Proof Of Their One-Night Passion
Louise Fuller
A baby revelation beneath the Northern Lights Lottie Dawson is stunned to finally learn the identity of her child’s father…the irresistible stranger she spent one incredible night with. Never having known her own father, Lottie must find Ragnar Stone for her daughter’s sake—despite being terrified of the way he makes her feel… Ragnar’s chaotic childhood inspired his billion-dollar dating app. He must keep romantic attachments simple. When Lottie reveals that their heart-stopping encounter has had consequences, there’s no question that Ragnar will demand his baby. But his feelings for Lottie…? They’re infinitely more complicated!
A baby revelation beneath the northern lights
Lottie Dawson is stunned to finally learn the identity of her child’s father, the irresistible stranger she spent one incredible night with. Never having known her own father, Lottie must find Ragnar Stone for her daughter’s sake, despite being terrified of the way he makes her feel…
Ragnar’s chaotic childhood inspired his billion-dollar dating app. He must keep romantic attachments simple. When Lottie reveals their heart-stopping encounter had consequences, there’s no question that Ragnar will demand his baby. But his feelings for Lottie? They’re infinitely more complicated!
LOUISE FULLER was once a tomboy who hated pink and always wanted to be the Prince—not the Princess! Now she enjoys creating heroines who aren’t pretty push-overs but strong, believable women. Before writing for Mills & Boon she studied literature and philosophy at university, and then worked as a reporter on her local newspaper. She lives in Tunbridge Wells with her impossibly handsome husband Patrick and their six children.
Also by Louise Fuller (#u89c4ce47-236d-5f0a-a921-da49462a4bba)
Vows Made in Secret
A Deal Sealed by Passion
Claiming His Wedding Night
Blackmailed Down the Aisle
Kidnapped for the Tycoon’s Baby
Surrender to the Ruthless Billionaire
Revenge at the Altar
Demanding His Secret Son
Passion in Paradise collection
Consequences of a Hot Havana Night
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
Proof of Their One-Night Passion
Louise Fuller
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08848-0
PROOF OF THEIR ONE-NIGHT PASSION
© 2019 Louise Fuller
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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Note to Readers (#u89c4ce47-236d-5f0a-a921-da49462a4bba)
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For endlessly listening to my rants and for
sending me cheering photos of chickens and rabbits.
All my love. X
Contents
Cover (#u4dde4835-f0b8-5a0f-a27e-9b5d0060f96f)
Back Cover Text (#ue5876271-ce83-5ecd-91e5-42c95e27a87f)
About the Author (#u370acfc2-dcdb-593d-927b-915c7bd09ab8)
Booklist (#u5da8799c-f3c0-50f2-9370-e588379c5790)
Title Page (#u519391ca-f9d4-5131-98d6-1293dc6823b8)
Copyright (#ua1071439-2b3b-5a48-a808-0869507213f3)
Note to Readers
Dedication (#u6d0e35e7-1430-5e8f-b3c9-644cf7c85a2e)
CHAPTER ONE (#uee02356c-7b3d-5e26-83dd-7685ee8002fb)
CHAPTER TWO (#u84657f4a-842d-5628-9493-45d789df1cce)
CHAPTER THREE (#u19c0793a-434d-5d27-94d5-0bfec5d15ed3)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u89c4ce47-236d-5f0a-a921-da49462a4bba)
RUBBING HER EYES, Lottie Dawson drew the curtain back and gazed out of her bedroom window. The garden was in darkness, but she could hear the steady patter of the rain, and in the glow of the night light the glass was speckled with fat blobs of water.
Yawning, she glanced over at the clock beside her bed.
It was only five-thirty a.m., an unpleasant hour at most times of the year, but particularly so on a cold, wet November day in rural Suffolk. But for once her eleven-month-old daughter’s early-morning routine was an advantage. Today they were going to London, and she actually needed to get up.
Turning round, she glanced over to where Sóley was standing in her cot, her blonde curls flattened against her head, her mouth clamped around the edge of her teddy bear.
As Lottie walked towards her she held up her fat little arms and began dancing on the spot.
‘Hi.’ Leaning forward, she lifted her daughter up, pressing her body close.
Her heart swelled. She was so beautiful, so perfect. Born in December, on the shortest day of the year, she had been as golden and welcome as the unseasonal sun that had come out to celebrate her birth and inadvertently suggested her name.
‘Let’s go get you some milk,’ she murmured, inhaling the clean, sweet smell of her daughter’s skin.
Downstairs, she switched the light on in the kitchen and frowned. A frying pan sat in the sink and the remains of a bacon sandwich were congealing on a plate on the crumb-strewn table. Beside it stood an open tool box and a tattoo gun.
Lottie gritted her teeth. She loved living with her brother Lucas, and he was brilliant with Sóley, but he was six foot four, and it sometimes felt that their tiny cottage wasn’t big enough for him—especially as his idea of domesticity was taking his boots off to sleep.
Tutting under her breath, she shifted Sóley’s weight to her hip. ‘Look at all this mess Uncle Lucas has made,’ she said softly, gazing down into her daughter’s wide blue eyes.
There was no time to deal with it now. Not if she was going to get herself and Sóley dressed and up to London by eleven o’clock. As she filled the kettle her pulse skipped forward. The gallery in Islington was tiny, but it was hosting her first solo show since giving birth.
