Page 101 of Duke, Actually
“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 wouldmarryyou?”
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, butthe 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 fuckingducal 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 iswrongwith you? Have you been listening toanythingI’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 itwasthe 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 thewords 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.
“Youjust foundyourfeet on the whole meaningful-employment front,” she went on. “So, really, howdareyou suggest I quit my goddamn job, Max?”
He had done this entirely wrong. Or perhaps he was naive and itwaswrong. Perhaps he couldn’t haveanyversion 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.
She shook her head and started backing away. “I thought you were myfriend.” Her voice had cracked on that last sentence.
“I am your friend.” Oh, god. He hoped that was still true. “I—”
She held up her hands, gesturing for him to stop talking, and she kept backing away. She backed herself all the way to the adjoining door. “If you’re my friend, you will stop talking right now. If you’re my friend, you will leave me alone for a while.”
He nodded. What choice did he have?
“I’m going to go now.”
“Will you let me know when you’re ready to talk?” he asked quietly, his mind whirring as he tried to think how, when she was ready, he could repair the damage he had done.
What hedidn’trealize until after spending the morning “leaving her alone,” as she had asked, was that not only had she backedout of his room, she had backed her way out of the hotel, out of the continent, and out of his life.
Dani called Leo on the way to the airport. She hated to interrupt his honeymoon, but it couldn’t be avoided. “Can you do me a favor and get a message to Mr. Benz?”
“What? Where are you? Are you okay?”
No. She was not okay. Her whole world had been upended, and she had lost her best friend. But she couldn’t say that to Leo, who wassupposedto be her best friend.
She never should have allowed Max to displace him. The only way she could think to explain it was the lobster-in-a-pot analogy. Max was always there, and he was so warm. He’d kept her so safe and cozy that she didn’t notice the temperature rising to lethal levels until it was too late.
She considered lying, making up some reason she needed to talk to Mr. Benz, but Leo would find out soon enough. “I’m going home. I’m on my way to the airport. I’m taking a puddle jumper to Zurich and a taxi from there to the palace to pick up Max, then back to Zurich for a flight home. Could you ask Mr. Benz to round up Max? I should be there in about four hours.” She didn’t have a lot of time to spare, given the flights she’d hastily booked, and she wanted to make sure her dog wasn’t being taken on a mountain jaunt or something when she arrived to collect him.
“Hang on.” There was some murmuring, and Dani tried not to lose her cool. She would have preferred to make her exit with only Leo knowing about it, but there was no way that was happening. And it wasn’t like Max himself wouldn’t tell Marie. For all she knew, he already had. He had respected her desire for privacy thismorning, but had it lasted? Eventually he would have knocked on the adjoining door and found her gone.
Leo came back on the line. “Marie says she’ll ask Mr. Benz to have someone drive Max to Zurich to meet you.”
She waited for more, but miraculously, that was it. “Thank you.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”