“I am indeed.”

She snapped her gum, but not in a way that seemed hostile. “Get in line.”

He did. He hadn’t wanted to be late and, not knowing how long it would take to get up to the Bronx from his midtown hotel, he’d budgeted too much time for the journey.

After a minute or so, a boy came out of Dani’s office, and the girl went in. Superboy shuffled down the wall so he was closer to the door. Max did the same.

“Are you enjoying Professor Martinez’s class?” Max inquired.

“I guess,” the boy said flatly.

The girl emerged, having been in there less than two minutes, and Superboy went in. Max edged closer to the door, which was ajar, so he could eavesdrop.

“Hey, Professor M, I need you to do me a huge favor.” I need you to do me a huge favor. Something about the way he’d phrased that rubbed Max the wrong way.

“And what would that be?” That was Dani’s “I am not impressed” voice. Max smiled. He was acquainted with that voice.

The boy made a case involving a diving meet, a book forgotten on the team bus, and a thesis all worked out but not down on paper yet. Dani proceeded to systematically dismantle him but subtly enough that the kid wasn’t understanding the full extent of the burns he was sustaining.

It was hot.

Dani was hot.

Interestingly, that was a fact Max could note with detachment, which was another new experience for him. All the years he’d spent assuming he was going to marry Marie had also been spent, he would freely admit, slutting around. He and Marie had agreed that their marriage would be in name only and that discreet “extracurricular” activities would be allowed—necessary, even—once they’d done their duty with the turkey baster. Still, he had viewed the past few years as his last gasp of singledom and therefore of freedom and had conducted himself accordingly.

When the world offered itself to him, he took. And when one was a wealthy duke-to-be, one had a lot of offers.

What one didn’t have a lot of were refusals. But Dani, having made her disinterest in him clear from the moment she’d arrived on Eldovian soil, was a rare woman. Wickedly smart, deliciously witty, extremely pretty, and not interested. There were no hard-to-get long games being played there. Leo had told Max a bit about her ugly divorce-in-progress, and Dani herself had used the phrase post-men more than once. He had no doubt that she meant it.

She was a goddamn delight.