Page 109 of Duke, Actually

“But there’s so much to do here.”

“It can wait. Laurent said as much.”

“Mother is—”

“Mother is what? She’s shut up in her rooms, and I doubt we’ll see her for days.”

It was true. Max had accepted, the night of Marie’s wedding, that Mother was never going to be who he wanted her to be. But somehow, he still hadn’t expected her to sink into abject and total sorrow at Father’s passing the way she had. He’d thought her more cunning than that. But she seemed genuinely felled bygrief and had been barricaded in the ducal apartment, refusing visitors.

“I can deal with her if she needs dealing with.” Seb grinned and typed something into his phone.

Honestly. “If I’m getting in the way of you texting your boyf—”

“Max.” Seb set down his phone. “What have we learned in the last year?”

“What do you mean?”

Seb rolled his eyes. “We’ve learned that love is more important than duty, you numbskull.”

Could Max really do this? Could he just get up and fly to New York and leave the mountain of bureaucracy that needed his attention? Decide to scale it later? “Do you really think I can—”

“Excuse me, Your Grace.”

It took Max a moment to realize that he was theYour Gracein question. He turned to the door to findMr. Benz? “What are you doing here?” Although perhaps this was something that happened when one was a duke—the king’s equerry showed up unannounced.

“I understand you will be traveling to New York,” Mr. Benz said.

Sebastien smirked and set down his phone.

“What did you do?” Max said to his brother.

“I’ve taken the liberty of booking you a flight,” Mr. Benz went on, “but we need to leave now.”

Max shook his head at his grinning brother. “All right. Let me pack a few things.”

“No time,” Mr. Benz said brusquely, handing him a leather envelope. “Here are the necessary documents. You can get anything else you need in New York. I have a car waiting.”

Well. Apparently he was going to New York.

Dani turned on her phone when the plane touched down in Zurich, expecting a text from Leo, who was picking her up. There was none, so she typed one to him, telling him she’d arrived, as she made her way off the plane.

The passengers were disgorged into a glassed-off area in the terminal and directed by signage toward customs. Dani stretched and yawned as she shuffled along. She hadn’t really thought through what was going to happen once she arrived. It was close to onea.m., December 11. The first day of Christmas. Too bad it was too late to go to Max.

Though, maybe it wasn’t? When one was planning a wild, dramatic declaration of love, did it matter if one arrived at a socially acceptable hour? Besides, even if he didn’t love her back, Max would need her. His father was dead, and he had ascended to the role he had never wanted. It was settled; she was going to ask Leo to take her directly to—

A sharp rapping on the glass wall next to her startled her. She turned and— “Oh my god!”

It was Max. Here, in the airport. In the waiting area to board the plane she’d just gotten off, which was scheduled to return to New York.

She was stunned into immobility, frozen in place even as he started gesturing frantically. His hair was wild, and so were his eyes. He had one arm in his coat and one arm out.

“What are you doing here?” she finally said dumbly. He couldn’t hear her, of course. But she couldn’t make any sense of his waving of arms, nor could she read his rapidly moving lips.

He stopped all of a sudden, went quiet, and held up his index finger. He was asking her to wait. She nodded. He turned away for what felt like ages, doing something she couldn’t see on one of the chairs in the waiting area.

Her heart started thundering in her ears as she watched the people around him start lining up to get on the plane she’d come off. Oh god, she was going to pass out right here in the arrivals area of the Zurich airport.

When Max finished with whatever he’d been doing, he came back to the glass, and he was smiling. Flashing her one of his cat-that-ate-the-canary Max grins. She felt a little more grounded. Whatever was going to happen, that smile told her that she hadn’t lost her friend.

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