Incredibly, some of the pieces had already sold and it was great to know that her work had an audience but, more importantly, the Barker Foundation wanted to talk to her about a commission. Getting funding was a huge step up. Not only would it allow her to continue working without having to teach in the evenings, but she might also be able to extend her workshop.
Glancing into the living room at the dark shape on her sofa, she imagined her brother’s eye-rolling reaction to her pragmatism.
Ever since she’d bought the cottage he’d been teasing her about selling out, joking that getting a mortgage was the first step towards the dark side. As far as he and their mother Izzy knew the money had come from a private commission, and Lucas had a very dim view of private clients believing they were only interested in buying art as an investment rather than out of aesthetic appreciation.
She bit her lip. She hated lying to them, but telling the truth—that the deposit for the cottage had been given to her by her biological father, a man who up until two years ago hadn’t even known she existed—was just not an option.
Having tested the milk on her tongue, she handed the bottle to Sóley and they both retreated upstairs. Pulling open drawers, she thought back to the moment when she had finally met Alistair Bannon in a motorway service station.
Her stomach clenched. She’d spent so many hours as a child staring into a mirror, trying to work out which of her features came from that man, but even before he had opened his mouth it had been obvious that he was not looking to reconnect with a fully-grown daughter. It wasn’t that he didn’t accept her as his child—just that he felt no urgency to know her, and their meeting had been strange and strained and short.
From downstairs, she heard the clump of boots hitting the floor. Lucas was up.
She wondered how her brother would react if she showed him the letter her father had sent afterwards. It was polite, carefully worded to offer no obvious rejection but no hope either, basically saying she was a remarkable young woman and he wished her well. Enclosed with the letter had been a cheque for an amount that he hoped would cover his financial contributions for the years he had missed.
Staring at his signature on the cheque, she had felt sick, stunned that she could be reduced to a four-digit sum, and she’d been tempted to tear it up. Only then she’d got pregnant.
Stripping off, she gazed down at her naked body, at the silvery stretch marks that were still faintly visible on her stomach.
Becoming a mother had been so far away in her future plans that she hadn’t even suspected she was pregnant but, having been unable to shift a persistent stomach upset she had gone to the doctor, and three days and one urine sample later she had officially been having a baby.
A baby who, like her, was going to grow up never knowing her father. She still wasn’t entirely sure how it had happened. They had used protection, but that first time had been so frantic, so urgent, somehow it must have failed.
Shivering, she pulled on her clothes, trying to ignore the sudden thumping of her heart.
She could still remember the night her daughter was conceived. She doubted she would ever forget it. It was like a fever in her blood. The heat and the frenzy had faded, but the memory remained in her bones and on her skin, so that sometimes she’d catch sight of the back of a blond head and a pair of wide shoulders and would have to stop and close her eyes against the urgency of wanting him.
Ragnar Steinn.
She would never forget him either.
It would be impossible.
It would be like trying to forget the sun.
But, despite having the muscular body and clean-cut profile of a Norse god, he had shown himself to be depressingly human in his behaviour. Not only had he lied about where he was staying, and about wanting to spend the day with her, he’d sneaked off before she’d woken up.
And yet together they had made Sóley, and no amount of lies or hardship or loneliness would ever make her regret her beautiful daughter.
‘Looks like we’ve got snow coming,’ Lucas said as she walked into the tiny sitting room, holding Sóley on her hip and munching a piece of toast.
He had switched on the ancient television and was wolfing down the remains of his bacon sandwich.
Catching sight of her expression, he grinned sheepishly. ‘Sorry about the mess. Look, I’ll tidy up, I promise, and I’ll chop that wood today. Get it all stacked before the temperatures drop. Do you want me to have little Miss Sunshine?’
She shook her head. ‘No, but you could give us a lift to the station.’
‘Okay—but only if I get a cuddle.’
He held up his hands and Sóley leaned towards him, grabbing at his shirt collar. Watching her brother’s face soften Lottie felt her anger and resentment fade as he pulled the little girl into his arms, wincing as she reached for his hair and grabbed it tightly in her fist.
Unpeeling her fingers, he handed his niece a piece of banana and glanced up at his sister. ‘You couldn’t put the kettle on as you’re up—?’
Glancing at the clock on the wall, Lottie did a quick calculation in her head. There was time before she had to leave. She sighed. ‘I’ll make some tea.’
Rinsing out the teapot, she put the kettle on the stove.
‘You know, I think Sóley is a lot more with it than most kids her age,’ she heard Lucas say.
‘You do?’ Smiling, she poured water into the pot. For someone so laid-back, her brother was extremely partisan and competitive when it came to his niece.
‘Yeah—I mean, she’s watching the news like she knows what’s going on.’
‘Good. That means we can outvote you when the football’s on.’
‘No, seriously, she’s completely transfixed by this guy—Lottie, come and look.’
‘Okay, I’m coming.’
Walking back into the sitting room, she looked over to where her daughter had pulled herself up in front of the television.
Lucas was right, Sóley did seem to be fascinated. Pulling her gaze away from her daughter’s plump cheeks, Lottie glanced at the screen.
The interviewer—a woman—was gazing at the man opposite her with the same fascination as her daughter, so that for a moment Lottie only registered his blond hair and eyes that were the cool, clear blue of a glacier. Then slowly his features came into focus and she felt her mouth slide open.
