“You have a good night, darlin’?” he asked quietly into the hair at the top of my head.

Seeing as I was really mostly asleep, I didn’t guard my words, I just said straight out, “Best night I’ve had since Charlie got hurt.”

His arms got tighter. I nestled closer.

“What was he like?” Max asked, still talking quietly.

“Charlie?” I asked back, still talking in my sleep.

“Yeah.”

“Best brother ever,” I whispered and snuggled closer.

“I’m gettin’ that,” Max muttered but I heard a smile in his voice.

“You remind me of him,” I said sleepily, not noticing Max’s body tense. “He said it like it was. Didn’t mince words but that didn’t mean he wasn’t kind. He was smart. He took care of his Mom, me, his fiancée. He was thoughtful. Something meant something to him, he took care of it. Someone meant something to him, he let them know it. Never had a doubt about that, knowing how much Charlie loved me,” I sighed then concluded, “He was a good man.”

“It’s good you had that,” Max whispered.

“Yeah.”

“Means maybe you’ll recognize it, eventually.”

“Mm,” I murmured, not processing words because I was just barely awake.

“Duchess?”

“Yes, darling?”

I didn’t notice his body getting tense again then his hand slid up my back and into my hair and he said, “Go to sleep, baby.”

I did as I was told.

Chapter Seven

The Love of His Life

“Nina, honey, wake up.”

My body was being shaken gently at the hip and Max’s voice was coming at me.

I struggled up through the fog of sleep, turned my head on the pillow and blinked at him. He was wearing nothing but his pajama bottoms and, for some reason, he was sitting on the side of the bed and had a carefully blank expression on his face.

“What?” I asked, still sleepy but also vaguely alarmed at his blank look. I didn’t think I’d ever seen Max look blank.

“Baby,” he said quietly before he continued with three words that made my drowsiness instantly disappear and my head figuratively explode. “Your father’s here.”

I shot up to an elbow and repeated, a lot louder this time, “What?”

Then I didn’t give him the chance to answer. I threw back the covers and twisted my lower body around Max, got to my feet and stomped (and obviously I could forgive myself for stomping this time) toward the stairs.

“Nina,” Max called but I didn’t stop. I just tramped irately down the winding stairs.

Niles had phoned my father. He didn’t talk to me. He talked to my father.

Which was the very definition of Niles not listening to me. I told him my father had no place in my life but my father kept his place in it and he did this by keeping in touch with Niles. Niles had a great relationship with his family and therefore he never understood why I refused to talk to my father mainly because he never listened during any of the vast amounts of times I explained it to him.

And my father was here. Here. He’d dropped everything and flown halfway around the world to stick his nose into something that was none his business. And I knew why he did it. Therefore, not only the fact that he was here but why he was here was absolutely, one hundred percent infuriating.

I hit the bottom of the stairs and rounded the corner, seeing my father standing tall and erect wearing an expensive suit, shiny shoes and a camelhair overcoat. His fair hair was neatly trimmed with only a hint of gray, his cheeks were smooth and his face was the face of a man ten years younger than him. And even though I knew he’d recently made the journey I’d made not long ago, he looked fresh as a daisy.

When I approached him, he didn’t look at me. He was deep in the study of Cotton’s pictures.

“Dad,” I snapped.

“Are these Cottons?” he asked, still not looking at me.

“Dad!” I snapped louder.

“That one was at the V&A, I remember the frame. Unusual frame, perfect for that picture.”

“Dad!” I shouted and his head turned to me, his eyes did a sweep of my body in my nightie then they moved over my shoulder.

I looked over my shoulder too, to see Max there, now wearing jeans and still pulling down a t-shirt but his feet were bare.

Again my father didn’t greet me, didn’t address me at all.

Instead he said to Max, “May I have a word with my daughter in private?”

Max didn’t answer or I didn’t give him the chance to mainly because I stomped to the door.

“No, you may not,” I announced, opening the door and standing in the cool air that rushed in looking at my father. “But you can leave.”

“Nina,” Dad said.

“Go,” I said back.

Dad walked toward me and stopped. “We need to talk.”

“We have nothing to talk about.”

“Niles telephoned.”

“Yes, I guessed that.”

“Therefore, we need to talk.”

“No, we do not,” I reiterated.

Dad gave up on me and looked back to Max. “Really, would you mind?”

Max’s eyes were on me but when my father addressed him he looked at Dad, planted his feet, crossed his arms on his chest and said, “Yeah, I’d mind.”

If I wasn’t so incensed, I would have rushed across the floor and kissed Max hard. Unfortunately, I was incensed.

“Dad, go,” I demanded.

“Nina, listen to me,” Dad said instead of leaving. “You’re throwing your life away.”

I shook my head and said, “No, no I’m not. I was but evidence is suggesting that I’m not anymore.”

Dad looked to Max then glanced quickly around the living room then back to me, his eyes settling on my bruised cheekbone and his brows came up before he asked with only partially veiled derision, “Honestly?”

“Go,” I repeated.

“This isn’t you,” my father told me.

“You don’t know me,” I told him the truth.

“Niles is a good man, works hard. He’s from a good family.”

“He’s got money, that’s what you’re saying.”

“I’m saying he’s a good man and I’m reminding you about the fact that you haven’t chosen many of those in your past, in fact, none at all.”