Page 49 of Excess

A booster seat and a smoothie later, we headed back to Mayfair, with Freya talking a mile a minute about the glitter slime she’d made at her friend’s house.

Considering how unaccustomed I was to being around children—especially without another adult there as a buffer—it was a surprisingly easy experience. I suspected that Freya was so used to being around adults that she wholly expected to be spoken to like one anyway.

“This is your house?” she asked, flatting her nose to the window as the enormous double doors opened, allowing Lúcás to drive us directly into the courtyard.

“It is.” I suddenly felt quite sheepish about it, imagining how large it looked from her perspective. Maybe I should call a realtor and just let the mid-life crisis run its course.

“Wow,” Freya whispered. “It’s like a castle.”

“It is a bit,” I agreed, my face heating as I caught Lúcás’s eye in the rearview mirror.

Graeme met us in the courtyard as we climbed out of the vehicle, his mouth pressed into a thin line. Undoubtedly, Mama had already heard all about this. I was selfishly glad that her nervous temperament meant she wouldn’t storm over here herself. She never went anywhere without Papa.

“This is a change in routine,” he clipped. I could have sworn I felt my blood pressure rise in real time.

“It is,” I agreed. “Come on, Freya. Let’s go say hi to your uncle so he knows you got here safely.”

She marvelled over everything as we headed up the stairs, trailing her fingers along the wall of windows in a way that I knew would deeply distress Graeme later. It wasn’t the most kid-friendly of homes.

“There you are,” Blake said, peering down at us from the scaffold above. “Everything alright?” he asked, looking at me.

“Fine,” I assured him. “I thought we could go and make some lunch for all of us, Freya. What do you think?”

“Okay,” she agreed instantly, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

“You don’t have to do that,” Blake said, still staring at me. “Frey can just camp out here and watch stuff on my phone. Don’t feel like you need to entertain her.”

“That’s no fun—it’s all dusty and noisy here. We can watch a movie on the big screen downstairs. It’s really no hassle, Blake. I’ll get some work done at the same time.”

“Do you have a chef?” Freya asked once we were back in the kitchen. “Like at a real palace?”

“Sadly, no,” I laughed. My parents employed a cook, but they entertained a lot more than I did. “But I quite like cooking. How about you?”

Freya climbed up onto one of the barstools, briefly making my heart stop in my chest until I was confident she wasn’t going to tip over.

“Not really.” She shrugged.

“I respect that. Do you eat prawns?”

She nodded, swinging her feet as I meandered around the kitchen, pulling out supplies. I’d asked Graeme to pick up the prawns with the vague idea of doing a prawn curry, but a risotto would be faster and easier, and it seemed more child-friendly.

What did kids even eat? I didn’t own any chicken nuggets. I made a mental note that Graeme should add some of those to the grocery order next time. He’d love that.

I poured Freya a cup of water, setting it down in front of her on the island. Should I give her a snack while she waited for lunch? No, risotto didn’t take long. I didn’t want her to spoil her appetite.

That sounded responsible, right?

“Is Uncle Blake your boyfriend?” Freya asked nonchalantly as I started peeling and deveining the prawns, immediately making me fumble the one I was holding.

“Um, no.” I laughed, though it sounded a little less natural than I’d hoped for.

“Why not?”

From the mouths of babes…

“We’re just friends.”

Freya pursed her lips, as though she was deciding whether she was going to start an argument or not.

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