Seb was standing at the window in his room next to a giant man Max recognized as the head of palace security. They both turned as Max paused in the doorway.
“Max!” Seb seemed surprised, though Max couldn’t think why—he knew Max and Dani were arriving today.
“Everything appears to be in order, Mr. von Hansburg,” said the security officer. He nodded at Max. “Lord Laudon.”
“Max, you remember Torkel Renner, the royal family’s head of security? He was—”
“Having a look at this window,” Torkel said. “There will be wedding banners hanging from the windows, and a preliminary inspection turned up the fact that the latch on this one is broken, which is a security concern.”
“A broken window latch on the third floor is a security concern?” Max asked. Though he supposed he shouldn’t be questioning the palace’s longtime head of security. One probably attained that position by being attuned to details like window latches.
“We can’t be too careful,” he said in a monotone. “There will be lots of guests on site.” He had that flat affect that FBI agents always did in American movies—his face seemed made of stone. Max half expected him to whip out a pair of sunglasses and an earpiece. “Everything seems in order here.” He nodded to both brothers and departed.
Max moved farther into Seb’s suite and sat on a sofa. “I didn’t expect to find you’d arrived ahead of me.”
“I left rather abruptly last night. I suppose I should have texted you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because you would have told me to wait until morning, and I . . . did not want to do that.”
“Did something happen with Father?”
“No, no. I simply decided to leave. I’m sorry if I worried you.”
“I worry about your driving over the mountain in the dark, that’s all.”
“Oh, that was . . . not a problem.”
Hmm. Max’s Mr. Benz theory was looking more and more plausible. Benz had a way of making things happen. Pictures of unicorn onesies disappeared; people were spirited away over mountain ridges in the dead of night. “What do you think of Mr. Benz?”
“The equerry?”
“Yes. He seems even more uptight than usual, with all this wedding to-do.” Max tamped down a smile.
Seb did smile—ha. “Well, he and Leo seem to have struck up an unlikely friendship, and Leo tells me Benz is a secret aficionado of American jazz.” Seb looked at the door. “You might expect that with someone like Torkel, but Benz?”
Max lost his battle with the stifled smile. “I’m on to you, you know.”
Seb heaved a big, annoyed sigh of the sort he used to when they were boys and sank onto the sofa next to Max. “Really?”
“Don’t worry. My lips are sealed.”
“Nothing can ever come of it, anyway.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
“He’s a member of the palace staff!”
Yes, but not really. Benz was from an old, distinguished family, as the men behind the throne generally were. “You’d have to come out for this to be more than a theoretical discussion. Which, for the record, if you want to do, I am wholeheartedly and unreservedly behind you.”
Seb sighed again, but this one was more defeated-sounding. “I’m afraid of him, Max.”
They were talking about Father now. “I know.”
“I don’t want to be. I don’t want to be the kind of man who’s afraid of his father.”
“Well, you have reason to be.”
“So do you. But you’re not afraid of him. You’re not afraid of anything.”
That wasn’t true. Max was afraid of lots of things. The future foremost among them. A future in which he was alone. A future in which Dani Martinez didn’t live in his attic.
“Thank you for standing by me,” Seb said.
“Marie and Leo and I are walking down to the village to go skating. I’m here to ask if you want to join us.”
“What about Dani?”
“I hope she can come. She’s been spirited away for dress fittings and wedding nonsense.” He smiled. “Perhaps you can have some influence there and help me extract her.” Sebastien’s brow furrowed, and Max held back from telling him to invite Benz skating. One von Hansburg brother’s unlikely and ill-fated infatuation at a time.
The next few days were such a whirlwind of dress fittings, rehearsals, and royal protocol lessons, Dani hardly got to see Max.
Well, no. Dani hardly got to see Leo. She had to remind herself that Leo was the reason she was there. So when he popped his head in to yet another dress fitting and invited her to have a pint with him, she had to say yes.
Again, she had to remind herself that “had” to say yes was the wrong way to think about it.
“And here I thought having you in the wedding was going to mean I would actually get to see you,” Leo said after they’d ordered at the pub in the village.
“Yeah, sorry, who knew going to royal wedding finishing school would be so time-consuming?”
“If I’d known you could be gone from New York for so long, I would have tried to lure you here earlier.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. She’d felt weird telling Leo she was spending a week in Riems with Max before she came to the palace. So weird that she hadn’t told him until a few days before her departure.
“Did you have fun with Max?”
“Why are you saying it like that?”
“I’m not saying it like anything.”
“Okay, sorry.”
“I thought you were post-men.”
“See! You are saying it like something.” She paused, told herself to rein in the defensiveness, and started over. “I am post-men. Max is a friend.” She poked him in the shoulder. “Like you.” Then, feeling like she should say more, added, “I’m sorry we haven’t talked as much lately. That’s on me.” Because I’ve been too wrapped up in Max.
“No, it’s my fault.” He made a face. “This wedding is going to be the end of me. I knew Marie wasn’t going to be a bridezilla, but I wasn’t counting on Mr. Benz.”
“He’s very . . . thorough, isn’t he?”
“I owe him a lot, and we’ve actually become friends—sort of—but damn, sometimes I want to throttle him.”
Leo and Marie’s happiness was due to Mr. Benz, as hard as that was to fathom. He’d set things up so they were able to overcome the king’s objection to their union. Dani wanted to ask about that. How did one overcome such objections?
But why did she want to ask that?
“How was Riems?” Leo asked.
“It was great for a while. Max made me a writing space, and I got a ton of work done.”
“But only for a while?”
“His parents came home unexpectedly early from a trip.”
“Ah.”
“Have you met them?”
“I have.” He curled his lip.
“Honestly, I felt like I’d been transported into a soap opera. They were horrible.” She didn’t know if Leo knew about Max’s childhood. The only reason he would was if Max had told Marie, and Marie had told Leo. It was strange, having a topic she had to tread carefully around with Leo. She used to tell Leo everything.