide was such a pedantic prig; I don’t know why I kept him around. He’d been Julien’s assistant, and I’d had hopes that it would make the transition easier—except Aristide had proved anything but easy. I had suspicions he was spying for Bastien and reporting every tinyinfraction back to the palace.
Knowing there was very little on the itinerary, I was tempted to ignore it, but that was probably why Aristide had gone to the trouble of printing this one out. I accepted the paper with a muttered“Merci,”and was halfway to tossing it onto the unoccupied seat next to me when the amount of text on the page caught my attention.
C’est pas possible. The bastard hadscheduled every minute of every day here, right down to my allowable jet lag breaks. It literally saidJet lag break tomorrow from eight to tenA.M.
Fuck that.
I’d agreed to come to the conference and give the keynote speech. Not meet with six, seven, eight hoteliers and three different delegations from gaming companies. I didn’t know a damn thing about gaming or managing a hotel. What the hellwould I have to talk to them about? I was a soldier—a pilot, really. Despite the past ten months of charity galas and ribbon-cutting ceremonies, I didn’t have anything to do with the planning or gaming commissions.
I waved the piece of paper at Aristide. “What is this?”
“The itinerary for our trip, Your Highness.” Aristide stared back at me with a blank face.
“I know that. Why is it so long?And why am I meeting with hoteliers and gaming companies? I’m here for the conference, not to glad-hand every person in Las Vegas.”
Aristide’s lip curled, and I just knew he was holding back his disdain when he spoke. “This is the itinerary Prince Sébastien’s office approved. I emailed it to you last week. You didn’t reply.”
Because I hadn’t read the damn thing.Merde. I scrubbed a hand at mytemple and the headache that was building. “Fix it.”
Aristide blinked. “What do you mean ‘fix it’?”
“I mean fix it. I’m not doing any of these sit-downs. Make the usual apologies. Tell them whatever you have to, but I’m not doing any of it. I agreed to the keynote speech, and that’s it.”
“But Your Highness—”
I leaned across the aisle and glared at Aristide. “That’s. It.”
Someone clearingtheir throat above me broke my staring contest with my assistant. I looked over at my favorite bodyguard and the closest thing I had to a friend, Dimitri Vasin, who stood with his arms crossed over his chest and a blank expression on his face.
“The flight crews announced we may disembark when you’re ready,monsieur. Security is standing by, and our end of the terminal has been secured.”
“I’mready now.” I held out the itinerary until Aristide reached across the aisle and took it back. After another narrow-eyed look at my assistant, I stood and gestured toward the front of the plane. “Let’s go.”
I followed Dimitri down the center aisle of the plane and across the jet bridge. Two steps off the plane my entourage of one multiplied to four as my security team surrounded me. We walkeddown a narrow, enclosed hallway to Customs and Immigration. A jittery woman in a blue uniform stamped my passport and didn’t even look me in the eyes before we were waved through to the concourse. As Dimitri said, this end of the terminal was deserted; we followed members of the local police force past the slot machines and tacky gift shops to a side exit where our motorcade waited.
Dimitri openedthe rear door of the black Escalade parked at the curb, and I climbed in. He shut the door and walked around to the other side, taking the seat next to me while the rest of the security team either got in the front or went to the other SUV parked in front of ours. My driver waited for the police escort, and then we were off.
“We should be at the Commonwealth Hotel in about ten minutes,monsieur.” Dimitri’s voice tore me from my thoughts of wily assistants and itineraries. “We’ll go through the service entrance in the rear and take the private elevator straight to your suite.”
Like Aristide, my security team was always very thorough. Between the two, every minute of my life was planned down to the second. Where we’d enter the building, when I could take a piss break, which member ofstate I was to speak with next. It was efficient. And agonizing.
Don’t get me wrong—military life wasn’t much different, but even in my old life I was allowed downtime. A vacation now and then. The glittering façade of the famous Las Vegas Strip sparkled all around me, broadcasting the kind of fun and revelry I hadn’t been able to feel in almost a year. What I wouldn’t give to be one of thosecarefree idiots who were just here to lose money, have a good time, and hopefully get laid.
