Cover

Dedication

For Marit, a (not so) mysterious source of happiness. I’m so glad we left our problems in the same basket all those years ago.

Chapter One

When Dani Martinez woke up on Friday the tenth of December, she thought, It’s going to be a good day.

And then she thought, Liar.

But whatever, just because it was the last Friday of the semester and she was about to be inundated with forty-seven essays on The (Not So) Great Gatsby, it didn’t necessarily follow that today was going to be bad.

So she hadn’t done a lick of Christmas shopping, forget the fruitcake she was supposed to have started months ago. That didn’t mean this particular day was automatically going to suck.

And just because the cherry on top of the day was going to be the English department’s holiday party, at which she would “get” to see her still-not-quite ex-husband with his trade-in trollop didn’t mean— Ah, forget it. This day was going to be crap.

Her phone dinged. It would be Leo, which would be a fortifying way to start this all-downhill-from-here day. Because of the time difference between New York and Eldovia, they often talked early in the mornings New York time. Dani missed Leo and his sister, Gabby, something fierce, missed being able to go across the hall and have coffee in the mornings. Sometimes, before she was caffeinated, she forgot he wasn’t there anymore. And then it would hit her anew: her best friend lived in Eldovia, where he was engaged to a princess. Dani was going to be his best woman in the fall at a freaking royal wedding.

Eyeing the slumbering ball of fur next to her, Dani executed a slo-mo roll to grab her phone from the nightstand—she wanted the ball of fur to stay slumbering until she’d had coffee.

The text was not from Leo. Good morning. It’s Max von Hansburg. Marie gave me your number. I’m in New York for a few days. Can I take you to dinner tonight?

Speaking of royal weddings. Dani blinked, surprised to hear from Max, who was Princess Marie’s best friend—and her ex-fiancé. Despite having been thrown over in favor of Leo, Max was currently scheduled to serve as Marie’s man of honor in the wedding.

Marie and Max’s past was like a telenovela, complete with glittering balls, arranged marriages, and conniving parents. Leo had crash-landed in the middle of it, getting swept up in a gender-swapped Cinderella story that had made even Dani’s stone-cold heart defrost a degree or two. Except in this version, Cinderella had left a bestie behind in the ashes. Or maybe Leo had passed the Cinderella mantle on to Dani?

Max—Dog Max, the main Max in Dani’s life—did one of his signature snore-snorts. Look, she even had an animal companion like Cinderella, except hers didn’t flit around helping with the tidying.

Max: The concierge at my hotel can get us into Momofuku Ko. I could send a car for you.

The thaw in Dani’s heart did not extend to Human Max, who, in addition to being a member of the Eldovian aristocracy, was insufferable. “I could send a car for you.” What, like this was Pretty Woman? She considered the various ways she could decline his invitation. In the end, she went with brusque efficiency.

Dani: No.

Max: Lunch?

Dani: No.

Max: A drink?

Dani: No.

Max: Coffee?

Dani: Coffee is a drink.

Max: So that’s still no?

Dani: Yes.

Max: Yes that’s still no, or yes you’ll have coffee with me?

Dani: Listen, dude. Or should I say listen, duke?

Ha! She cracked herself up. She sat up against her headboard to allow for easier texting, eyeing Dog Max, whose breathing did not change.

Max: Baron, actually.

She knew that. She’d googled Maximillian von Hansburg when she met him in Eldovia last summer. He was, despite his personality, unnaturally good-looking. And, really, who wouldn’t respond to meeting a baron by googling said baron? She had learned that he was low-level famous—or should she say infamous?—in European circles for being a globe-trotting, womanizing playboy. The European tabloids called him the Depraved Duke, which as far as she could tell was a nickname that originated when he was photographed frolicking with a mystery woman while wearing an adult onesie on the deck of a yacht during the Cannes Film Festival.

Max: My father has to shuffle off this mortal coil before I attain dukedom, and I can report that he is in fine health.

