Mostly Dani wrote. Suddenly, she was able to work on the novel again. Max installed her in the cottage, and the hours and pages flew by. When she grew stiff from sitting at her desk for long stretches, she walked the grounds and up the mountain and immersed herself in the hot spring. She was starting to get familiar with the rhythms of Riems.
Max came to her at night. She held him and listened to him as he muddled through a swirl of mixed emotions regarding his father and the advent of his tenure in a job he had never wanted.
On the evening of December 22, when he climbed the stairs to the garret, he said, “I booked us a flight for New York tomorrow.”
“What? Why?”
“So we can spend Christmas with your family.” His brow furrowed. “I am invited, yes?”
“I told them we weren’t coming!”
“Why would you do that?’
“Because we’re here! Because your father just died! Because you’re the duke now!”
“Well, if you recall, dukes get to do whatever they want.” He smirked. “And this duke wants to go to New York for Christmas. See your family. Perhaps ingest a million negronis for old time’s sake. Eat some Christmas morning cereal. I’ve got Nutcracker tickets, too, for us and your mother. Anyway, you can’t be without your dog any longer.” He tilted his head and turned thoughtful. “I’m not sure I can be without your dog any longer. Isn’t that odd?”
“Is this about my list?” she asked. “Because—”
“No. This is about Christmas and where we want to spend it. I for one vote for New York.”
She’d been about to say, “Fuck my list,” and she really meant it. She had learned from Max that sometimes you had to let yourself feel what you felt, even if what you felt went against all reason. Sometimes you had to let yourself change course. Sometimes you had to let yourself love people, even if they had the power to hurt you.
“But what about your mother? Can you leave her for Christmas?”
He sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. “My mother isn’t going anywhere. Perhaps by next year, things will look different. But right now, yes, I can leave her. Right now, I choose to leave her.”
Well.
“And Sebastien is in agreement,” he said, anticipating her next objection. “He’s going to the palace for Christmas.” Max wagged his eyebrows. “Marie invited Mother to join them, but she has declined.” He smiled. “So . . .”
“I guess we’re going to New York tomorrow.” She grinned and hugged him.
“Probably now you’ll agree to marry me, yes?”
She pulled him down onto the bed. “Not yet.”
“Okay.”
“You know I can’t just move to Eldovia. I’m not doing a Meghan Markle. I can’t move somewhere ninety percent of the populace is white.”
“I know,” he said. “I get it.” And she thought he actually did.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Max spent the happiest Christmas of his life in New York. Which was amusing because it was also his first Christmas as the Duke of Aquilla, a fate he had been dreading for so long.
Though he had witnessed it last summer, he continued to be amazed by what it felt like to be among a happy family. There was mockery, but it was gentle. Gifts and hugs were exchanged easily. The fruitcake, which, speaking of gentle mockery, Val repeatedly informed them she had started in October, was delicious. They FaceTimed with the group at the palace. And Max had his namesake back—Max Minimus spent every second he could curled up next to Max, which was stupidly gratifying.
After The Nutcracker, Max and Dani moved to her apartment and worked. She wrote, and he turned his attention to the estate and the transition.
Best of all had been his meetings with Sebastien, Laurent, and Elias, the CEO of Aquilla. Max had been forthright with everyone, telling them that while of course he wanted the estate to make money, he also wanted it to mean something. “I don’t even know what that means,” he’d said. “I don’t know anything.” The four of them had decided to write a mission statement that would govern the running of the estate and the company, and they’d each come to the table with a draft, which had launched them into a lengthy and useful discussion they agreed to continue in person when Max was back after Dani’s family’s January 6 celebration.
He hung up the phone early one morning to Dani setting a cup of coffee in front of him. He nodded his thanks, but she only let him take one sip before she took the cup away from him, straddled his lap, kissed him, and said, “I only caught the tail end of that conversation, but I have to say you sounded remarkably like a person with a job.”
“I did, didn’t I?” He grinned against her lips. “You know what people with jobs make?”
“No. What do they make?”
“They make excellent husbands. Will you marry me?”
She laughed and kissed him again. “Not yet.”
By New Year’s Eve, Dani had quit her job.
“So that’s it, I guess,” she said when she’d finished reading the latest email on the matter from her now-former boss out loud to Max, who was puttering around in her tiny kitchen. “You have a job now and I don’t.” She had quit her job just before her tenure review was meant to start. It kind of took her breath away. She was being either epically stupid or audaciously bold. She was going to write her novel and see what happened. If it worked out, it worked out. If it didn’t, she’d have to figure out something else. Regardless, she was moving to Eldovia. Sort of. They were keeping the New York apartment, though. According to Max, they were going to come and go, “whenever the hell we want to, separately or together.” She had to admit, it sounded like a pretty good life.
Max appeared from the kitchen holding a bottle of champagne and two flutes and regarded her. “How do you feel?”
“I feel . . . a lot of things.”
“And what are those things?”
“Excited. Scared. A little bit stunned.”
He handed her a glass, filled it, and sat next to her.
“This is really going to be okay?” she asked.
“What is ‘this’?”
“Us. This thing we’re doing. I don’t even know what to call it. Coming and going between here and Eldovia. Dating, I guess. Can a duke date? And you were the one who was supposed to make changes on the job front, not me, remember?”
“Of course a duke can date. A duke can do whatever he wants, remember? And as for the New Year’s resolutions, yes, we got them a bit jumbled, but why not embrace that fact and, I don’t know . . . marry me? Instead of dating me?” He winked. “Then you can one-up yourself—you can lose one husband and gain another.”
True to his word, and true to his tendency to guilelessly declare his feelings, Max asked her to marry him at least once a day. But at the same time, he kept arranging things so she would be more comfortable with reality as his wife. As a duchess.
Dani smiled and said, “Not yet.” She always made sure to say, “Not yet,” instead of no, because she would marry him one day. She just needed to . . . slow down a bit. To let herself grow into the idea of it.