When Chocolate Is Not Enough... by Nina Harrington

together, you should know that Ormandy is Kate’s maiden name. She decided to go back to it after we divorced. So please allow me to introduce myself.’ He bowed slightly from the waist. ‘Charles Maximilian Treveleyn, at your service. But, as I’ve already said, please call me Max.’ He flashed her that grin again. ‘Can you be at my place first thing Wednesday morning?’
    An hour later Max was dealing with another troublesome female.

    ‘Come on, Daddy. We are going to be
so
late.’ Freya sighed with an exaggerated
humph
.
    Max held on tightly to her tiny hand and pretended to be dragged along as they skipped across the road between the parked cars in the exclusive London suburb where Kate lived, then laughed down at her once they were safe on the pavement.
    ‘Hey, what’s all the rush for? Ashamed to be seen out with your old dad in public? Is that it? If you like I can take my jacket off and wear it as a hat. Or maybe carry you over my shoulder? Would that make it better?’
    ‘No. Silly Daddy. My TV programme starts in ten whole minutes.’
    Freya giggled as Max deliberately took smaller and slower steps. Just to prolong these precious few minutes when he was a real dad, picking up his daughter from school, and not just some tourist who breezed into her life every so now and then. Because no matter how often they spoke on the phone this was the real thing.
    He glanced down at her as they slowed outside a cake shop. Freya had inherited her mother’s lovely blonde hair and button nose and fine features, but those blue eyes which were currently ogling the window display of horrendously expensive cupcakes were the same ones he looked at in the mirror. Someday, way too soon, that killer combination would be breaking boys’ hearts.
    Luckily for him, apparently there were also genes for greediness and a sweet tooth.
    ‘Look, Daddy. Look! Mummy forgot to ask the man who brings the boxes from the supermarket for biscuits. Again. And Tracey will be coming over to play soon.’
    Freya looked up and gestured with her hand for him to come down to her level so that she could whisper.
    ‘I am going to have my party at the swimming pool. But you have to promise not to tell anybody,
ever
, because it is a totally
mega-
secret.’ She pressed her forefinger to her lips for emphasis and made a loud shushing sound. ‘
It has to be a surprise
. But Tracey has to know because we have to plan what we are going to do and what we are going to wear and what games we are going to play and—oh, loads of stuff like that. It’s so exciting that last night I kept waking up, thinking of all the things that we could do. It was amazing. And cool.’
    Max nodded seriously. ‘Not a word,’ he said, and used his right finger and thumb to run a pretend zipper across his mouth, then twisted an imaginary button in the middle. He narrowed his eyes and looked to the right and then to the left, then back into her wide blueeyes. ‘I hope that you haven’t forgotten the most important thing?’
    ‘What’s that?’ Freya asked in a hushed excited squeak.
    ‘The chocolate rabbits, of course,’ Max teased, and then clapped his hand over his mouth.
    Freya rolled her eyes and took a tighter hold of his hand. ‘I had those when I was, like, five. We don’t
do
chocolate rabbits any more, Daddy.’
    ‘You don’t?’ He blinked. ‘How about ice cream with sprinkles? Or homemade cupcakes? Or doughnuts with cream and jam and icing and all kinds of gooeyness squishing out from the sides? Do you do them?’
    She nodded furiously, and licked her lips and rubbed her tummy at the same time.
    ‘Well, in that case we had better make a start on the baking—but how about we take a few of those cakes in the window home to practise on first?’
    He did not have to say it twice, and Freya leapt into the shop, completely unaware of the heartache she left in her wake.
    He would have liked to celebrate Freya’s birthday at his cottage, with just the two of