It was him.
It was Ragnar.
She had wanted to find him after she’d found out she was pregnant, and then again when their daughter was born. But both of them had shut down their profiles on the dating app they’d used to meet up, and there had been no trace of any Ragnar Steinn—or at least none that looked like him—on any internet search.
Her jaw tensed. Not that it would have changed anything if she had managed to get in touch. His clumsy lies had made it clear enough that he’d only been interested in her for one night only, so he was hardly going to jump at the news that he’d fathered a child with her.
She watched mutely, ice working its way up her spine, as Sóley began patting the screen. Her heart was jumping in her chest.
‘Who is he?’ she asked. ‘I mean, why is he on TV?’
She had been aiming for offhand, but her voice sounded thin and breathless.
Thankfully, though, Lucas was too distracted to notice.
‘Ragnar Stone. He owns that dating app. Apparently he’s launching a VIP version.’
‘Dating app?’ she said woodenly. It felt as if she had stopped breathing.
She was about to ask which one, but there was no point. She already knew the answer. Only she’d thought he was like her—someone using the app to meet people. She hadn’t known that he owned it—in fact, thinking about it, she was certain that he hadn’t mentioned that to her.
‘You know—ice/breakr?’
Lucas glanced up at her, and she watched his face still as his brain caught up with his mouth.
‘Course you do…’ he said quietly.
It had been Lucas who had signed her up to the app. Lucas who had coaxed her into replying to the ‘ice breaker’ question. It could be on any topic from politics to holidays. Not all of the questions were profound, but they were designed to spark an instinctive response that apparently helped match couples more accurately than a photo and a list of likes and dislikes. She knew he felt responsible for everything that had happened, but she was too stunned and angry to dismiss his obvious guilt.
Ragnar Stone!
So he’d even lied about his name.
And he hadn’t just been using the app—he owned it.
She breathed out unsteadily, trying to absorb this new version of the facts as she’d known them, grateful that her brother’s attention was still fixed on the TV and not on her face. Grateful, too, that she hadn’t shown him Ragnar’s profile at the time.
Her skin was trembling.
‘Is he in London?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, for the launch. He’s got an office here.’ Lucas wiped Sóley’s mouth with the hem of his shirt and met her gaze. ‘One of those converted warehouses in Docklands. You know Nick?’
She nodded. Nick was one of Lucas’s cohorts. He played drums in their band, but in his day job he was a graffiti artist.
‘He did this huge old-school design the whole length of Ragnar Stone’s building. He showed me some pictures and it looks really sick.’ He nodded his head approvingly.
Lottie cleared her throat. ‘Did he meet him?’
Lucas frowned. ‘Nah. Best you can hope with a guy like Stone is that you catch a ride on his slipstream.’
She blinked. Yes, she supposed it was. That was basically what had happened twenty months ago in her hotel room. If she hadn’t understood that before, her brother’s words made it clear now that she and Sóley were not permanent features of that ride.
‘So what time do you want me to drop you off?’
Taking a shallow breath, she looked over at her brother, but her eyes never reached his face. Instead she felt her gaze stretch past him to the TV screen, like a compass point seeking the magnetic north. She stared at Ragnar’s face, the artist in her responding to the clean symmetry of his features and the woman in her remembering the pressure of his mouth. He was so beautiful, and so very like his blonde, blue-eyed daughter in every way—except the dimples in her cheeks, which were entirely her own.
She felt something twist inside her. What if it was more than just looks? Growing up not knowing where half her DNA came from had been hard when her mother and brother were so alike in character. It had made her feel incomplete and unfinished, and even finally meeting her father hadn’t changed that. It had been too late for them to form a bond and get to know one another.
But would it have been different if he’d found out about her when she was a baby? And, more importantly, could she consciously deny her own child the chance of having what she had so desperately wanted for herself?
The seconds ticked by as she wondered what to do. He would have a PA for sure—only she couldn’t tell them why she was ringing. But would they put her through to him without a reason? She bit her lip. More importantly, could she honestly go through with it? Tell him over the phone that he was a father?
She cleared her throat. ‘Actually, Lucas, could you have Sóley for me after all?’ she said, glancing over at her daughter. ‘There’s something I need to do. In person.’
Being interviewed was probably his least favourite part of being a CEO, Ragnar Stone decided, as he stood up and shook hands with the earnest-faced young man in front of him. It was so repetitive, and most of the answers could easily have been given by even the most junior member of his PR department. But, as his head of media Madeline Thomas had told him that morning, people were ‘in thrall to the personality behind the brand’, so he had dutifully worked his way through twenty-two interviews with just a half-hour break for lunch.
And now he was done.
Shrugging off his jacket, he loosened his tie and pulled a black hoodie over his head as his PA Adam came into the room.
‘What time is the car coming to pick me up in the morning?’ he asked, reaching down to pick up a slim laptop from his desk.
‘Six-thirty. You have a meeting with James Milner at seven, you’re seeing the graphics team at eight, and then breakfast with Caroline Woodward.’
‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ Ragnar smiled briefly at his PA. ‘And thanks for keeping it moving today, Adam.’
Stepping into the lift, he ran his hand over his face. Only one more week and then, once this final round of publicity was over and the new app went live, he was going to take some time away from all this.
