“Don’t say anything to them until I get home, all right? I can be there this evening.”

“Where are you?”

“Still in Innsbruck.”

“Ah.” He didn’t ask any more questions, probably because Max still being in Innsbruck perfectly illustrated Seb’s assertion that he was hiding.

“So you come out, and then what?” Max prompted. “You said, first we stop hiding. What’s next?”

“Next we live our lives the way we want to. If Mother and Father don’t like it, if they make it too miserable, we live our lives somewhere else. And Mother and Father aside, if we need to go somewhere else—New York, for example—to live our lives the way we want to, then we do that.”

“What about the company? What about your job? If it doesn’t go well, you know Father will have you sacked.”

Seb made a noncommittal noise. “I became one of the world’s foremost experts on mining remediation while no one was paying attention. I’ll get another job.”

“But—”

“You, though, I don’t know.” Seb snorted. “You don’t have any actual skills. You can come live with me if you can’t fix things with Dani.”

“Sebastien.” Max forced some older-brother gravitas into his tone. “Where is all this coming from?”

“It’s coming from spending two weeks not looking over my shoulder. It’s coming from spending two weeks being happy.”

The idea that Seb was so suddenly, and so utterly, happy buoyed Max. “You’re just going to tell them you’re gay?” He already knew the answer. “But later, after I get home,” he added quickly.

“I’m just going to tell them,” Seb confirmed. “And yes, I’ll wait until you get home.” Max could hear the smile in Seb’s voice again.

“Aren’t you afraid?”

“Of course I’m afraid. I’d be an idiot not to be. But ultimately, you have to ask yourself—and I’m talking about you, not the proverbial you—is that fear worth more to you than what’s potentially on the other side of it?”

Well. Max allowed himself, for a moment, to imagine that—the other side of the fear. “But if I . . . went to New York.” It was hard to say it. “I would have to come back when he dies.” Despite what Seb said, Max would never walk away and leave him to deal with the dukedom.

“Perhaps. But perhaps there’s more than one way to be a duke. And you know who gets to decide about that?”

Max chuckled. “The duke?”

“Exactly. But don’t think that far ahead. Get a place in New York. Come and go. You travel so much anyway. Will it really be all that different? When Father dies, we’ll make a plan. We’ll make a plan. Even if you’re the one inheriting, it’s not your burden alone.”