“I certainly did.” There was the lip curl again. “I learned I never wanted to be the Duke of Aquilla. But we don’t always get what we want, do we?”

“Why don’t you want to do it? What is ‘it,’ really?”

“‘It’ is using what we own—what our ancestors took—to make money. We had feudal land, land that tenants paid to work. Later we had—still have—mines all over Europe. Do the people who work in those mines share in the profits they generate?”

“No?”

“That is correct. So the job of the duke is to oversee the moneymaking, environment-destroying empire. Which my father does a half-assed job of because he’s usually drunk. But he has a steward who’s a decent person.”

“You’ve spent your whole life protecting your brother,” Dani said quietly.

“Well, no. I gave up when he decided to move home. But that was a mistake. Not that he needed protection anymore, but I shouldn’t have . . . abandoned him like I did. I understand now that even though he made different choices than I would have in his place, he had his reasons.”

“Have you ever tried to . . . talk to your father?”

“You mean an intervention?” She nodded. “We tried once. Well, mostly Seb tried, because he’s the best of us, but he rallied my mother and me. It did . . .” He made a face. “Not go well. While I understand the power of addiction and would extend the benefit of the doubt to anyone else in its grip, I can’t . . . let go of some of the things he’s done. The damage has been too great. I can’t fix him, and I don’t want to try.”

That seemed both reasonable and remarkably self-aware. “Understood. Can you move, at least, if Sebastien doesn’t need your protection anymore? You might have years before you inherit.”

“The plan was always to move to the palace with Marie.”

Right. It was still hard to wrap her mind around how close Max had come to marrying Leo’s fiancée.

“I wouldn’t have escaped my eventual fate, of course, but when I inherited, I’d’ve been able to run things from afar, and . . .”

“And what?”

“I don’t know. There was never anything romantic between us, but Marie and I were good partners. I felt like she would’ve been able to help me make the job of duke less bad. That sounds vague, I know, but she was . . .”

“A helpmeet?” Dani teased, wanting to lighten his burden, even if only momentarily, but it actually seemed like the correct word.

He chuckled. “Precisely.”

“You could still move. Wait out your fate somewhere else.” She had the sudden, silly notion to suggest that he move to New York. He liked New York, and they could have so much fun. But she didn’t say that because it was ridiculous.