He knew he’d left it too long. His annual two-week recharge ritual had dwindled to a couple of snatched days, but since launching ice/breakr two years ago life had been insane.
Working long hours, eating and sleeping on the move in a series of hotel rooms, and of course in the background his gorgeous, crazy, messy family, acting out their own modern-day Norse saga of betrayal and blackmail.
Glancing down at his phone, he grimaced. Three missed calls from his half-sister Marta, four from his mother, six texts from his stepmother Anna, and twelve from his stepbrother Gunnar.
Stretching his neck and shoulders, he slipped his phone into the pocket of his hoodie. None of it would be urgent. It never was. But, like all drama queens, his family loved an audience.
For once they could wait. Right now he wanted to hit the gym and then crash out.
The lift doors opened and he flipped his hood up over his head, nodding at the receptionists as he walked past their desk and out into the dark night air.
He didn’t hear their polite murmurs of goodnight, but he heard the woman’s voice so clearly that it seemed to come from inside his head.
‘Ragnar.’
In the moment that followed he realised two things. One, he recognised the voice, and two, his heart was beating hard and fast like a hailstorm against his ribs.
As he turned he got an impression of slightness, coupled with tension, and then his eyes focused on the woman standing in front of him.
Her light brown hair was longer, her pale face more wary, but she looked just as she had twenty-odd months ago. And yet she seemed different in a way he couldn’t pin down. Younger, maybe? Or perhaps she just looked younger because most of the women in his circles routinely wore make-up, whereas she was bare-faced.
‘I was just passing. I’ve got an exhibition up the road…’ She waved vaguely towards the window. ‘I saw you coming out.’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t know if you remember me…?’
‘I remember.’
He cut across her, but only because hearing her voice was messing with his head. It was a voice he had never forgotten—a voice that had called out his name under very different circumstances in a hotel room less than a mile away from where they were standing.
He watched her pupils dilate, and knew that she was thinking the same thing.
For a second they stared at one another, the memory of the night they shared quivering between them, and then, leaning forward, he gave her a quick, neutral hug.
Or it was meant to be neutral, but as his cheek brushed against hers the warm, floral scent of her skin made his whole body hum like a power cable.
Stepping back, he gave her a small, taut smile and something pulsed between them, a flicker of corresponding heat that made his skin grow tight.
‘Of course I remember. It’s Lottie—Lottie Dawson.’
‘Yes, that’s my name.’
Seeing the accusation in her eyes, he felt his chest tighten, remembering the lies he’d told her. It wasn’t hard to remember. Growing up in the truth-shifting environment of his family had left him averse to lying, but that night had been an exception—a necessary and understandable exception. He’d met her through a dating app, but as the app’s creator and owner, anonymity had seemed like a sensible precaution.
But his lies hadn’t all been about concealing his identity. His family’s chaotic and theatrical affairs had left him wary of even the hint of a relationship, so when he’d woken to find himself planning the day ahead with Lottie he’d got up quietly and left—because planning a day with a woman was not on his agenda.
Ever.
His life was already complicated enough. He had parents and step-parents, and seven whole and half-and step siblings scattered around the world, and not one of them had made a relationship last for any length of time. Not only that, their frequent and overlapping affairs and break-ups, and the inevitable pain and misery they caused, seemed to be an unavoidable accompaniment to any kind of commitment.
He liked life to be straightforward. Simple. Honest. It was why he’d created ice/breakr in the first place. Why make dating so needlessly confusing? When by asking and answering one carefully curated question people could match their expectations and so avoid any unnecessary emotional trauma.
Or that was the theory.
Only clearly there been some kind of glitch—a ghost in the machine, maybe?
‘So it’s not Steinn, then?’
His eyes met hers. She was not classically beautiful, but she was intriguing. Both ordinary and extraordinary at once. Mousy hair, light brown eyes… And yet her face had a capacity for expression that was mesmerising.
And then there was her voice.
It wasn’t just the huskiness that made his skin tingle, but the way she lingered over the syllables of certain words, like a blues singer. Had he judged her simply on her voice, he might have assumed she had a lifestyle to match—too many late nights and a history of heartache, but their night together had revealed a lack of confidence and a clumsiness that suggested the opposite. Not that he’d asked or minded. In fact it had only made her feverish response to him even more arousing.
Feeling his body respond to the memory of her flowering desire, he blocked his thoughts and shrugged. ‘In a way it is. Steinn is Icelandic for Stone. It was just a play on words.’
Her eyes held his. ‘Oh, you mean like calling your dating app ice/breakr?’
So she knew about the app. ‘I wanted to try it out for myself. A dummy run, if you like.’
She flinched and he felt his shoulders tense.
‘I didn’t intend to deceive you.’
‘About that? Or about wanting to spend the day with me?’ She frowned. ‘Wouldn’t it have been fairer and more honest if you’d just said you didn’t want to spend any more time with me?’
Ragnar stared at her in silence, gritting his teeth against the sting of her words. Yes, it would. But that would have been a different kind of lie.
Lying didn’t come naturally to him—his whole family played fast and loose with the facts and even as a child he’d found it exhausting and stressful. But that night he’d acted out of character, starting from the moment he’d played games with his American father’s name and booked a table as Mr Steinn.
