So… Lord Edward Bartholomew the Third, fifth filthiest richest man in the world (well, possibly, maybe sixth by now), and his newly titled husband Sir André Taburin (né Andreu Pafiscu), the biracial son of a French soldier and a Romani bistro cook… Theirs is the kind of story maybe Danielle Steele would write about, if she tackled same/sex couples.

In his past, Eddie was a dissolute dilettante, with a fondness for rent boys because it made relationships simple. André was a day labourer who knew nothing about the Bartholomew fortune, just that Eddie was this slightly cynical yet endearing guy whose sensibilities matched his own. In order to keep seeing this man he was starting to fall in love with, André assumed the role of a hooker, even though he never took the cash Eddie laid out after their encounters, for two reasons. First, it made Eddie happy to think he was dating a hooker, which made André happy. Second, as he put it when André revealed himself, “Eddie, if your friends all knew you had a day labourer for a boyfriend, they’d say I was there only for your money, which would make them doubt your business sense. But if you tell them I’m a hooker, you can laugh in their faces and say of course that’s why I’m there.”

Some years later, they were married in a peculiarly lavish ceremony that involved ice giants, an abduction, and Eddie getting a dressing down from none other than Queen Elizabeth. Since that time, they split their time between Eddie’s estate in Scotland, André’s more mundane apartment in Paris, and a few other places around the world.

How does André cope with this sudden rise in power and wealth? Sometimes, not well — and as such, he acts as a bit of conscience for Eddie. But as their relationship has continued on over the years, André has discovered that Eddie is far more complicated than he originally thought. Even now, the man has secrets, and he doesnt share them lightly.