He could only wish. Having Dani here was a balm for his soul, as corny as that sounded. When she was around, the circumstances of his life, the ones that usually chafed, faded in importance. She made him feel like he existed as a person, an interesting and worthy person, independent of those circumstances.
Plus, she was just so damn fun.
And he feared he was falling for her dog, who was proving the cure for the insomnia that had plagued Max his whole life.
That evening, walking with Dani toward the main house, he said, “Listen. I have no idea how this is going to go. My parents are huge snobs.”
“I can take it. Leo told me about some of his first encounters with the king. If he can survive it, so can I.”
He wasn’t going to let them be horrible to her, though. “I’m not sure Leo’s experience is that instructive. My father is, elementally, much worse than King Emil.” Max was confident, though, that even if dinner was a disaster, it wouldn’t change anything about his relationship with Dani. She knew him. She wasn’t going to judge him by his parents. The thought was exceedingly buoying. It felt like . . . insurance. A buffer that made his parents’ machinations matter a little less than usual.
At the house, Frau Bittner greeted them in the foyer. She normally only did that if they were having a formal dinner with guests. But perhaps Dani was that guest. His parents did know how to roll out the protocol when it suited them.
“Max.” As they approached the dining room, Seb slipped out the door, leaving it ajar. Chatter flowed from the room, which sounded like it was full of more people than Mother and Father. “Did you get my text?”
“Oh.” Max patted his empty pocket. “I didn’t.” He’d left his phone charging at the cottage. He had to stop ignoring his phone. Just because he was with his favorite texting partner in person didn’t mean there weren’t other people trying to reach him.
“Max,” Seb said urgently. “Father has—”
“Max, darling, is that you?”
Seb shot him a vaguely ominous look as Mother came to the door and beckoned them inside.
And there were the von Bachenheims. Lavinia and her parents.
“Let me introduce everyone,” Mother said gaily.
Goddammit.
Well. It wasn’t like Dani had thought Max was lying about his father. She’d wondered, though, if Max’s experience of his present-day family dynamic was overly influenced by his childhood. Sometimes patterns endured in one’s mind in a more entrenched way than in reality. She’d seen a little of that with Leo and Gabby after their parents died.
But no. Max’s dad, aka the Duke of Aquilla, was a complete dick.
It didn’t start so badly. Max’s mother introduced Dani as Max’s “American friend,” in a way that felt snotty even though you couldn’t actually pinpoint anything wrong with it.
As they were seated, things started to unravel. During the first course, everyone conversed separately, and she continued to speak mostly to Sebastien, who was on one side of her, and if she suspected he was monopolizing her attention so she didn’t have to deal with Mr. von Bachenheim on her other side, she appreciated it. But when the plates were cleared and the next course laid down, the conversation shifted to encompass the whole group.
“Miss Martinez,” the duke said, drawing everyone’s attention but then making them wait while he took a slow sip of his wine, the ruby liquid made sparkling by the enormous chandelier overhead glinting off the crystal goblet. “Where are you from in New York?”
“It’s Dr. Martinez,” Max interjected from across the table where he was seated next to Lavinia.
Bless Max and his relentless championing of her, but now was not the time. She appreciated the intervention in theory, but this was only going to fan the flames of his father’s . . . what? He wasn’t angry, at least not outwardly. But there was something going on, and it wasn’t good.
“Oh, it is, is it?” the duke said in a way that suggested he was humoring someone—either Max or Dani herself, she wasn’t sure which.
“I grew up in Queens, but I live in the Bronx now,” Dani said, returning to the duke’s initial question.
“Mmmmm.” He drew out the single syllable, almost as if he didn’t believe her, which was maddening, and Max’s mother and Mrs. von Bachenheim said something to each other in murmured German.
“What kind of medicine do you practice?” the duke asked after another drawn-out sip of wine.
“Dr. Martinez is a professor of literature,” Max said before Dani could answer.
“Ahhhh,” said the duke. It was hard to put her finger on it, because nothing about the words he was saying were inappropriate or rude, but the way he delivered them, in a smug tone and punctuated with long, drawn-out syllables, made it seem as if some private conclusion he’d previously had about her had been ratified.
“She’s a scholar of nineteenth-century American literature,” Max went on, and oh god, he needed to stop. Max, Mr. Emotional Intelligence, the guy who handled her fraught work parties like he had a degree in psychology and cheerfully called her out on her Tindering bullshit, apparently had no sense of how to handle his father. It was almost like he was baiting him.
Oh. That was exactly what he was doing. He’d told her he used to do this, to draw the fire from his brother. And now he was doing it for her.
“How exciting,” said Lavinia of all people, and she genuinely sounded interested. “Do you have any particular specialty?”
“Well,” Dani said carefully, “mostly nineteenth-century literature by women.”
“Oh!” Lavinia exclaimed, with such force that the whispers between the mothers stopped. “Have you read any Edith Wharton?”
“I have.”
“Oh!” Lavinia said again, and in another circumstance, Dani would have laughed at her wide-eyed enthusiasm, which was both delightful and out of sync with the context. “I am studying in the United States at the moment, and last summer I decided to read some American literature. When one is educated in Europe, one’s exposure to American writers tends to be limited to Twain and Hemingway and Hawthorne. Men, all.”
“That can happen,” Dani said sympathetically, not wanting to get into a big conversation while everyone else spectated.
“Well, I read The Age of Innocence, and, oh!” She looked around. “Has anyone else read it?” The assembled aristocrats looked at her blankly. Taking that for a no, she turned back to Dani. “I was devastated. And yet I could not seem to stop, and in short order made my way through the rest of Wharton’s oeuvre.”
Dani smiled. “Wharton will do that to you.”
“Dr. Martinez’s PhD dissertation was on Wharton,” Max said. Dani hadn’t realized he knew that.
Lavinia excitedly transferred her attention to Seb, who was seated next to Dani. “Sebastien, will you trade places with me so I may converse some more with Dr. Martinez when the next course comes?” She turned to Max next to her. “You won’t mind, will you, Max?”
“Not at all,” said Max, though Dani could tell he was as befuddled by Lavinia’s outburst as she was.
Over chicken schnitzel, Lavinia proved charming. Astonishingly, she seemed genuinely interested in talking about Edith Wharton. In a different setting, Dani would have enjoyed chatting with her, but she could tell that even though the others were, superficially, involved in their own conversations, they were simultaneously eavesdropping. Dani felt like a specimen under a microscope. Still, she managed to make it through to the end of the meal, thanks in large part to Lavinia’s kindness.