"When did you last sleep?"
"I'm not tired."
"When did you last bathe?"
Andrew's jaw tightened. "Get out, Norman."
"No." Norman settled into the chair across from the desk, stretching his legs out. "Not until you talk to me like a rational human being instead of a sulking child."
"I'm not sulking."
"You're wallowing." Norman took a sip of his brandy. "There's a difference, but not much of one. Both are equally pathetic."
"If you came here to insult me?—"
"I came here to shake some sense into you." Norman set down his glass with a sharp click. "Where is your wife, Andrew?"
The question rocked Andrew. "You know where she is."
"I know she left. What I don't know is why you're sitting here feeling sorry for yourself instead of going after her."
"She left because she wanted to leave." Andrew's voice was flat. "She made her choice."
"Did she?" Norman leaned forward. "Or did you drive her away by telling her you needed to be alone?"
"I didn't—" Andrew stopped, because that was exactly what he'd done. "It's more complicated than that."
"Is it?" Norman's gaze was relentless. "From where I'm sitting, it looks pretty simple. You lost your club, you panicked, you pushed away the one person who could help you, and now you're sitting here alone wondering why you feel so bloody miserable."
"You don't understand."
"Then explain it to me." Norman crossed his arms. "Make me understand why you're throwing away your marriage."
"I'm not throwing anything away!" Andrew slammed his hand on the desk, making Chance yelp and scurry away. "I'm trying to—" He stopped, his breath coming in short gasps. "I'm trying to figure out who I am, Norman. Without the Mayfair Fox. Without the identity I've built over twelve years. I need to know if there's anything underneath all that."
"And you think Isobel would judge you if there isn't?" Norman's voice was gentler now. "You think she'd love you less if you're just Andrew instead of the Mayfair Fox?"
"I don't know!" The admission tore out of him. "I don't know what she sees when she looks at me, Norman. Does she see me? Or does she see the Duke, the businessman, the man who saved her from ruin? If all of that disappears, if I'm just... nothing... will she still want me?"
"You're not nothing." Norman stood, moving around the desk. "You're a duke. A friend. A cousin. A husband. Those things don't disappear because a building burned down."
"Don't they?" Andrew looked up at him. "The only reason I restored the Dukedom was because of the Mayfair Fox. The only reason Isobel married me was because of the way I could scrub free her father’s debts. Everything I am, everything I've accomplished, it all comes back to that club. Without it, I'm just?—"
"You're just the man who rebuilt a fortune from ruins," Norman interrupted. "The man who took his father's vice and turned it into virtue. The man who treated his employees with respect. The man who kept his promises to his wife even when it wasinconvenient. The man who ran around a burning building to save others."
"Anyone would have done that."
"No." Norman's voice was firm. "Your father wouldn't have. He would have saved himself and let everyone else burn. But you didn't. You made sure everyone got out safely before you left. That's who you are, Andrew. Not the Mayfair Fox. Just Andrew. And that man is more than enough."
Andrew wanted to believe him. God, how he wanted to believe him. But the fear was too deep, too ingrained.
"I've made mistakes," he said quietly. "So many mistakes. And now I'm afraid they've cost me Isobel."
"Then go get her back."
"It's not that simple."
"It never is." Norman pulled him to his feet. "Listen to me. I know what it's like to almost lose the woman you love because of your own stupidity. I nearly lost Kitty more than once because I was too proud or too scared or too foolish to fight for her. Don't make the same mistakes I did."