And then, the morning after, confronted by his body’s fierce reaction to hers, and that uncharacteristic and unsettling need he’d felt to prolong their time together, the lies had kept coming.
‘I didn’t—’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ She swiped his answer away with a swift jerk of her hand. ‘That’s not why I’m here.’ She glanced past him into the street. ‘There’s a café open down the road…’
He knew it. It was one of those brightly lit artisan coffee shops with bearded baristas and clean wooden counters. Nothing like the shadowy, discreet bar where they’d met before.
His heartbeat stalled. He could still remember her walking in. It had been one of those sharply cold March evenings that reminded him of home, and there had been a crush of people at the bar, escaping the wind’s chill.
He’d been on the verge of leaving.
A combination of work and family histrionics had shrunk his private life to early-morning sessions with his trainer and the occasional dinner with an investor when, finally, it had dawned on him that his app had been launched for nearly three months.
On a whim, he’d decided to try it out.
But, watching the couples dotted about the bar, he had felt a familiar unease clutch at his stomach.
Out of habit, he’d got there early. It was a discipline he embraced—perhaps because since childhood any chance to assemble his thoughts in peace had always been such a rarity. But when Lottie had walked through the door rational thought had been swept away. Her cheeks had been flushed, and she’d appeared to be wearing nothing but a pair of slim-heeled boots and a short black trench coat.
Sadly she’d been clothed underneath but he’d stayed sitting down. If using his own dating app had been impulsive, then not leaving by another door had been the first time he’d done something so utterly unconsidered.
‘And you want me to join you there?’
Her eyes met his and there was a beat of silence before she nodded.
His pulse accelerated.
It was nearly two years since that night.
He was exhausted.
His head of security would be appalled.
And yet—
His eyes rested on the soft cushion of her mouth.
The coffee shop was still busy enough that they had to queue for their drinks, but they managed to find a table.
‘Thank you.’ He gestured towards his espresso.
His wallet had been in his hand, but she had sidestepped neatly in front of him, her soft brown eyes defying him to argue with her. Now, though, those same brown eyes were busily avoiding his, and for the first time since she’d called out his name he wondered why she had tracked him down.
He drank his coffee, relishing the heat and the way the caffeine started to block the tension in his back.
‘So, I’m all yours,’ he said quietly.
She stiffened. ‘Hardly.’
He sighed. ‘Is that what this is about? Me giving you the wrong name.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘No, of course not. I’m not—’ She stopped, frowning. ‘Actually, I wasn’t just passing, and I’m not here for myself.’ She took a breath. ‘I’m here for Sóley.’
Her face softened into a smile and he felt a sudden urge to reach out and caress the curve of her lip, to trigger such a smile for himself.
‘It’s a pretty name.’
She nodded, her smile freezing.
It was a pretty name—one he’d always liked. One you didn’t hear much outside of Iceland. Only what had it got to do with him?
Watching her fingers tremble against her cup, he felt his ribs tighten. ‘Who’s Sóley?’
She was quiet for less than a minute, only it felt much longer—long enough for his brain to click through all the possible answers to the impossible one.
He watched her posture change from defensive to resolute.
‘She’s your daughter. Our daughter.’
He stared at her in silence, but a cacophony of questions was ricocheting inside his head.
Not the how or the when or the where, but the why. Of course he’d used condoms but that first time he’d been rushing. And he’d known that. So why hadn’t he checked everything was okay? Why had he allowed the heat of their encounter to blot out common sense?
But the answers to those questions would have to wait.
‘Okay…’
Shifting in her seat, she frowned. ‘“Okay”?’ she repeated. ‘Do you understand what I just said?’
‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘You’re saying I got you pregnant.’
‘You don’t seem surprised,’ she said slowly.
He shrugged. ‘These things happen.’
To his siblings and half-siblings, even to his mother. But not to him. Never to him.
Until now.
‘And you believe me?’ She seemed confused, surprised?
Tilting his head, he held her gaze. ‘Honest answer?’
He was going to ask her what she would gain by lying. But before he could open his mouth her lip curled.
‘On past performance I’m not sure I can expect that. I mean, you lied about your name. And the hotel you were staying at. And you lied about wanting to spend the day with me.’
‘I didn’t plan on lying to you,’ he said quietly.
Her mouth thinned. ‘No, I’m sure it comes very naturally to you.’
‘You’re twisting my words.’
She shook her head. ‘You mean like saying Steinn instead of Stone?’
Pressing his spine into the wall behind him, he felt a tick of anger begin to pulse beneath his skin.
‘Okay, I was wrong to lie to you—but if you care about the truth so much then why have you waited so long to tell me that I have a daughter? I mean, she must be what…?’ He did a quick mental calculation. ‘Ten, eleven months?’
‘Eleven months,’ she said stiffly. ‘And I did want to tell you. I tried looking for you when I was pregnant, and then again when she was born. But the only Ragnar Steinns I could track down weren’t you.’ She shifted in her seat again. ‘I probably would never have found you if you hadn’t been on the TV.’
He looked at her again, and despite the rush of righteousness heating his blood he could see that she was nervous, could hear the undertone of strain beneath her bravado.
But then it was a hell of a thing to do. To face a man and tell him he had a child.
His heart began to beat faster.
Years spent navigating through the maelstrom of his family’s dramas had given him a cast-iron control over his feelings, and yet for some reason he couldn’t stop her panic and defiance from getting under his skin.