Dani: Okay, but here’s my point: I am post-men. As I told you last summer.

Max: Yes, meaning you don’t want to date, correct?

Dani: Correct.

Max: But what about Leo? You talk to Leo all the time. You flew across the Atlantic last summer to visit him.

Dani: Leo’s my best friend.

Max: I rest my case.

Dani: What does that mean?

Max: Leo is a man.

Dani: Your powers of observation are astounding. You’ll forgive me if I’m suspicious, but I seem to have read an article with a headline that referred to you as a “man-whore.”

Max: Were you googling me? I’m flattered.

She didn’t bother replying. She wasn’t about to defend said googling. That would sound like protesting too much.

Max: My point is, I’m not asking you on a date. I merely want to spend time with you.

Not sure what to say to that and seduced by the smell emanating from her programmable coffeemaker, Dani army-crawled out of bed. Minute shifts in the mattress were enough to wake Dog Max, but once she was out of bed, she could turn on the radio and have a dance party and he’d be oblivious. She contemplated Human Max’s last text as she padded to the kitchen.

Dani: Why do you want to spend time with me?

Max: I like you.

That was such a weirdly straightforward answer.

Dani: Why?

Max: Because I get the sense that you are unimpressed by the fact that I’m an almost-duke.

Dani: That is correct.

Max: I would even go so far as to say that my almost-dukeness works against me.

Dani: Still correct.

Max: I like that about you. You’re normal.

Dani: Is that supposed to be a compliment or an insult?

Max: You don’t like me. Therefore I like you. I’m like a kid who wants what he can’t have.

That tracked with her image of him. Also, she was texting with a baron over her morning coffee—how surreal was that?

Dani: So in this scenario, I’m a toy you want. Nice.

Max: No, you’re just an interesting person I would like to spend time with since I happen to be in your city.

She almost cracked as she took her coffee back to her bedroom to try to figure out what to wear that telegraphed “It’s just a normal day, a day in which I continue to be unbothered by the fact that my husband is boning Undergrad Barbie, tra la la.” You’re just an interesting person I would like to spend time with. When was the last time someone had said anything like that to her? Well, never, because grown-ass adults did not speak like that, so openly and without guile. Her limited interactions with Maximillian von Hansburg suggested that he did, though. He told the truth. And even though that truth was often about his many and varied romantic and sexual conquests, there was something refreshing about his cheerfully relentless honesty. Max was a fuckboy, basically—a fuckbaron?—but he was a remarkably self-aware one.

There was also the “unnaturally good-looking” part.

Max: So there’s no scenario in which you’ll deign to get together with me today.

She was strangely tempted, but . . .

Dani: No.

She meant it about being post-men. Vince had done a number on her, and she was done. Not only done dating, but done arranging her life, even one day’s worth of it, to please a man. She felt so strongly about that position that she’d put it in writing. Just in case she was ever tempted.

She had never imagined that temptation coming in the form of a baron.

She set the phone on her dresser, opened the closet, and fingered the forest-green taffeta dress she’d impulse-purchased in a fit of optimistic shopping earlier this fall. She’d thought then it would be a perfect holiday dress. But in addition to being too formal for this evening’s party, not to mention for her afternoon class, taffeta was a try-hard fabric. Not an “I am completely over the fact that all of you in this room knew my husband was fucking around on me but apparently didn’t respect me enough to tell me” fabric. Anyway, who was she kidding? She was never going to wear that dress. A year ago, she could have worn it to the opera with Vince. But she didn’t go to the opera with Vince anymore. She didn’t go to the opera with anyone.

Which was fine, because she didn’t like the opera. She and Vince had been scheduled, in what turned out to be the week after he left, to go see some avant-garde production about a dude who loses his nose. Dani had looked at the entry on their shared calendar and, even though she’d still been in the sobbing-hysterically stage of the breakup, thought to herself, Well, at least I never have to go to the fucking Met again.

