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“You said you can’t be bothered to cook for yourself,” he says out of the blue. “What about Frieda?”

I tear off some of the bread and dip it in the sauce. “We broke up.”

“Oh.” He looks startled. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.”

It occurs to me then that maybe that’s why he was initially uncomfortable with me staying with them. He thought I had a girlfriend, and he knows how I feel about Vix.

“Did you have a girlfriend?” Millie asks.

“Don’t be nosy,” Vix tells her, but I just smile at her.

“I did, but I don’t now.”

“What happened?” she wants to know.

“Millie!”

“What?”

“It’s okay,” I tell Vix, then look back at the little girl. Her big brown eyes are just like her mother’s. “Sometimes relationships don’t work out, that’s all.”

“Why not?”

I hesitate, and Vix gives me an embarrassed look. “I’m so sorry,” she mouths.

My lips curve up. “When you start dating, it’s like shopping for a new coat. You try different people on to see if they fit. Sometimes you find the right one immediately. Other times, you wear one for a bit and then decide you don’t like the collar or the buttons, so you try another.”

“So she didn’t fit?”

“No, unfortunately not.”

“Are you going to try another coat?”

I have a sip of wine, then, feeling daring, I say, “The one I wanted wasn’t in the shops. I need to wait for it to go back on sale.”

Vix is busy buttering a piece of bread, and she doesn’t even look up at me. She has no idea I’m talking about her.

Rudolph sits back in his seat, though, and sips from his wine glass as he meets my eyes. He looks amused rather than cross, but he doesn’t say anything.

“I don’t want a coat,” Millie says, stabbing a piece of sausage. “I want a cape, like Superman.”

That makes us all laugh. Vix puts her arm around her shoulders and kisses her hair. “If you want a cape, sweetheart, you can have a cape.”

We continue to chat until we’ve finished, and then we rinse the plates and stack the dishwasher.

“How about a game of Outfoxed while we wait for our dinner to go down?” Vix suggests.

Millie squeals, and Rudolph gives a good-natured smile. “Why not?”

We go into the living room, and Vix collects the board game and sets it up on the coffee table. Millie announces that a pot pie has gone missing, and we need to roll for clues and work out which fox has stolen it before they escape.

Much hilarity ensues as I provide voices for all the suspects, making both Millie and her mother giggle, and luckily we catch the culprit before he disappears down a fox hole.

“Right,” Vix states when we’re done, “bath time!”

“Aw…” Millie replies, disappointed.

“Then I’ll read you Hairy Maclary,” I tell her, and she squeals and runs up the stairs. Vix winks at us, then follows her more sedately.