“Right, but for that I would need money—my father will cut me off if I move off the estate for anything less than marrying into a family he deems suitable. And for that, I need a job.”

“And the mine project isn’t paying.”

“It could be. Seb offered to put me on the payroll . . .”

“But taking money from the family company isn’t that different from taking money from the family?”

He shrugged. “I thought about it. I am working. But I . . . need to not entangle myself with my father any more than I already am.”

She thought back to the word terrorizes, and to Max saying he no longer wanted to try to help his father. “Max, did he . . . did he hurt you?”

“He hit Sebastien once.”

Max had no idea why he was doing this—“This” being sitting in a sauna holding Dani’s hand and telling her stuff he’d never told anyone, not even Marie.

“That doesn’t really answer the question,” Dani said with her signature mixture of kindness and hard-assed-ness, which he supposed answered the question of why he was doing this.

He was aware that he was being evasive. It was hard, even now, even having bared so much of himself, to fully drop the impulse to deflect that had been his default mode for so long.