“Because I love her.” Because I’m not sure how to be in the world without her. He didn’t say that part, though. He was already stepping out of character here. “But then when it became clear it wasn’t a welcome proposal, I downshifted and tried to get her to move in with me.”

“That was ill-advised. If anything, you should move to New York.”

“What?” Max almost dropped the phone, he was so shocked.

“New York suits you—a lot more than holing up in your cottage twisting yourself into knots to avoid the main house and its occupants does, anyway.”

“Well, that’s fine, but it doesn’t do me any good in actuality.”

“It does, though. Just go there.”

“I can’t move to New York,” he said reflexively.

“Why not?”

Could he move to New York? He’d been going to suggest to Dani that they could live in Witten. He’d been thinking of that as an option if his parents made living on the estate impossible. If Witten was a possibility, why not New York?

“You remember when Marie was going to abdicate?” Seb asked.

It took Max a moment to adjust to the abrupt change of subject. “Of course I do. How do you?” Max and Marie had talked about the prospect, but she hadn’t had to pull the trigger since her father had come around at the last minute.

“She told me about it,” Seb said.

“She did?”

“Well, I asked her about it.”

Sebastien and Marie knew each other well, of course, given how close the two families were, but Marie was a little older than Max, even, and although she’d always been kind to Seb, Max had never known them to communicate independently. Why was Sebastien asking Marie about abdication? He wasn’t inheriting anything.

“She told me you helped her,” Seb went on, “that she was about to burn it all down and you were with her every step of the way.”

“Well, it turned out not to be necessary.”

“My point is you seem to be willing to go to great lengths to ensure the happiness of the people you love. Why aren’t you willing to do that for yourself?”

“Because then all the shit that’s coming my way would become your problem!”

“Ah,” said Sebastien. “There it is.”

Max tried to backtrack. “I didn’t mean—”

“You protected me all those years,” Seb went on. “If you want to walk away now, that’s all right with me. It’s my turn to shoulder some of the burden. But honestly, I don’t know that that’s necessary. As with Marie, I think it can be avoided.”

“So, what . . . If I . . .” Max was still so gobsmacked, he was having trouble forming sentences. “What do I do? What do we do?”

“Well, first we stop hiding, which for me means coming out. Then—”