Page 34 of Duke, Actually
“I’m not sure Big Max and Little Max is any better than Human Max and Dog Max.”
“Daniela,” he said with performative censure in his voice. “Size isn’t everything. I thought smart women such as yourself were supposed to know that.”
She snorted. He was funny when he played his rake card. And his humor came with a big dose of self-deprecation. She hadn’t understood that about him when they met last summer.
She wondered if a lot of people didn’t understand that about him.
“I was thinking about my golden locks compared to his mangy gray, but— Oh, I have it. Max Minimus and, wait for it... Max Maximus! Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, I’m here all evening.”
That was actually hilarious. “I thought size wasn’t everything,” she deadpanned.
“Yes, but this isn’t size in a crass sense. This is aclassyway of saying it. And you know me and Max Minimus. We are nothing if not classy.”
As he spoke, the background noise swelled. She could hear the countdown starting. “Ten, nine, eight...”
“Are you sure you don’t want to go back inside?”
“Yes.”
Neither of them spoke while the rest of the countdown happened. What a year it had been. Although Vince had left the summer of the previous year, this had been the year she reallyabsorbedhis absence. The first full calendar year she’d spent alone.
Except not alone. She’d had Leo for some of it, and of courseshe had her parents. She had people she could count on. Including, it was starting to feel like, herfriendthe baron. Max Maximus.
“Three, two, one...” The cheers of the crowd swelled. She could hear happy mayhem getting louder.
“Happy New Year, Dani.”
“Happy New Year, Max.”
Six hours later, Max was lying in bed in his hotel room not sleeping. After hanging up with Dani, he’d gone back into the party, trying to make sense of his astonishing outburst that he wanted to get a job. Hehadbeen thinking about the concept of meaningful employment, but in a back-burner way. When Sebastien got rolling on Aquilla Mining’s latest corporate social responsibility report, or when Marie talked about her UN work—or hell, when Leo was out working on a log cabin—it made Max wish he had a calling. Max had a certain reputation as a carefree playboy. Even though the “Depraved Duke” episode that cemented it had been misconstrued, he didn’t mind the reputation. Hell, he leaned into it. It wasn’t untrue in a general sense. He did enjoy female company, and he didn’t see the need to apologize for that. Women were fantastic.
He glanced at the figure under the duvet next to him. Carefully, so as not to wake her, he slid out of bed, grabbed his phone, and went to the bathroom.
Carefree.His slumbering companion had used that very word when she hit on him. She was an artist, and after a flirtatious exchange, she’d invited him back to her flat so she could “paint” him—and they both knew what she meant by that. She’d wanted to capture his “carefree masculine beauty,” she’d said.
Max didn’t consider himself carefree, but he had worked hard to become the kind of person who wasn’t injured by his father’s little cruelties—or by his big ones—or by the fact that he’d sacrificed so much for Sebastien apparently to no avail. He could see how that might be interpreted from the outside as carefree. And he truly didn’t care what people thought of him, so in that sense perhaps hewascarefree.
But what his reputation never seemed to account for were his two degrees from Oxford. And though he hadn’t gone to boarding school like Seb, the tutor his parents had retained—the tutor Max himself had found once it became clear that he wouldn’t be able to go away to school—had been a strict though not unkind taskmaster. The point was, for the vast majority of his life, Max had been a student, and a good, if rather disorganized, one at that. So the past several months, with literally nothing he had to do, had been odd. After the stress of finishing his thesis and moving home, as well as the broken engagement, it had, for a while, been pleasant enough to drift around without any responsibilities. But eventually it started to feel uncomfortable, like wearing a suit that didn’t fit properly.
The problem was, he had no idea what the hell he could do. Dani was correct in that he could probably get some kind of bullshit ceremonial gig or collect a few seats on boards. But he wanted to do something real. It didn’t have to be capital-I important like Marie’s work. He didn’t have her save-the-world personality. It merely had to mean something to someone, and to him.
But what was really puzzling him wasn’t the content of his astonishing outburst so much as the fact of it. All of these thoughtshad been rolling around in his head for a while, but they weren’t something he’d ever imagined saying out loud.
Dani was just so easy to talk to. Helikedher so much. She listened to what he said and said smart, clear-eyed things back, and she did not run those things through an “I am talking to a member of the aristocracy” filter. Hell, half the time he thought she listened not only to what he said but to what hemeant.
He wanted to talk to her pretty much all the time. So, never one to deny himself something he wanted when it cost nothing to get it, he picked up the phone to check the time: 5:55. Perfect. She would still be up, wouldn’t she, even if she wasn’t going out?
“Max?” she said when she picked up. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes, yes; I just thought I’d wish you a happy new year your time.”
“Isn’t it the crack of dawn there?”
“Couldn’t sleep.” As per usual. “I hope I didn’t wake you. I should have texted first.”
“Oh, no, I was up. Why are you whispering? And what’s that noise in the background? It sounds like you’re on a bus.”
“Ah, no. I’m in a bathroom. That’s a fan. I’m...”About to get caught.Although, no. You had to be doing something wrong to get caught.