The question was: What happened next? She was still angry at Max for thinking she would upend her life to indulge his whims. But was she going to throw out their entire relationship because he had made an error of judgment? No, she was going to tell him he’d hurt her feelings, apologize for running away, and make things right with her friend. She would keep her true feelings to herself. She would live through her own personal romantic tragedy. She had done it before, and she could do it again. The heartbreak would fade—eventually—and she’d still have Max.

Assuming she got off her ass and called him.

Her phone rang before she could pick it up. She harbored a momentary hope that it would be him, but she knew even before the call display showed Leo’s name that it wouldn’t. She had told him not to contact her, and Max listened.

Well, Leo would do. She needed to apologize to him, too. She hadn’t been very reasonable last night.

“Leo. I’m—”

“Max’s father died this evening.”

She gasped. Max Minimus started whining, as if he knew somehow. “What happened?”

“Keeled over at the dinner table. Heart attack. There’s going to be an autopsy, but the leading theory is that all the drinking did a number on his cardiovascular system.” Leo paused. “Though I’m not convinced it wasn’t shock. But I’m not supposed to say that, as apparently Sebastien is racked with guilt.”

“Sebastien? Why?”

“This all went down at a dinner in which Sebastien came out to his parents and Max told them he was moving off the estate.”

“Moving? Where was he going?”

“New York.”

“What?”

“He got a job with the design firm that’s working on the mine project. He was going to get a place in New York.”

“Why?”

“Hmm. I wonder.”

Maybe Dani wasn’t the only one who hadn’t told the entire truth that morning in Innsbruck?

“He was going to take a red-eye that landed in New York on the eleventh. He was strangely adamant about the timing. I think it had something to do with a movie you watched with him once? He said there was a line in it about telling the truth on Christmas?”

At Christmas you tell the truth.

Oh god. Did she dare hope that his truth was the same as hers?

Did it matter? If it was truth-telling season?

All right. New plan: She was going to tell him everything. She was going to tell him she’d fallen in love with him. If he didn’t return her feelings, they’d deal with it together. But she let herself hope that maybe this wasn’t going to be a tragedy after all.

“You said was, past tense. Max was coming here, but now he’s not?”