But letting feelings get in the way of the facts was not going to help the situation. Nor was it going to be much use to his eleventh-month-old daughter.
Right now he needed to focus on the practical.
‘Fortunately you did find me,’ he said calmly.
‘Here.’ She was pushing something across the table towards him, but he carried on talking.
‘So I’m guessing you want to talk money?’
At that moment a group of young men and women came into the café and began noisily choosing what to drink. As the noise swelled around them Lottie thought she might have misheard.
Only she knew that she hadn’t.
Ever since arriving in London that morning she’d been questioning whether she was doing the right thing, and the thought of seeing Ragnar again had made her stomach perform an increasingly complicated gymnastics routine. Her mood had kept alternating between angry and nervous, but when he’d walked out into the street her mood had been forgotten and a spasm of almost unbearable hunger had consumed everything.
If she’d thought seeing him on TV had prepared her for meeting him again then she’d been wrong. Beneath the street lighting his beauty had been as stark and shocking as the volcanic rock of his homeland.
And he was almost unbearably like the daughter they shared. Only now it would appear that, just like her own father, Ragnar seemed to have already decided the terms of his relationship.
‘Money?’ She breathed out unsteadily. The word tasted bitter in her mouth. ‘I didn’t come here to talk to you about money. I came here to talk about our daughter.’
Her heart felt suddenly too big for her chest. Why did this keep happening? Why did men think that they could reduce her life to some random sum of money?
‘Children cost money.’ He held her gaze. ‘Clearly you’ve been supporting her alone up until now and I want to fix that. I’ll need to talk to my lawyers, but I want you to know that you don’t need to worry about that anymore.’
I’m not worrying, she wanted to scream at him. She wasn’t asking to be helped financially, or fixed. In fact she wasn’t asking for anything at all.
‘I’ve not been alone. My mother helps, and my brother Lucas lives with me. He works as a tattooist so he can choose his own hours—’
‘A tattooist?’
Glancing up, she found his clear blue eyes examining her dispassionately, as if she was some flawed algorithm. She felt slightly sick—just as she had in those early months of the pregnancy. Only that had been a welcome sickness. A proof of new life, a sign of a strong pregnancy. Now, though, the sickness was down to the disconnect between the man who had reached for her so frantically in that hotel room and this cool-eyed stranger.
She stared at him in silence.
What made this strange, unnerving distance between them a hundred times harder was that she had let herself be distracted by his resemblance to Sóley. Let herself hope that the connection between Ragnar and his daughter would be more than it had been for her and her own father—not just bones and blood, but a willingness to claim her as his own.
But the cool, dispassionate way he had turned the conversation immediately to money was proof that he’d reached the limit of his parental involvement.
She cleared her throat. ‘I know you’re a rich man, Ragnar, but I didn’t come here to beg.’ She swallowed down her regret and disappointment. ‘This was a mistake. Don’t worry, though, it’s not one I’ll make again—so why don’t you get back to the thing that clearly matters most to you? Making money.’
Ragnar reached across the table, but even before he’d got to his feet she had scraped back her seat and snatched up her coat, and he watched in disbelief as she turned and fled from the cafe.
For a moment he considered chasing after her, but she was moving fast and no doubt would already have reached the underground station on the corner.
He sat back down; his chest tight with an all too familiar frustration.
Her behaviour—having a child with a complete stranger, keeping that child a secret, turning up unannounced to reveal the child’s existence and then storming off—could have come straight from his family’s playbook of chaos.
Glancing down, he felt his pulse scamper forward as for the first time he looked at what she’d pushed across the table. It was a photo of a little girl.
A little girl who looked exactly like him—Sóley.
Reaching out, he touched her face lightly. She was so small, so golden, just like her name. And he was not going to let her grow up with no influence but her chaotic mother and whatever ragtag family she had in tow.
He might love his own family, but he knew only too well the downside of growing up in the eye of a storm and he didn’t want that for his daughter.
So arrangements would have to be made.
Picking up the photo, he slid it into his wallet and pulled out his phone.
CHAPTER TWO (#u89c4ce47-236d-5f0a-a921-da49462a4bba)
HITCHING HER SLEEPING daughter further up on to her shoulder, Lottie glanced around the gallery.
Groups of people were moving slowly around the room, occasionally pausing to gaze more closely at the sketches and collages and sculpted resin objects before moving on again. It wasn’t rammed, but she was pleased—she really was. She was also exhausted.
‘Nearly over.’
She turned, eyes widening, and then began to smile as the woman standing beside her gave her a conspiratorial wink. Slim, blonde, and with the kind of cheekbones that grazed men’s eyes as they walked past, Georgina Hamilton was the gallery’s glamorous and incredibly competent co-owner, and despite the fact that she and Lottie were different in as many ways as it was possible to be, she had become an ally and fierce supporter.
Lottie screwed up her face. ‘Do I look that desperate?’
Her friend stared at her critically. ‘Only to me. To everyone else you probably just look artistically dishevelled.’ She glanced at the sleeping Sóley. ‘Do you want me to take her?’
Their eyes met and then they both began to giggle. They both knew that Georgina’s idea of hands-on childcare was choosing baby clothes in her cousin’s upmarket Chelsea boutique.
