Page 4 of Duke, Actually

Dani didn’t want to be this petty, but... Okay, yes she did.

Dani:She’s twenty years old. He told me she was his Lolita. That she saw the real him and that in order to take his writing to the next level he needed someone who could be a “helpmeet,” and when I said we were each other’s helpmeets, he said there can only be one helpmeet and one help-ee in any relationship. And then they went to Spain for a year.

Max:What time am I picking you up?

Dani:Five. I’ll meet you there—it’s a building on campus but not mine. I need to look up the address. I’ll text it to you.

Max:Dress code? Formal? Business casual?

Dani:Dukeish casual.

Max:Understood. Prepare to be the pinnacle.

Dani smiled, dived onto the bed, and prepared to be love-bombed by the other Max, the main Max, who genuinely thoughtshe was the pinnacle, no pretending required. As he did every morning, the little Yorkie acted like waking up next to her was the greatest joy of his life, going from dead asleep to vibrating with happiness as he crawled onto her lap. He might not do dishes like Cinderella’s mice and birds, but he earned his keep in other ways, filling what had been a wrenching year with seven hyper pounds of unconditional love. “Good morning, my sweet,” she cooed. He yapped in greeting, and she buried her nose in his fur as she hugged him.

Maybe today wasn’t going to be as crappy as she’d feared.

Max was supposed to meet Dani at the faculty club on her campus, but since he arrived half an hour early, he looked her up in the school directory and had his driver drop him at the English building.

This was going to be fun. He hadn’t been lying—he did like Daniela Martinez, not least becauseshedidn’t seem to likehim. That wasn’t something that happened. It wasn’t that everyone liked him—he wasn’t conceited enough to believe that. But he rarely encountered someone who didn’t at least pretend to. Sparring with Dani last summer, when she’d come to Eldovia to visit Leo, had been a breath of fresh air in a remarkably stressful time. He’d only spent a day in her company, but she’d made an impression.

Dani’s floor was a long hallway that had little stubby corridors off it, each marked with nameplates indicating whose offices were at the ends of the branches. He spied one with signs for “D.Martinez” and “M. Gable” and took the sharp turn, whereupon he ran into two students. Ran into one of them literally. “I beg your pardon. I didn’t expect anyone to be here.”

A boy wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt with a Superman logo on it looked him up and down. “No prob, man.”

The girl closer to Dani’s door said, “Are you looking for Professor Martinez?”

“I am indeed.”

She snapped her gum, but not in a way that seemed hostile. “Get in line.”

He did. He hadn’t wanted to be late and, not knowing how long it would take to get up to the Bronx from his midtown hotel, he’d budgeted too much time for the journey.

After a minute or so, a boy came out of Dani’s office, and the girl went in. Superboy shuffled down the wall so he was closer to the door. Max did the same.

“Are you enjoying Professor Martinez’s class?” Max inquired.

“I guess,” the boy said flatly.

The girl emerged, having been in there less than two minutes, and Superboy went in. Max edged closer to the door, which was ajar, so he could eavesdrop.

“Hey, Professor M, I need you to do me a huge favor.”I need you to do me a huge favor.Something about the way he’d phrased that rubbed Max the wrong way.

“And what would that be?” That was Dani’s “I am not impressed” voice. Max smiled. He was acquainted with that voice.

The boy made a case involving a diving meet, a book forgotten on the team bus, and a thesis all worked out but not down on paper yet. Dani proceeded to systematically dismantle him but subtly enough that the kid wasn’t understanding the full extent of the burns he was sustaining.

It was hot.

Dani was hot.

Interestingly, that was a fact Max could note with detachment, which was another new experience for him. All the years he’d spent assuming he was going to marry Marie had also been spent, he would freely admit, slutting around. He and Marie had agreed that their marriage would be in name only and that discreet “extracurricular” activities would be allowed—necessary, even—once they’d done their duty with the turkey baster. Still, he had viewed the past few years as his last gasp of singledom and therefore of freedom and had conducted himself accordingly.

When the world offered itself to him, he took. And when one was a wealthy duke-to-be, one had a lot of offers.

What onedidn’thave a lot of were refusals. But Dani, having made her disinterest in him clear from the moment she’d arrived on Eldovian soil, was a rare woman. Wickedly smart, deliciously witty, extremely pretty, andnot interested. There were no hard-to-get long games being played there. Leo had told Max a bit about her ugly divorce-in-progress, and Dani herself had used the phrasepost-menmore than once. He had no doubt that she meant it.

She was a goddamn delight.