My mind blared, but it took me a moment to connect the dots. If Max Carpenter was cooking at his house, that meant we were having lunch where Eliza lived.
Also, that Eliza would be there.
With my whole immediate family.
The same woman I’d spent the past 24 hours having outrageously hot sex with.
This weekend had already proved it could rival anything that had gone before in weirdness. But now, it was taking it that step too far.
“No,” I told her.
“No?”
How to word this? “I mean, Margot’s the best chef. I don’t want Max’s cooking. Can’t we tell her we want to have it at her house?”
Katy looked at me like I was mad. “Feel free to call her, but she sounded all frothy and happy, like this was a big deal when she called this morning. I figure, we have to support her. She’s supported us enough over the past couple of years.”
There was that.
I closed my eyes.
This was going to be an utter disaster.
I slid open the door and said hi to Bryce.
“Morning, favourite sister-in-law.” Always his favourite joke.
“Aunty Boppy!” shouted Lily.
“Guck girl!” said Vivien, sucking on her fist and pointing at herself with her other hand.
“That’s right, you’re going to be good girls for lunch, aren’t you?” Katy told them.
I wasn’t sure the same could apply to me. The shock of what was about to happen was a little too much. My brain could not compute.
If you’d toldme this morning when Eliza was riding my face that we’d be sat with both our families around a dinner table having Sunday lunch in a few hours, I would have laughed. Yet, here we were, with Margot in high cackle mode, so wired and wanting everything to go well, her jaw hadn’t unclenched since I walked through the door.
And what a door it was. Margot didn’t go for men without money, and Max certainly fitted the bill. When Eliza told me she was living with her dad temporarily, she’d forgotten to mention the pool and games room, sweeping driveway and the small matter of seven bedrooms. We could all move in here and still never see each other. However, right now, there were eight of us huddled around the dining table, and it seemed like a criminal waste of so much house.
I reached over and helped myself to another Yorkshire pudding, figuring that carbing up was a good thing to do in the face of so much ‘what-the-actual-fuck-ness’.
“How was your pop star, and did she agree to the deal?” Margot asked, her floral dress dipping just enough to catch Max’s attention.
“She did.” Eliza’s voice was like hot honey being poured on me.
I wanted to lick it.
I needed to calm the fuck down.
But honestly, I was still recovering.
“She agreed to the whole deal, but we’ve got to move fast before her summer festival schedule kicks in,” I added. “She agreed to wear the brand, she loved the idea of a special edition, and she even proposed a future single tie-in.”
I couldn’t look at Eliza, so I focused on my lunch. Roast beef with all the trimmings. It was very good. Max could cook.
Could his daughter cook, too? Would she ever cook for me?
Stop it.
