He also skipped over Oma’s ties to the project. He wanted to protect that knowledge, to make sure his parents didn’t find a way to twist it or to profit from it. They could find out about it when everyone else did.

“Oh, darling,” Mother said, “they’re using you because they think you’ll get them clients. It’s like when Liesel Schrodinger fancied herself an interior designer.” She laughed cruelly.

She might have been correct, but Max didn’t care. It was a start. An actual job that wasn’t tied to his family. Max and one of the firm’s partners had been working so well together on the Innsbruck project that he didn’t think the offer was only about his wealth and connections. Regardless, he intended to prove himself worthy.

Everyone looked at Father. Father was sweating heavily. Perhaps he was just getting warmed up. Perhaps they were in for the biggest eruption they’d ever seen. “Is that all?” he finally bit out.

It was.

Well, it wasn’t. There was still the little—massive—issue of Daniela Martinez. But Max had declared his independence in matters financial and geographical, and that was what was relevant here. “Yes.”

Father spoke with an aura of eerie calm. “Then you are no son of mine.” He then turned to Sebastien, as if anointing him heir right then and there.

Max and Sebastien had spent yesterday planning, and had agreed that Max would drop his bomb this evening and that they’d let it settle and see what the outcome was before regrouping and making a plan for Seb to drop his. It was a coordinated, two-stage campaign.

Seb must have decided a change in strategy was in order. With all three of them looking at him, Max’s quiet, unassuming, brave younger brother smiled cheerily and said, “Mother. Father. I’m gay. And I’m in love with Torkel Renner. He’s my boyfriend.”

Max had his eyes on his father, whose affect remained strangely flat, but his mother’s sharp intake of breath drew his attention. “Torkel Renner?” Her brow knit, as if she knew but could not quite place the name and wasn’t sure how she wanted to react until she did.

“He’s the head of palace security.” Seb, cool as a cucumber, picked up his heretofore untouched kirsch, took a sip, set it down, and added with the merest hint of a shrug, “I thought you should know, before you decide to disown the heir, what you’re getting from the spare.”

A loud thunk from the head of the table drew everyone’s attention. That was more like it. Father was having a delayed reaction, but his fist pounding the table was merely the open volley of all he would want to communicate. It was a gavel presaging his judgment. They would hear from him now.