“I’m here to be your plus-one at your party tomorrow.”

“What? Why?”

“Because it was so much fun last time?”

She was speechless.

“Because nobody puts Dani in a corner?” he said into the unspooling silence.

Oh, Max. Max was such a genuinely good person underneath his breezy exterior. Underneath the European tabloid, Depraved Duke persona. He had come here purely to keep her company at the party she was so dreading. It made her throat catch. She thought of the Christmas party, how perfectly pitched all his interventions had been—the hand at her back, the stories he’d told to paint her in a flattering light. As unlikely as it was, Max von Hansburg, Baron of Laudon, had become one of her closest friends. She might even say best friend, except that to do so felt disloyal to Leo somehow.

“Or,” he amended, when she still didn’t speak, “I wanted to see you, and this seemed like as good an excuse as any?”

Her throat tightened even more as he did his signature “I like you, I really like you” thing. She couldn’t figure it out. She knew her friends liked her. She didn’t need them to tell her repeatedly. But then came Max, all “I think you’re cool,” and she got all emotional.

“Where are you?” he asked.

She ordered herself to snap out of her uncharacteristically schmoopy moment. “I’m at my parents’ house on Long Island. I have a renter at my place.”

“What do you mean you have a renter?”

“I rent my place out on Airbnb sometimes.”

“You do?”

“I can’t really afford the apartment on my own, but it’s a great deal for what it is and I don’t want to give it up. I rented it out almost every other week this summer.”

“You did?”

She wasn’t sure why he was so astonished. Except that of course he had no idea what it was like to pinch pennies.

“And now,” she went on, “not only do I have the normal budget crunch, but my very effective divorce lawyer is also very expensive. I thought about getting a roommate, but, ugh. I ran the numbers, and I figured out if I Airbnb-ed my place periodically, I could make as much money as I would with a full-time roommate. And this fall . . .”

She’d been going to add that since she had the teaching leave upcoming, she had more plans to rent the place out, but Max did not need a monologue about her balance sheet. As cool as Max was turning out to be, it was a little awkward that he was a literal aristocrat and she was having trouble making rent. Well, awkward on her end, anyway. He never seemed to notice, much less mind, the vast economic gulf between them.

“All right, so, I think this is the part where you invite me to Long Island?” Max said cheerfully.