“So you’re having an affair with Leo’s friend,” Sebastien said as their journey got underway. “Is that wise?”

Ah, here they went. “I am not having an affair with her. We’re friends.”

“I thought she was Leo’s friend.”

“She’s not allowed to have more than one friend?” Even with his eyes on the road, Max could feel Seb’s wince, and yes, that had come out a little snippier than Max had intended, but honestly. “I invited her to spend some time here before the wedding, since Mother and Father are away.” Their parents were holidaying on Sardinia and would be back a few days before the wedding, by which point Max and Dani would already have left for the palace—ostensibly because their man of honor and best woman duties required them to be there early but really because there was no way he was going to subject Dani to his parents. She would meet them at the wedding, of course; it was unavoidable. But their impact would be diluted there—he hoped. “And after the wedding, we’re going to Austria with Leo and Marie.”

“Isn’t that a little odd? You’re tagging along on the honeymoon?”

“Really, it’s them tagging along with us.” He’d mentioned he was taking Dani to see the mine, and suddenly they had extra hangers-on. Marie insisted that they wanted to spend some time with Dani—he knew the feeling—and see the mine project in progress. After a couple of days in Innsbruck, Marie and Leo were going to continue on to a posh Indonesian resort, alone.

“What’s going on with you?” Max asked his brother. The point of him being along for the ride was so he could talk, not so he could interrogate Max about Dani.

“Oh, nothing.”

“So you’re spending two hours round-trip with me in this car because you love me so much.”

Seb rolled his eyes. “I think you love yourself enough for both of us.”

Max grinned. One of the unexpectedly delightful dividends of his repaired relationship with his brother was that they could needle each other again. They’d lost that for a long while, but one thing Max had never lost was the ability to tell when something was bothering Seb. He had a certain way of picking at his fingernails when he was anxious, and he was doing it now. “What’s wrong? Out with it.”

“Nothing’s wrong. I just . . . have something I need to tell you.”

“All right.”

He glanced over. Seb lowered his hands to his lap and looked Max in the eye in a way that made Max fear something might be seriously wrong, but Max had to return his attention to the road. “The thing is,” Seb said, “I’m . . .”