(n.) The force that makes something happen or happen more quickly
“So, let me get this straight: you want to My Fair Lady me?”
“Basically. Or maybe it’s Miss Congeniality you, or Anastasia you? They’re all the same basic premise, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Maxwell makes it sound so simple: let his fancy noble family pay her way to a fancy foreign country she barely remembered from history class to compete against fancy noble girls and hopefully get to live out that Kate Middleton-esque fantasy of marrying an actual, real life prince. And a crown prince at that, who will someday be king and make his wife a queen.
Lisette’s knees are liquefying, so she sits down on the arm of the couch, her hands resting limply in her lap. She takes a deep breath, then another, and another, and Maxwell doesn’t seem to mind as his proposal sinks in. He occupies himself with his phone, or at least makes a good show of it as he covertly glances around the cramped living room, at Day’s bedroom door, and, like a gentleman, ignores the laundry basket of clean laundry on the coffee table and her unmade bed through the door beside him.
This can’t be real, she thinks, It can’t actually be happening. The week she’s had is the stuff of Lifetime movies, from the moment the man currently standing in her apartment and his friends walked into the bar to the decision, so unlike her, to show them a good time while they’re still in New York. The last five days have been filled by their company and the stores she can’t afford, the bars and clubs she can’t get into, the restaurants that take months to get reservations at, all opened up to her by their diplomatic status and deep European pockets and noble pedigrees.
She’s not sure quite how much time has passed when she finally finds her voice again. “What’s the catch?”
Maxwell doesn’t respond, so she glances up at him and sees him trying to parse out her meaning, that despite his nearly flawless, nuanced English, his grasp of it is imperfect, secondary or tertiary. She amends her question. “Um. The–there’s more to this than you’re telling me, right?”
“Oh. Well, yeah,” he admits. “It would be too easy if there wasn’t, and we can’t have that.”
“Of course,” she agrees faintly. “I assume you have something to gain if I say yes, right?”
“Power and prestige, mostly.” He rolls his eyes and shrugs, his tone flippant and dismissive. “Not for me personally, but for my house. My family. My brother has been interviewing girls for weeks and weeks to find someone to sponsor, because we don’t have any sisters to put forward, and none of these women are living up to his expectations. I think you’re worth the risk, no matter what he has to say about it.”
“Bullshit.”
His brow furrows. “I’m sorry?”
“That’s bullshit,” Lisette repeats. He’s been flirting with her all week, and she’s encouraged him, but this is… something else entirely. “Why haven’t you said anything about this before?”
“Liam is, uh,” Maxwell pauses for a moment and mumbles to himself, “Obuzet, μαγεμένο, enchanté…” He snaps his fingers and points at her as if she’s provided the word he’s looking for, though she hasn’t. “Smitten! Liam is smitten with you. He’s never been so taken with a woman before. I think, if you come with me and get to know him over the next few months, you might feel that way about him, too.”
Under her shock, she’s annoyed by his neglecting to mention her agency in this. “That’s awfully presumptuous.”
“He’s the best of us,” Maxwell says. His earnestness dampens her irritation, but only slightly. “And he’s about to have to pick a wife that won’t ever make him as happy as he’s been this week. He deserves that, and you’ve made him happy, and I don’t think I’m wrong thinking he’s made you happy, too.”
Weakly she protests, “You don’t know me well enough to think that.”
But he’s not wrong. It both exhausts and infuriates her, the sensation of being known itching at the back of her neck like a shirt tag. She looks at her laundry basket for a long, long moment, until her eyes unfocus and the polka dots on one of her blouses blur. She blinks it away. “What am I supposed to do with my life?”
“Your… life?”
“My things,” she says, gesturing at everything and nothing. “My apartment, my roommate. My jo–actually, no, forget my job, but still. My life is here, Maxwell, I can’t just leave it indefinitely in hopes I never need to step back into it here. That’s insane.”
