Page 80 of Duke, Actually

That wasn’t true. Max was afraid of lots of things. The future foremost among them. A future in which he was alone. A future in which Dani Martinez didn’t live in his attic.

“Thank you for standing by me,” Seb said.

“Marie and Leo and I are walking down to the village to go skating. I’m here to ask if you want to join us.”

“What about Dani?”

“I hope she can come. She’s been spirited away for dress fittings and wedding nonsense.” He smiled. “Perhaps you can have some influence there and help me extract her.” Sebastien’s brow furrowed, and Max held back from telling him to invite Benz skating. One von Hansburg brother’s unlikely and ill-fated infatuation at a time.

The next few days were such a whirlwind of dress fittings, rehearsals, and royal protocol lessons, Dani hardly got to see Max.

Well, no. Dani hardly got to seeLeo. She had to remind herself that Leo was the reason she was there. So when he popped his head in to yet another dress fitting and invited her to have a pint with him, she had to say yes.

Again, she had to remind herself that “had” to say yes was the wrong way to think about it.

“And here I thought having you in the wedding was going to mean I would actually get toseeyou,” Leo said after they’d ordered at the pub in the village.

“Yeah, sorry, who knew going to royal wedding finishing school would be so time-consuming?”

“If I’d known you could be gone from New York for so long, I would have tried to lure youhereearlier.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. She’d felt weird telling Leo she was spending a week in Riems with Max before she came to the palace. So weird that shehadn’ttold him until a few days before her departure.

“Did you have fun with Max?”

“Why are you saying it like that?”

“I’m not saying it like anything.”

“Okay, sorry.”

“I thought you were post-men.”

“See! Youaresaying it like something.” She paused, told herself to rein in the defensiveness, and started over. “I am post-men. Max is a friend.” She poked him in the shoulder. “Like you.” Then, feeling like she should say more, added, “I’m sorry we haven’t talked as much lately. That’s on me.”Because I’ve been too wrapped up in Max.

“No, it’s my fault.” He made a face. “This wedding is going to be the end of me. I knew Marie wasn’t going to be a bridezilla, but I wasn’t counting on Mr. Benz.”

“He’s very... thorough, isn’t he?”

“I owe him a lot, and we’ve actually become friends—sort of—but damn, sometimes I want to throttle him.”

Leo and Marie’s happiness was due to Mr. Benz, as hard as that was to fathom. He’d set things up so they were able to overcome the king’s objection to their union. Dani wanted to ask about that. Howdidone overcome such objections?

But why did she want to ask that?

“How was Riems?” Leo asked.

“It was great for a while. Max made me a writing space, and I got a ton of work done.”

“But only for a while?”

“His parents came home unexpectedly early from a trip.”

“Ah.”

“Have you met them?”

“I have.” He curled his lip.