‘No, it’s okay. I don’t want to risk waking her.’ Lottie looked down at the top of her daughter’s soft, golden-haired head. ‘She’s been really unsettled the last couple of nights.’
And she wasn’t the only one.
Her cheeks were suddenly warm, and she tilted her head away from Georgina’s gaze. It was true that Sóley was struggling to fall asleep at night, but it was Ragnar who had actually been keeping her awake.
It wasn’t just the shock of seeing him again, or even his disappointingly predictable reduction of their daughter’s life to a financial settlement. It was the disconcerting formality between them.
She pressed her face into her daughter’s hair. The disconnect between her overtly erotic memories of the last time they’d met and his cool reserve in the coffee shop had made her feel as if she’d stepped through the looking glass. He had been at once so familiar, and yet so different. Gone was the passion and the febrile hunger, and in their place was a kind of measured, almost clinical gaze that had made her feel she was being judged—and found wanting.
Her heartbeat twitched. And yet running alongside their laboured conversation there had been something pulsing beneath the surface—a stirring of desire, something intimate yet intangible that had made her fingers clumsy as she’d tried to pick up her cup.
She blinked the thought away. Of course what had happened between them had clearly been a blip. After all, this was a man who had turned people’s need for intimacy into a global business worth billions—an ambition that was hardly compatible with empathy or passion.
Her jaw tightened. What was it he’d said about that night? Oh, yes, that it had been a ‘dummy run’ for his app. Well, she was a dummy for thinking he might have actually wanted to get to know his daughter.
From now on she was done with doing the right thing for the wrong people. She was only going to let the people she could trust get close—like the woman standing in front of her.
‘Thanks for staying, Georgina, and for everything you’ve done. I honestly don’t think I would have sold as well if you hadn’t been here.’
Swinging her cape of gleaming blonde hair over her shoulder, Georgina smiled back at her. ‘Oh, sweetie, you don’t need to thank me—firstly, it’s my job, and secondly it’s much better for the gallery to have a sold-out exhibition.’
‘Sold out?’ She blinked in confusion. ‘But I thought there were still three pieces left—those sketches and the collage—?’
Georgina shrugged. ‘Not any more. Rowley’s contacted me at lunchtime and bought all of them.’
Lottie felt her ribs tighten. Rowley’s was a prestigious art dealer with a Mayfair address and a client list of wealthy investors who flitted between Beijing, New York, and London, spending millions on houses and cars and emerging artists.
They also had an unrivalled reputation for discretion.
She opened her mouth, but Georgina was already shaking her head.
‘No, they didn’t give me a name.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘You don’t look very pleased.’
‘I am,’ Lottie protested.
After finding out she was pregnant, working had been a welcome distraction from the upheaval in her life, but it had quickly become much more.
She glanced at the visitors who were still drifting around the gallery. ‘I just prefer to meet the buyers directly.’
‘I know you do—but you know what these collectors are like. They love to have the cachet of buying up-and-coming artists’ early work, but they love their anonymity more.’ Georgina tutted. ‘I know you hate labels, but you are up-and-coming. If you don’t believe me then believe your own eyes. You can see all the “Sold” stickers from here.’ Watching Lottie shift her daughter’s weight to her other arm, she said, ‘Are you sure I can’t take her?’
Lottie shook her head. ‘It’s fine. They must be on their way. I mean, Lucas was supposed to meet Izzy at the station and then they were coming straight back.’
Georgina sniffed. She was not a huge fan of Lottie’s family. ‘Yes, well… I expect they got “distracted”.’ She smoothed the front of her sculpted nip and tuck dress, and then her eyes narrowed like a tigress spotting her prey. ‘Oh, my…’ she said softly.
‘What’s the matter?’ Lottie frowned.
‘Don’t look now but an incredibly hot guy has just walked into the gallery. He has the most amazing eyes I’ve ever seen.’’
Lottie shook her head. No doubt they were fixed on the woman standing beside her.
‘Ouch.’ She winced as Georgina clutched at her arm.
‘He’s coming over to us.’
‘To you, you mean—and of course he is,’ Lottie said drily. ‘He’s male.’
Georgina had the most incredible effect on men, and she was used to simply filling the space beside her.
‘He’s not looking at me,’ Georgina said slowly. She sounded stunned. ‘He’s looking at you.’
Lottie laughed. ‘Perhaps he hasn’t put his contact lenses in this morning. Or maybe he—’
She turned and her words stopped mid-sentence. Her body seemed to turn to salt. Walking towards her, his blue eyes pinning her to the floor, was Ragnar Stone.
She stared at him mutely as he stopped in front of her. He was dressed more casually than when she’d stopped him outside his office, but such was the force of his presence that suddenly the gallery seemed much smaller and there was a shift in tension, as though everyone was looking at him while trying to appear as though they weren’t.
His blue eyes really were incredibly blue, she thought weakly. But Georgina had been wrong. He wasn’t looking at her. Instead, his eyes were fixed on his daughter. For a few half-seconds, maybe more, he gazed at Sóley, his face expressionless and unmoving, and then slowly he turned his head towards her.
‘Hello, Lottie.’
She stared at him silence, her heartbeat filling her chest, her grip tightening around her daughter’s body. In the café there had been so much noise, but here in the near museum-level quiet of the gallery his voice was making her body quiver like a violin being tuned.