She moved the dress to the back of the closet and pulled out her standard day-to-evening black dress. It was a contoured number with a pencil skirt that had a pleasingly 1950s vibe to it. She could wear a blazer over it for teaching, then lose the blazer and jazz up the dress to make it more festive for the party.

How, though? Scarf? No. If she added a scarf to the retro dress, she would come off a little too Rizzo from Grease—although maybe some Rizzo energy was exactly what she needed right now.

Maybe she could make a jaunty hat out of the divorce papers Vince wouldn’t sign?

Because wasn’t that the cherry on top of everything? Husband leaves not only her but also the country—to spend a year’s sabbatical in Spain, where his girlfriend spends her time posting Instagram shots of herself hiking the Camino de Santiago in a bikini top—but that same husband will not sign the divorce papers.

Vince was back for the holidays. Maybe all that time relaxing in the sunshine with said girlfriend had inspired him to move things along? A girl could hope. Even though seven sessions of mediation before he left had not provided her with reason to do so.

Dani ran her fingers over a tangle of necklaces that hung from a stand on her dresser. She needed a statement necklace. And she needed that statement to be Eff you very much, Vince. No, that wasn’t right. The message she wanted to send was more Sorry, what was your name again? I have moved so far on while you were away that I can’t quite remember but please sign the fucking papers. If only she had an accessory that would communicate that.

Hang on. She grabbed the phone. Max, apparently having finally gotten the point, had stopped texting.

Dani: On second thought, there might actually be a scenario in which I want to get together with you today.

Max: I wait on bated breath.

Dani: Any chance you want to be my plus-one to my work holiday party, at which my soon-to-be-ex-husband, Vince, will be in attendance, as will his new girlfriend, who is a former student of both of ours and who is twenty years younger than he is?

Max: Is your soon-to-be-ex-husband the main character in a Philip Roth novel?

She laughed out loud.

Dani: He might as well be. He’s on sabbatical this year in Spain communing with the spirit of Picasso, but he’s back for the holidays.

Max: The answer is yes, but I have questions. Question the first: Is this going to be one of those elaborately complex romantic comedies where we pretend to be in love to make your ex-husband jealous?

Dani: Unfortunately, he’s not technically my ex-husband. My fondest wish is to relegate him to that status, but we’re not there yet legally. As to your question, let’s leave it vague. No need to make out or anything.

Max: Well, that’s disappointing. I do so enjoy making out at office holiday parties.

Dani: No making out at the party. Or anywhere. In addition to being post-men, I am post–making out. If pressed, I’ll call you a friend. But if you wanted to do me a solid and appear to find me the pinnacle of wit, that would be appreciated.

Though, really, there was no reason Max should “do her a solid.” She’d been nothing but cool to him last summer in Eldovia.

Max: Question the second: Am I myself, or am I pretending to be, say, a visiting scholar of nineteenth-century literature who is therefore extra susceptible to your pinnacle?

Dani: You’re yourself.

She was impressed, though, that he knew she studied nineteenth-century literature. If she’d said anything about it last summer, it had been in passing.

Max: So what I hear you saying is that in this one very specific scenario, you find it convenient that I’m an almost-duke.

God damn him.

Dani: God damn you.

Max: I might even go so far as to say that you’re using me for my almost-dukeness.

Dani didn’t want to be this petty, but . . . Okay, yes she did.

Dani: She’s twenty years old. He told me she was his Lolita. That she saw the real him and that in order to take his writing to the next level he needed someone who could be a “helpmeet,” and when I said we were each other’s helpmeets, he said there can only be one helpmeet and one help-ee in any relationship. And then they went to Spain for a year.

Max: What time am I picking you up?

Dani: Five. I’ll meet you there—it’s a building on campus but not mine. I need to look up the address. I’ll text it to you.

Max: Dress code? Formal? Business casual?

Dani: Dukeish casual.

Max: Understood. Prepare to be the pinnacle.

