“You think I’m going to just quit my job and come here and be your fucking ducal mistress?” She got off the bed, grabbed her discarded robe, and turned away from him as she put it on. When she turned back, her expression was no longer incredulous. It was angry. “Is that what this has all been about?” She waved her hand at the bed. “I’m divorced for a day and you swoop in, ply me with orgasms, then try to get me to . . . what? Be your piece on the side? Or have a fake marriage? I get to choose between column A and column B? How generous of you.”

“No!” He tried to control a growing panic. “You’re misunderstanding. That’s not—”

“What is wrong with you? Have you been listening to anything I’ve been saying?”

“I’m not explaining this properly, but this”—he mimicked her hand wave—“Has . . .”

Made me realize how in love with you I am. How in love with you I’ve been all this time.

He couldn’t explain that she was different. That she was the one who had changed him. That she was The One, period. He had calculated that she would not want to hear that. But it was the missing piece in everything he was proposing. Perhaps he should have led with that, damn the consequences.

“And what?” She started up again when he couldn’t find the words to make this right. “In either of these scenarios I’m supposed to just up and move to Eldovia?”

He looked away so he wouldn’t cry. He’d been going to say, earlier, that they could move to Witten to pass the years until he inherited, and then she’d be close to Leo and Gabby. But he didn’t think more talking was going to help at this point.

“You just found your feet on the whole meaningful-employment front,” she went on. “So, really, how dare you suggest I quit my goddamn job, Max?”

He had done this entirely wrong. Or perhaps he was naive and it was wrong. Perhaps he couldn’t have any version of what he wanted. He should have left well enough alone, dropped her off at the airport for her flight home in a few days, and said goodbye until the next time she was in need of a plus-one at a work party.

She shook her head and started backing away. “I thought you were my friend.” Her voice had cracked on that last sentence.

“I am your friend.” Oh, god. He hoped that was still true. “I—”

She held up her hands, gesturing for him to stop talking, and she kept backing away. She backed herself all the way to the adjoining door. “If you’re my friend, you will stop talking right now. If you’re my friend, you will leave me alone for a while.”

He nodded. What choice did he have?