“I’ve wondered that, too. But it doesn’t really matter because they will care that it’s Torkel who’s my . . . person. They’ll see him as a servant.”
“It is very Upstairs, Downstairs of you.” Max couldn’t help but find his brother’s use of the phrase my person adorable.
“Joking aside,” Seb said, “I think all you can do is try to keep the truth in front of you. Try not to hide it or hide from it. That’s what I’m attempting to do.”
Hmm. That was both well put and profound in its simplicity. “How’d you get so smart?”
“This is the part where I’m tempted to make a crack about how I went to a vastly superior school while you stayed home and worked with a tutor, but I think this is actually the part where I tell you that I know why you did that.”
Max made a dismissive noise.
Seb wasn’t having it. “I know. I know why you stayed home. What I haven’t known is how to say thank you. But it’s overdue. So thank you.”
Max’s instinct was to deflect, to minimize, but he thought about what Seb had said about trying not to hide the truth or to hide from the truth, so as uncomfortable as it was, he said, “You’re welcome.”
Seb cleared his throat. Perhaps he was discomfited by the uncharacteristically honest exchange, too. “I haven’t given you the advice you wanted as it relates to Dani.”
“It’s all right.” There wasn’t a solution, really. There wasn’t a problem, even, except that now that he’d acknowledged how utterly, wildly in love with her he was, it was hard not to have that be front of mind at all times.
“All I can say,” Seb said, “is if I were you, I would do whatever I could to hold on to her.”
Max didn’t fall back asleep. He was consumed with thoughts of his brother. He had learned, these past months, that Seb didn’t need his protection anymore. That he was more strategic, and braver, than Max had given him credit for.
Max thought about his desire, his need, to signal somehow to his parents that he was going to live life on his own terms. He glanced at Dani, asleep next to him under the duvet. An idea was taking shape in his head. Perhaps there was a way he could get a version of what he wanted. A facsimile. It would be better than nothing. He would have to tread carefully, though. When the sun started to filter through the cracks in the curtains, Dani woke up and smiled at him. He smiled back and said, “What if we got married?”
“Ha-ha. Good morning to you, too.” She was on her back, and she reached her hands over her head and stretched in such a way that her head turned away from him.
“I am entirely in earnest.”
“All right,” she said, still stretching, still not looking at him. “I’ll marry you, but I have conditions.” She rolled back over, her eyes twinkling. She pulled her hands together under her chin in a way that made his heart twist. “I want everyone to address me at all times as Baroness Daniela von Martinez. Hmm. What else? Oh! I want Max Minimus to get a gold-plated collar. No, wait. Solid gold.” She laughed but cut it off quickly and turned genuinely contemplative. “But would a solid gold collar even work? Would it be flexible? I’ll have to get back to you on that one.” She shook her head, and the twinkle returned. “But certainly he can have a solid gold tag. Ha! I demand a solid gold dog tag! Okay, what else? I’m sure I can do better than this with my list of conditions. Give me a sec.”
“You can have all those things. Marry me, and you can have whatever you want.”
Her smile faded, replaced by a confused scrunch of her brow. “Oh, come on, Max. I was kidding.”
“I know you were, but I’m not.” He grabbed her hand and laced his fingers through hers. “Think about it. You’re tired of your job. I’m tired of toeing the line with my parents. I . . .” I love you. But he couldn’t say that. It was too soon—for her, not for him. She herself had said that the fastest way to get her to run for the hills was with a declaration of love. “Everyone would benefit. It wouldn’t be that different from what Marie and I had planned on, except . . .” He waved his free hand between them, not knowing how to say Except we get to have mind-blowing sex.
And I will secretly love you.
She took her hand back. She looked aghast. He was spooking her, which was fair enough. He tried to get them back into a joking mode. “There are family jewels, if you want them.”
“I don’t want them.” She sat up and moved to the edge of the bed, covering herself with a sheet. “Why would you think that? Why would you think I would marry you?”
He was making a hash of this. “Will you let me start again?”
She made a sarcastic, exaggerated “hurry-up” gesture.
“Forget the marriage part. That part was a fleeting idea, but the impulse behind it wasn’t. I was lying here earlier thinking about how much I would miss you when you go back to New York, so what if you just don’t? You don’t have to marry me. Shack up with me, as I believe the Americans say. You can hole up in the garret and write, or we could move to—”
“You think I’m going to just quit my job and come here and be your fucking ducal mistress?” She got off the bed, grabbed her discarded robe, and turned away from him as she put it on. When she turned back, her expression was no longer incredulous. It was angry. “Is that what this has all been about?” She waved her hand at the bed. “I’m divorced for a day and you swoop in, ply me with orgasms, then try to get me to . . . what? Be your piece on the side? Or have a fake marriage? I get to choose between column A and column B? How generous of you.”
“No!” He tried to control a growing panic. “You’re misunderstanding. That’s not—”
“What is wrong with you? Have you been listening to anything I’ve been saying?”
“I’m not explaining this properly, but this”—he mimicked her hand wave—“Has . . .”
Made me realize how in love with you I am. How in love with you I’ve been all this time.
He couldn’t explain that she was different. That she was the one who had changed him. That she was The One, period. He had calculated that she would not want to hear that. But it was the missing piece in everything he was proposing. Perhaps he should have led with that, damn the consequences.
“And what?” She started up again when he couldn’t find the words to make this right. “In either of these scenarios I’m supposed to just up and move to Eldovia?”
He looked away so he wouldn’t cry. He’d been going to say, earlier, that they could move to Witten to pass the years until he inherited, and then she’d be close to Leo and Gabby. But he didn’t think more talking was going to help at this point.
“You just found your feet on the whole meaningful-employment front,” she went on. “So, really, how dare you suggest I quit my goddamn job, Max?”
He had done this entirely wrong. Or perhaps he was naive and it was wrong. Perhaps he couldn’t have any version of what he wanted. He should have left well enough alone, dropped her off at the airport for her flight home in a few days, and said goodbye until the next time she was in need of a plus-one at a work party.