“There's really no need to thank me, Max.”
“I'm thanking you for saying it, because we both know you didn't have to.”
I almost reach for her hand. Almost. I don't. I don’t want to scare her the way I did by the fire last night.
Man, was that only last night? It feels like a lifetime ago.
“I can see that you're not the absolutely horrible human I thought you were before as well.”
She lets out a surprised snicker. “Thanks?”
I hold a hand up. “That didn't come out quite right.What I meant to say was that I formed an opinion of you based on what you wrote about me, not on who you are.”
“Well, to be fair, I was the woman who wrote all those stories about you. The woman who persisted in showing the country the worst side of Prince Maximilien. I didn’t know anything else about you. All I saw was the man who wore a bright yellow tutu over his dinner suit to a state dinner.”
I shrug. “I’d lost a bet.”
She laughs once more, the sound fills the small space and warms my belly.
I chew on my lip. “Since we’re taking ownership here, I’m not exactly innocent in all this. I’ve played into the whole ‘Max in Neverland’ thing.”
“Never growing up.”
I gesture at the fort. “What’s so great about being an adult, anyway? The kids on the program see me as I really am.”
“They love you.”
A smile grows on my lips. “They’re the best. They show me what’s possible. They show me that no matter what life throws at you, you can not only survive, but you can also thrive.”
“It’s plain to see that you care deeply about them. Do you know what I think? I think you connect so well with them because you had to grow up too fast.”
I lift my gaze to hers once more, my heart thudding. No one has ever summed up my life in such a way. No one has even seen the real me. Not really. “What makes you say that?” I ask, my voice small.
“Because you’ve been in the public eye all your life, at first loved for the sweet but naughty child you were, and then, once you hit your mid-teens, you were scrutinized, your choices put under the microscope. I rememberreading about you getting drunk at your boarding school and nearly getting kicked out. Why would you want to grow up when the country made it clear they adored the sweet but naughty boy? And in growing up, you become this person whose life is both privileged and limited by the simple fact of your birth.”
I listen as she speaks, my heart thudding like a drum, my mind whirring. As startling as it is to hear my life summed up in a few short sentences by her, the truth in her words is crystal clear.
How did this woman I’ve always thought of as a headline chaser, my arch nemesis, intent on capitalizing on my less than stellar choices, work me out so fully?
Fabiana understands me in a way I never expected.
She sees me. Shegetsme.
She toys with one of her fingernails before looking back up at me. “What's it like being the youngest son? You've got a brother who is now the king of Malveaux, a sister who will soon be the queen of Ledonia, another sister who jointly runs a wildly successful enterprise with her Hollywood star of a husband. And not only that, all of them are married with children.”
I snicker. “Are you purposely trying to make me feel like the underachiever of the family?” I only half joke.
“Is that how you feel?” she asks, her voice low.
I shrug. “In a way,” I admit, and when her features drop, I add hastily, “Don't get me wrong. I adore my family, each and every one of them, and I'm incredibly happy that they found love and purpose in their lives.”
“But you’ve found neither.”
I snap my attention to her, her words cutting me to the core. “I'm only twenty-seven. I've got time.”
“Don’t you have to have an arranged marriage if you’re not married by the time you’re twenty-eight?”
I thin my lips. Of course she’s right. It’s no secret. It’s been the rule for Ledonian royalty for hundreds of years. But I never thought that rule would apply to me. I thought I would have met the one by then, fallen in love, got married.
