Page 93 of Duke, Actually

“Have you ever thought about how in English, the wordabandonhas two vastly different meanings? To abandon someone is to leave them, but to do something with abandon is to really throw yourself into it?”

“Are they really all that different? If you’re doing something with abandon, it means you don’t care about the consequences. You’re leaving behind the consequences, in a way.”

“Hmm.” It was odd. If Max thought objectively about everything that was swirling around in his mind—the fact that he’d had sex with Dani, first and foremost, but also Seb and Torkel, Seb’s potential coming out, the idea of changing how he related to his parents, it should have made him uncomfortable. Hell, it should have made him panic.

But somehow, lying next to Dani, he was calm. As settled as he’d ever felt in his life. It was that same feeling of embodiment from earlier, but this time he also felt like his spirit, for lack of a better word, was involved. Everything felt profoundly right, soright he wasn’t worried about any of the upheaval that was to come. He welcomed it, in a way, if it would allow for more of this settled feeling.

“Do you really not have a condom?” Dani sounded incredulous.

“I really do not have a condom.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t expect to be having sex here.” He would have thought that was obvious.

“You didn’t expect to be having sex at a wedding? Aren’t weddings a major place where people hook up? Weren’t you trying to break your dry spell?”

He didn’t know what to say to that. He distinctly remembered going through his travel toiletries case to come here and dispassionately thinking,Toothbrush, check; toothpaste, check; deodorant, check; condoms, don’t need those.

“What about Lavinia?”

“What about her?”

“You were laughing with her when you came into the reception. You were late because of her. I had to start the toasts.”

Oh. He hadn’t made the mental leap from “hooking up at a wedding” to Lavinia the way Dani apparently had. “All right. You got me,” he said, trying for humor. “Lavinia and I were doing it in the coatroom. That’s why I was late.”

It didn’t work. She didn’t even smile.

Was shejealous? Was he a monster for wanting her to be? “I was laughing with Lavinia because, to my great surprise, she suggested a little subterfuge to get both sets of parents off our backs. We decided to be seen looking cozy, to make people fill in theblanks.” He wagged his eyebrows, trying again to amuse Dani. “Apparently it worked.”

She still didn’t laugh. “So Lavinia does have a sense of fun?”

“Pardon me?”

“You said you weren’t going to marry her because she didn’t have a sense of fun. She seems to have one after all.”

“I suppose she does.” He had indeed misjudged Lavinia based on that first meeting.

Dani raised her eyebrows as if she was coming to some conclusion that was supposed to be obvious.

Again, he had to wonder if she was jealous. Was that even possible? And again, why did that give him a little thrill?

He thought back to that night at the cottage, when she’d quizzed him about Lavinia, making jokes about them hyphenating their names. He’d snapped at her and felt bad about it immediately. Now, like then, he wished he could rewind. He was not the sort of person who played games, so he set out to explain, to ease her mind if it needed easing.

“I’m not going to marry Lavinia,” he said carefully, trying to sound as though he meant it, because he did, but trying not to be so vehement that he sounded angry. “I was never going to marry Lavinia.” He found himself in uncharted territory, wanting to reassure a woman that he only wanted her. But leave it to him to find the only woman in the world for whom such a declaration would be a death knell. Even though she apparently didn’t want him to want Lavinia? He was confused. He didn’t like being confused.

“I should go,” Dani said suddenly.

Ah. He had not said the right thing. He should have continued to laugh off her questions about Lavinia.

“It’s late,” she said, “and we have to leave early.”

“All right,” Max said, and it was all he could do not to grab her hand, to say,Stay.But he knew enough not to do that.

When she left, he lay back down. That feeling of being perfectly balanced in his own body and mind was gone.

Chapter Twenty-One