“Yes. I met Leo and Gabby because I married into the Ricci family.”
“Vince being the cradle-robbing professor in search of a helpmeet,” Max said.
Sinéad cracked up. “That’d be the one. And wow, helpmeet. That’s not a word you see much anymore.”
“I thought you and Leo were neighbors?” Max asked Dani.
“We were. I’d met Leo and Gabby a few times at holidays when the whole Ricci clan was together, but I didn’t know them well. When their parents died, there happened to be an opening for a superintendent in my building that I thought Leo would be perfect for. I’d heard they were looking for a place, so I reached out to let them know—despite Vince being a dickhead, his family was decent. And even though I’m in the process of marrying out of the Ricci family, I’m keeping Leo and Gabby.”
Sinéad had been leaning against the bar, but suddenly her posture changed. “Incoming.”
Dani looked over her shoulder, took stock, and whispered to Max, “The guy on his way over here is the chair of the department. We care about his inner life. His inner life needs to grant me tenure.” Max made a vague noise of acknowledgment.
“Also, FYI, and don’t look because they’re looking at you,” Sinéad whispered, “but Vince and Berkeley have arrived.”
“Berkeley,” Max echoed. “What an . . . unusual name for a helpmeet.”
Dani ignored Max and concentrated on Vince, as much as she didn’t like doing that. She was over Vince. Having moved rapidly through the shock, hurt, and anger phases of the breakup, she was currently in the midst of the questioning-one’s-own-judgment phase. Hence the obsessive list-checking. But being over him didn’t mean she was looking forward to seeing him. “I’m not ready for this,” she muttered.
“Sure you are,” Max said as the bartender set their drinks on the bar. He put a fifty-dollar bill in the tip jar—fifty dollars!
She really, really wasn’t ready for this. Her heart started beating rapidly. Vince sitting on the sofa across from her in their mediator’s office was one thing—and the last session had been months ago—but to see him here, at a work party with everyone watching to see how she was going to act, was another.
Before picking up his own drink, Max rolled his shoulders and straightened his spine as if preparing for battle. “This is going to be fun.”
That was not the word Dani would have used.
Max winked and said, under his breath, “Here we go.”
She braced herself and turned to face the room.
“Dani, Sinéad,” her chair said as he approached, “happy holidays.”
“And to you.” Dani’s voice was a little shaky but hopefully not so much that anyone would notice. “James, this is Maximillian von Hansburg. Max, this is James Dodge, the chair of the English department.”
The men shook hands, and Sinéad piped up, “Max is a baron.” She said it loudly enough that she drew the attention of a few of their colleagues clustered near the bar.
Max waved away Sinéad’s declaration even as he lifted his chin. He positively oozed baron-ness.
“How do you know our Dani?” James inquired.
Our Dani. That was rich coming from the guy who had asked her to plan the retirement party for the department’s longtime secretary because “you have such good taste.” Spoiler alert: “You have such good taste” coming from James meant, “You are young and female.” Give her tenure and maybe “our Dani” would annoy her less.
“Our best friends are getting married later this year,” Max said, leaving unspoken the part where his best friend was a princess and the wedding was a royal one.
“Are they? And what brings you to New York so close to the holidays?”
“I’m doing some archival research on an Eldovian woman who spent part of World War II in New York.”
He was? Why hadn’t he led with that when he’d been texting her? Dani had been imagining Max in town for—well, she wasn’t even sure. Having his own personal Christmas spectacular as he banged his way through the Rockettes?
“She was at Cambridge—also my alma mater,” Max went on. “Cambridge, as you may know, was spared in the bombing campaigns because Hitler planned to use it as a second headquarters when he took over Britain. It’s long been known that she welcomed German Jewish children who were part of the Kindertransport into her flat and that she went on to set up a network of students and professors who did the same. She’s something of a local folk hero at home. But it seems she spent some time in New York in 1943 that wasn’t previously known about. I’m here trying to get to the bottom of it.”
Dani had to prop her fist under her jaw and hope she was striking a thoughtful pose instead of an “I am propping up my jaw because it keeps dropping” pose. But at least it was better than freaking out about seeing Vince.
“Fascinating,” James said, and he actually seemed to mean it. “What university are you at?”
“Oh, I’m purely an amateur,” Max said with a dismissive wave and a self-deprecating shake of his head. Dani was pretty sure, given the way his head stayed turned a beat too long, that the gesture was designed to let him survey the room. “Too busy with matters of state and diplomacy these days to muck about in academia,” he added.
Dani had to bite back a smile. That might be true if the “diplomacy” he was talking about was happening between the sheets. She had read one tabloid account of him “romancing” the US ambassador to the Vatican, who, while single, was supposed to be a devout Catholic.
“Your Professor Martinez has been advising me,” Max went on. “She’s been a tremendous help, not just as a local contact, but intellectually.” Max returned his hand to her back and beamed down at her. All she could do was goggle at him. “Shall we find somewhere to sit?” he inquired mildly.
“Sure.”
That had the effect of dismissing James, who moved on to chat with someone else, pulling Sinéad along with him. Alone again, Max said to Dani, “May I buy you another drink before we sit? Perhaps something stronger?”
“Stronger is for after the party,” she said quietly. She rarely drank at these things, wanting to keep her wits about her. “Stronger is for after I get tenure.”
She let him lead her to an unoccupied sofa, feeling the attention of everyone in the room. He whispered in her ear as they went, “Vince and—sorry, what was her name? Sacramento?—looked like they were on their way over to the bar, so that was a little extraction. Let’s let them wonder a little longer who your devastatingly handsome companion is.”
Dani rolled her eyes as Max sat too close to her—he smelled like peppery pine—but she was smiling over the Sacramento joke, which was uncharitable. “Was that all true? I thought your degree was fake—a means of postponing your engagement to Marie.”
“The degree was real. The length of time it took to complete was, perhaps, exaggerated.” He took a sip of wine, unperturbed by her questioning or by the palpable sensation of everyone watching them. “And there really is an Eldovian folk heroine who spent time in Cambridge.”