Page 102 of Duke, Actually

“I really don’t.” Though she knew she wasn’t going to get away with that forever. “Not yet. I need some time alone. Call me when you get back?” He hesitated. “Leo. I’mfine. I’ll be fine.” It was, she was pretty sure, a lie. But no need to ruin his honeymoon.

“All right. But you call me if you need me, okay?”

“Yes.”

Less than an hour later, Dani was on a plane. As it taxied along the runway, which was surrounded by mountains silhouetted against a setting sun, she realized that her worst fear, the one she had told herself was utterly irrational, the one that had stopped her from sleeping with any of the Tinder guys, had come true.

She’d had sex with someone and gotten her heart broken in the process.

The worst part was she had slept with Maxbecausehe wasn’t one of the Tinder dudes, because he was supposed to be safe.

No, theworstpart, the part that made a pit of shame open up in her stomach when she thought about it, was that she had wanted to say yes. She had wanted to say,Yes, I will upend my entire life and stay here with you.

She had fallen in love with Max. That was the terrible truth.

But at least she had her list. And it had saved her in the end, hadn’t it? The list was supposed to keep her from making a mistake, from gradually subsuming her life into that of a man—aman who didn’t love her. And Max didn’t love her. Not like that.No lying, he had said. Relentless honesty. Max would never tell her something that wasn’t true.

And he hadn’t. He hadn’t said, “Marry me because I love you. Move in with me because I love you.” No, it had just been another business arrangement with a friend, like he’d had with Marie.

But it wasn’t his fault. He had never misrepresented himself to her. He hadtoldher, time and again, that he wasn’t capable of love.

It wasn’t his fault she’d fallen in love with him. So really, she had only herself to blame.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Two weeks went by without a word from Dani, and Max was as gutted as ever.

He’d thought about calling, had written and deleted a thousand texts. But what would he say? She had specifically asked him to leave her alone, had said she would let him know when he was ready to talk.

After Vince left, I realized that he never listened to me.

That was what she’d said about Vince. The topic had come up several times. Max would let himself die of heartbreak before he’d be like Vince fucking Ricci. Clearly, he had already misstepped by cornering Dani with an unwelcome proposal. He wasn’t about to do it again.

But Max didn’t know what to do with radio silence from Dani. It was turning him into a captive animal pacing a too-small cage. He had told her about his fears and his secret ambitions. He had told her about the pain he had never thought to try to put into words. He had looked at her and allowed a blade made of ruthlessness and tenderness in equal measures to pierce him.

And now she was gone, and he was still bleeding.

What had he been thinking? He hadn’t been, clearly. He’d just been so swept off his feet.

His phone rang, and as it did every time, he jumped. Every call, every text notification, had him falling over himself to see if it was her. And if not her, he hoped for his brother.

It was Marie, and he didn’t answer it. She was due back, so it made sense that she was calling, but he didn’t want to talk to her. She would have some version of tough love to lay on him, which ordinarily would have been fine—ordinally he might even have signed himself up for it—but Max really didn’t want to start up some kind of childish “Don’t tell Leo I said this, because he might tell Dani” chain.

He wanted his brother.

The phone rang again, startling a small smile out of him. Finally. He fumbled to answer it. “Are you back?” Max was still in the hotel in Innsbruck. Every day he woke up and told himself today was the day he’d go home. And every afternoon before checkout, he called the front desk and extended his reservation. Going home to Riems felt like too much. That last disastrous dinner aside, he and Dani had had such a wonderful time there. He didn’t know how to go up to the attic and find her not there.

“I’m on the way home,” Seb said. “We just landed in Zurich.”

“Is Torkel driving you?” His own situation aside, Max wanted to meet Torkel outside the context of the palace.

“No. We landed with no leeway before he had to go back to work, so I ordered a car.”

“Did you have a good time?”

Max could practically hear Seb smile in response to his question. Good. At least someone was happy.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t in touch. We were... off the grid this past week.”