Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 130255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 651(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 651(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
“I just don’t understand. It seems like such a huge issue with you and Esme.” I pushed my hair behind my ear. “Don’t you need to have kids for the dukedom to continue or it reverts back to the Crown?”
He didn’t respond.
I tossed my hands into the air and picked my laptop back up, setting it on my lap once more as I stretched my legs out. “Fine, whatever.”
“What happened to yesterday? Where you’d only ask if you thought I might tell you?”
“Clearly, I asked because I thought you might tell me.”
“Terrible idea.” He typed a few words before I caught him glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. “You’re going to open The Sims and try to kill me again, aren’t you?”
“I don’t try,” I said, staring at my screen as I contemplated doing just that. “History shows that I succeed. Although this time, it’ll be by killer rabbit.”
He made a noise that sounded like it was something between a laugh and a sigh, then gently set his laptop on the coffee table in front of him. “Yes, you’re correct. If I don’t have children, then the dukedom will revert to the Crown on my death. That’s the very reason I won’t have a family.”
“Wait.” I frowned, looking over at him. “You want it to die out?”
“With my familial line? Yes. Dukedoms can be reissued.”
I sat up a little straighter and swung my legs around, setting my laptop down once more. “Why would you want it to die with you? It’s, what? Four hundred years of history? Gone? Just because you don’t want children?”
“It’s nothing to do with me not wanting children. On the contrary, I think I’d like to have them very much.” He shrugged a shoulder. “Many of my friends have children or are going to have them soon, and I don’t think it would be the worst thing in the world.”
“So, why not have them?” I paused. “Oh. Can you… not?”
“Not what?”
“Have kids. You know… Can’t.”
There was really no easy way to ask someone if they were infertile, was there?
“Am I infertile?” he asked, eyebrows raising. “No. I’m perfectly able to. Believe me, I’ve already been down this road of discussion with Grandma and had to prove it to her to make her drop it.”
“I don’t get it.” I shuffled forwards and gripped the edge of the window seat. “You can have kids, you’ve just admitted that you’d like to, but you won’t.”
Max shrugged. “Yes, that’s about it.”
“But why?”
“I’ve already said I won’t answer that.”
I sighed. “It just doesn’t make sense. Why not? Especially if it’s something you want. Is it not hard seeing your friends have families?”
“Ellie.”
“I mean, I spend far too much time in the society pages, and there are a whole host of aristocrats that are a similar age to you. I know The Earl and Countess of Anglesey are having a baby, and The Duke of Worcester is engaged, and I’ve seen them both pictured with Fred so you’re probably friends, too, and—”
“Will you leave it?” Max snapped. He got to his feet turned away from me. He ran his fingers through his hair, rubbing his hand across the back of his neck as he looked at the floor, looking somewhat defeated.
I stilled.
I’d gone too far.
Why hadn’t I just shut up? Just accepted what he’d offered me, even if I didn’t understand it? It was the most he’d opened up to me about his future, and I couldn’t just accept it, could I?
No.
We’d spent so much time together over the past several weeks, and the more time we spent together and the more I got to know him, the more I wanted to know about him.
The more I knew, the harder I fell.
The harder I fell, the stronger the tiny whisper in the back of my mind that I could convince him to change his mind, that he should get married and have kids, that it was possible.
It was a dangerous, silly, dreamy circle of impossibilities.
Stupid, stupid, stupid Ellie.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “I went too far.”
“No, I—” Max turned back and looked over at me, his bright blue eyes dull with sadness. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you. That wasn’t fair.”
“It’s none of my business. You asked me to leave it, and I didn’t.” I rested my hands in my lap and looked away. “It was fair.”
“No, it wasn’t.” He sighed heavily, and I knew he was still watching me even though I had my gaze trained steadily on the spider plant that was in a wall planter.
It kind of was.
“It’s fine.” I smiled, glancing his way, but I knew he’d know how insincere my smile was.
I wasn’t the best actress in the world. That was why I wrote books instead of doing things like movies. Seriously, it was why I never misbehaved as a teenager. My parents knew because I couldn’t lie my way out of bed on a morning.