Page 25 of Excess

“Hello. How are you?” I paused for a moment, but he said nothing. Perhaps the mystery wouldn’t wear off with Blake, since he was so reticent about speaking. “So sorry to bother you on your day off, but I have your wallet.”

He muttered a curse. “I’ve been looking for it all morning. I, uh, can’t pick it up right now. I’m at my niece’s ballet class.”

He had a niece? And he was close enough with her to take her to dance class?

That was… adorable. Though, I shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d said that his family was the reason he wouldn’t take a mate. Of course, he was heavily involved with them.

“Whereabouts? I can drop it off. I’m running errands all over the place, anyway.”

Or I would be. I mean, I could. I had things I could get done today.

Or perhaps I was just nosy and wanted to catch a glimpse of Blake’s private life. Which was probably incredibly inappropriate of me, all things considered.

“I doubt you’re running errands in Streatham,” he replied drily.

I didn’t think I’d ever been to Streatham in my life.

“Not specifically, but I need to visit my cousin in Wimbledon,” I improvised. That much was true—she’d just had a baby, and I’d been meaning to drop off a gift. I wasn’t entirely sure how close Streatham was to Wimbledon, but they seemed vaguely in the same direction.

“Alright,” Blake said slowly. “It feels inappropriate to agree—you’ve probably never been to Streatham in your life. But I can’t get away right now, and it would be helpful to have my wallet.”

“It’s really no trouble,” I assured him, amused that he’d read me like a book.

He rattled off the address for the dance school, and I committed it to memory as I headed out of the spare room and down the corridor to my suite, making straight for the dressing room.

“I’m on my way! See you shortly.” I hung up before Blake could change his mind, sitting down at the vanity to freshen up my make-up and fix the parts of my ponytail that had come loose while I’d been making the bed.

I contemplated changing out of my matching sage-coloured linen top and shorts, but I also didn’t want to look like I was dressing up. After dithering for a moment, I settled on adding a nice pair of leather sandals and a cute purse, shooting my driver a message as I headed down to the courtyard where he’d bring the car up through the vehicle lift from the garage.

Lúcás greeted me with a slightly wary look, holding the back door open for me to climb in before making his way around to the driver’s seat.

“You sure about that address you sent me, Miss?” he asked, watching me through the rearview mirror. “That’s, uh, not one of your usual spots.”

“No, it’s not,” I agreed, giving him a cheerful smile before settling into my seat in the back of the car and waiting.

Lúcás didn’t report directly to Papa, but I knew he’d gossip about this outing with some of the other staff and it could find its way back to my parents’ ears via Graeme.

I’d been living alone for over a decade now, but I only had the illusion of freedom. My parents were still hovering, monitoring my every move until there was an appropriate alpha in my life who they could offload the job onto.

My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out of my purse, silencing it before checking the message.

Stasia: Can’t you reactivate your social media profiles? It’s strange to not have anything to send to Hugo.

Inika: I deleted them all, sorry.

The last thing I needed was to carry around societal pressure in my pocket—I got plenty of it everywhere else.

Stasia: Inika!!!

Inika: Does this guy actually want to meet me?

Stasia: How can you even ask that? Who wouldn’t want to meet you?

That absolutely did not answer my question. I put my phone away, watching out the window as we crossed the river. I was glad that Hugo appeared to be just as apathetic about this whole setup as I was—it would be much worse if he was going into this intending to pursue me before he’d even met me. It was the norm, but it was distressing every time.

“We’re here,” Lúcás said uneasily, pulling up in front of a dance academy with peeling blue paint that looked like it had seen better days. “You’re sure this is the right place?”

“Quite sure.” I shot him a quick smile in the rearview mirror, smoothing down my shorts and grabbing my purse.

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