“I did.”
“You mean, to order food? Look, you just need to download the app and then add your details and it’s like magic, you can order any food you want anytime you want it.”
He gave her a soft smile. “I know, I just . . .” he shrugged, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his phone. He pushed it across the table for Bo to see and her mouth dropped open.
“Is that a Nokia 3310?” Bo blinked, reaching for the brick-like phone and turning it over in her hand.
“It is.”
“But this thing is . . . it’sancient.How does it even still work?”
Max shrugged again. “2G network. I only need it for the basics. Anything else is a distraction to me.” He gave her a look. “I told you that first night that I couldn’t get an Uber.”
“Yes, but I thought that was because it was 3 a.m. and they were busy. Not because your phone was built before Uber existed.”
“It works for me.”
“Maybe now, but you should think about upgrading. They’ll switch off the 2G network eventually and then where will you be?”
He looked unconcerned. “I’ll worry about that when it happens. Can you order the food?”
She shook her head at him one more time. “Sure.”
She picked a selection of Indian food from a restaurant she knew to be good and then thanked Max when he slid a glass of wine towards her.
One glass. One glass, and that’s it. You do stupid things when you drink too much wine. Stupid things like hitting on your new landlord/employer/co-inheritor.
“Can I ask you a couple of questions?” Max’s voice cut into Bo’s thoughts.
“Sure.”
“Your name.”
She smiled. “That’s not a question.”
He smiled back. “You know what I meant. Jacobien. I’ve never heard it before.”
“Oh. It’s Friesian.” Bo sipped her wine. “Friesland is in—”
“The Netherlands. I know,” Max interjected. “Are you Dutch?”
“No. Australian.”
“Well, that saves me asking my second question. So, tell me, how does an Australian woman in London have a name from the north of the Netherlands?”
Bo winced. “Oh, well, my mother . . . she, uh, wanted a name that no one else would have. She found Jacobien in a book and thought it sounded fancy. She didn’t really care that it was Dutch. She just wanted something unique.”
“Is it? Unique?”
“I guess.” Bo sipped her wine again. “I’ve never met anyone else with my name. Not that anyone ever calls me Jacobien. It’s a mouthful, right? Even I couldn’t say it as a child. That’s why I’m called Bo. It was how I said my name for years and it’s kind of stuck.”
“I can understand that. My name’s actually Maximilian. I couldn’t say it as a boy either, so I’ve always been called Max.”
Bo smiled at that. She liked having something in common with him, even if it was only a childhood inability to say their own names.
“My name’s how I got my job with Geoffrey, did you know that?” she asked, keen to continue their conversation. She didn’t notice Max’s face darken. “He was looking for a live-in carer, although to be honest, I had no experience in that area at all. Anyway, he didn’t seem to mind and asked me to interview for the role, and when I did, he said it was my name that caught him. He knew it was Friesian, right from the beginning, andwanted to meet me. Like you, I think he was surprised to find out that I was Australian. I think he thought I would be Dutch, like Madelief.”
“Madelief?”