Maxwell nods slowly. He isn’t so outrageously out of touch that he has more money than sense like Tariq, and while he’s not as down to earth as Drake, he’s closer than she would’ve expected a lord of anywhere to be. His hand skims over part of her bookshelf, and he seems to be taking in the room in more detail than he had when he arrived. There’s a sad, understanding look in his eyes and a little crease between his brows Lisette hasn’t noticed before, and when he becomes aware of the crease he schools his expression into a neutral one and rubs at the spot. It doesn’t seem like vanity, though, and it intrigues her that he’s not as shallow and thoughtless as he seems.
“I didn’t think about any of that,” he admits quietly. “I shouldn’t ask you to abandon your life like this. It’s not right. But I really do think you could have a chance, Lisette. I really do.”
She nods, looking at her hands to avoid looking at him and feeling guilty. “You might be right, but I–I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”
The floor creaks as he moves to sit on the coffee table, closer but not too close, not crossing the line that joining her on the couch would.
“Is there anything I can say?” he asks, almost a little desperate. “Anything to convince you to come with me?”
“Probably not.” She shrugs and starts picking at her cuticles, until Maxwell reaches out and takes her hand, stopping her. She wants to cry, but she won’t, not in front of him, not like this, not because he’s a relative stranger and he’s offering her one of her dreams with only one massive string attached, not because she wishes she wasn’t too afraid to throw all her caution to the wind and go with him.
He tightens his hold on her fingers, urging her to look at him. Again, she gets the sense she’s seeing through some glamour, some trick of the light that’s prevented her from really seeing him before. He has freckles, she realizes, partially disguised by his French Riviera tan and not as plentiful as her own. There’s even one in one of his irises, a fairly large spot of hazel marring the blue in his left eye. She hadn’t noticed it all week, but it’s impossible not to look at now.
“Can we still be friends?” he asks.
She sniffles and rubs her thumb over his knuckles. It feels like they’ve known each other longer than a week, and against all reason, she’s hopelessly fond of him. “Of course. I’ll miss you, all of you.”
He smiles. “But mostly me, right?”
“Obviously. You’re the one in my apartment, aren’t you?”
“Can I tell you something?” She nods. “I’ve wanted to come up here all week.”
A laugh bubbles out of her. “No, really? I couldn’t tell from all the passes you kept making at me.”
“Not like that!” he says, the light flush of his cheeks belying the laughter in his voice. “I mean, I’ve never been in an apartment before. I’ve always wanted to know.”
“Does it live up to your expectations?”
Maxwell looks around. “I’d have to do a thorough investigation, but it seems up to… snuff, right? That’s the expression?”
Lisette is charmed by his fumbling over idioms. “One of them, yeah.”
“It’s small,” he notes.
“It’s big for this neighborhood.”
“It’s old.”
“Now you’re one insult away from starting a war.”
Maxwell amends, “I meant to say it’s cozy and has a lot of character.”
“That’s better.”
They’re still holding hands, but Lisette thinks Maxwell might be as reluctant to let go as she is. When he finally does and he stands to leave, he sounds sad and tired and is already complaining about needing to pack for his flight home tomorrow night, they hug one last time at the door and make promises to stay in touch Lisette doubts they’ll be able to keep half a world apart. When he’s gone, Lisette sits on the arm of the couch for what feels like hours, her arms remembering the shape of Maxwell’s body and the scent of his cologne clinging to her hair.
How strange it is to miss someone you only just met.
How strange it is so feel guilty for not agreeing to go with him to Cordonia, that she regrets not agreeing to it immediately.
She wishes Day was home instead of visiting his parents in the Midwest. She wishes Naomi was easier to get in touch with.
Her phone buzzes on top of the laundry basket and she picks it up, seeing a notification that mp_beaumont started following her on Pictagram. She taps on the notification to follow him back when she sees his most recent update is a picture from earlier this week when she’d taken the guys to the Met. She has no idea what the caption says, but the tags give her a good idea: #missyoualready #bestvacationever #wcw. In it she’s copying the pose of The Vine and smiling at the viewer. At Maxwell.
It’s the happiest she’s looked in a picture in two years.
She scrolls to another picture of Drake looking rumpled and unamused over a plate of bacon and hashbrowns and Liam laughing into a coffee mug. The location tag is displaying The Four Seasons, as it does on several other pictures in Maxwell’s feed from the last two weeks, and she’s on her feet and gathering her jacket and purse before she realizes what she’s doing.