Dani smiled, dived onto the bed, and prepared to be love-bombed by the other Max, the main Max, who genuinely thought she was the pinnacle, no pretending required. As he did every morning, the little Yorkie acted like waking up next to her was the greatest joy of his life, going from dead asleep to vibrating with happiness as he crawled onto her lap. He might not do dishes like Cinderella’s mice and birds, but he earned his keep in other ways, filling what had been a wrenching year with seven hyper pounds of unconditional love. “Good morning, my sweet,” she cooed. He yapped in greeting, and she buried her nose in his fur as she hugged him.

Maybe today wasn’t going to be as crappy as she’d feared.

Max was supposed to meet Dani at the faculty club on her campus, but since he arrived half an hour early, he looked her up in the school directory and had his driver drop him at the English building.

This was going to be fun. He hadn’t been lying—he did like Daniela Martinez, not least because she didn’t seem to like him. That wasn’t something that happened. It wasn’t that everyone liked him—he wasn’t conceited enough to believe that. But he rarely encountered someone who didn’t at least pretend to. Sparring with Dani last summer, when she’d come to Eldovia to visit Leo, had been a breath of fresh air in a remarkably stressful time. He’d only spent a day in her company, but she’d made an impression.

Dani’s floor was a long hallway that had little stubby corridors off it, each marked with nameplates indicating whose offices were at the ends of the branches. He spied one with signs for “D. Martinez” and “M. Gable” and took the sharp turn, whereupon he ran into two students. Ran into one of them literally. “I beg your pardon. I didn’t expect anyone to be here.”

A boy wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt with a Superman logo on it looked him up and down. “No prob, man.”

The girl closer to Dani’s door said, “Are you looking for Professor Martinez?”

“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.

To Max’s surprise, even though the boy was wilting under Dani’s questioning about the thesis he supposedly had all worked out—it didn’t seem he had actually read the book, which sounded like it was meant to be The Great Gatsby—she suddenly granted him a forty-eight-hour extension and abruptly dismissed him. “Happy holidays,” she said so flatly she might as well have been saying, “Good riddance.”

It was such an unexpected turnabout that Max, who had been lounging against the wall, stood up straight, startled.

“Are there any more students out there?” she asked the boy as he was on his way out.

“Students . . . no,” the boy said, making brief eye contact with Max as he breezed by in possession of an extension he did not deserve.

When Max stuck his head into Dani’s office, it was to find her peeling off a blue blazer to reveal a dress that looked like it belonged on Bettie Page instead of a literature professor.

“Oh!” She jumped.

“My apologies. I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m merely here to ask for an extension.”

She rolled her eyes in lieu of greeting him, sat at her desk, and pulled a small mirror out of a drawer. “You’re early,” she said to her reflection.

“My thesis is all ready to go.” He sat on the guest chair and, as she started applying a deep burgundy lipstick, revised his previous assertion that he could appreciate Dani’s hotness from a purely intellectual perspective. “Care to hear it?”

“I guarantee you I already have.”

“None of the characters in The Great Gatsby have any inner life to speak of, making what is admittedly a masterfully written book into a mere melodrama.”

She glanced at him with one lip painted. The contrast between the brick red of the finished lip and the pinky-beige of the natural one certainly was . . . something. “An interesting line of thought.”

He thought she was going to say more, but when she merely returned to her task, he asked, “Why did you give that boy an extension? He was clearly feeding you lies. Does he know you at all?”

One eyebrow rose, though she was still looking at her reflection. “Do you know me at all?”

“I’m thinking the way to get an extension from Professor Martinez is to level with her. Own the fact that you erred—with time management or laziness or what have you—present a plan for ameliorating your error, and state your terms.”

Ah, that cracked her. She put the mirror down and truly looked at him. Almost looked as though she might smile. “Did you hear the student before him?”

“No.”

“She asked for a twenty-four-hour extension because she works two part-time jobs and she fell asleep at her computer last night.”

“Did you grant it?”

“Yes. I told her to go home and take a nap and to take another week with the paper.”

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