It was completely illogical and inappropriate, but that didn’t stop it being true.
‘Hello, Ragnar,’ she said stiffly. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you.’
She wasn’t sure what kind of a response he would make to her remark, but maybe he felt the same way because he didn’t reply.
‘So you two know one another, then?’ Georgina said brightly.
‘Yes.’
‘No!’
They both spoke as one—him quietly, her more loudly.
Lottie felt her cheeks grow warm. ‘We met once a couple of years back,’ she said quickly.
‘Just shy of two years.’
Ragnar’s blue eyes felt like lasers.
There was a short, strained silence and then Georgina cleared her throat. ‘Well, I’ll let you catch up on old times.’
Clearly dazzled by Ragnar’s beauty, she smiled at him sweetly and, blind to Lottie’s pleading expression, sashayed towards an immaculately dressed couple on the other side of the room.
‘How did you find me?’ she said stiffly. Her heart bumped unsteadily against her ribs. She was still processing the fact that he had come here.
He held her gaze. ‘Oh, I was just passing.’
Remembering the lie she’d told, she glared at him. ‘Did you have me followed?’
Something flickered across the blue of his pupils. ‘Not followed, no—but I did ask my head of security to locate the exhibition you mentioned.’
A pulse was beating in her head. His being here was just so unexpected. Almost as unexpected as the feeling of happiness that was fluttering in time to her heart.
‘Aren’t you going to introduce me?’
For a moment she gazed at Ragnar in confusion. Was he talking about Georgina? A mixture of disbelief and jealousy twisted her breathing. Was he really using this moment to hit on another woman?
‘Her name’s Georgina. She’s—’
‘Not her.’
She heard the tension in his voice before she noticed it in the rigidity of his jaw.
‘My daughter.’
Her heart shrank inside her ribs.
In the twenty-four hours since she’d left Ragnar, and his unsolicited offer of financial help, she’d tried hard to arrange her emotions into some kind of order. They hadn’t responded. Instead she had kept struggling with the same anger and disappointment she’d felt after meeting her father. But at least she had been able to understand if not excuse Alistair’s reluctance to get involved. Meeting an adult daughter he hadn’t even known existed was never going to be easy, but Sóley wasn’t even one yet.
Okay, at first maybe she would have been a little cautious around him—although remembering her daughter’s transfixed gaze when Ragnar had come on the television screen maybe not. But even if she had been understandably hesitant it would have passed, and he could have become a father to her.
Only he’d immediately turned their relationship into a balance sheet. Or that was what she’d thought he’d done. But if that was the case then what was he doing here, asking to be introduced to his daughter?
There was only one way to find out. She cleared her throat. ‘What do you want, Ragnar?’
‘Exactly what I wanted yesterday evening,’ he said softly. ‘Only instead of giving me the chance to explain you used the moment to have some kind of temper tantrum.’
She stared at him, a pulse of anger hopping over her skin. ‘I did give you a chance and you offered me money,’ she snapped. ‘And if that’s why you’re here then you’ve wasted your time. I told you I didn’t want your money and nothing’s changed.’
‘That’s not your choice to make.’ He held her gaze. ‘I mean, what kind of mother turns down financial help for her child?’
She felt her cheeks grow hot. He was twisting her words. That wasn’t what had happened. Or maybe it was, but it hadn’t been about her turning down his money as much as proving him wrong about her motive for getting in touch.
‘I wasn’t turning down your money—just your assumption that it was what I wanted,’ she said carefully. ‘You made me feel cheap.’
His face didn’t change. ‘So what did you want from me?’
His question caught her off-guard. Not because she didn’t know the answer—she did. Partly she had wanted to do the right thing, but also she knew what it had felt like to grow up without any knowledge of her father, and she had wanted to spare her daughter that sense of always feeling on the outside, looking in.
Only it felt odd admitting something so personal to a man who was basically a stranger.
‘You’re her father. I wanted you to know that,’ she said finally. ‘I wanted you to know her.’ Her voice shook a little as she glanced down at her still sleeping daughter. ‘She’s so happy and loving, and so interested in everything going on around her.’
‘Is that why you brought her to the gallery?’
She frowned, the tension in her stomach nipping tighter. ‘Yes, it is,’ she said defensively.
He might simply have been making polite conversation, but there was an undercurrent in his voice that reminded her of the moment when she’d told him that Lucas was a tattooist. But how could a man like Ragnar understand her loving but unconventional family? He had made a career of turning the spontaneity of human chemistry into a flow chart.
‘I’m an artist and a mother. I’m not going to pretend that my daughter isn’t a part of my life, nor do I see why I should have to.’
His eyes flickered—or maybe it was the light changing as a bus momentarily passed in front of the gallery’s windows.
‘I agree,’ he said, his gaze shifting from his daughter’s sleeping face to one of Lottie’s opaque, resin sculptures. ‘Being a mother doesn’t define you. But it brings new contours to your work. Not literally.’ He gave her a small, tight smile. ‘But in how it’s shaping who you are as an artist.’
Lottie felt her heart press against her ribs. The first time they had met they hadn’t really discussed their careers. It felt strange to admit it, given what had happened later in the evening but they hadn’t talked about anything personal, and yet it had felt as though their conversation had flowed.
Perhaps she had just been carried along by the energy in the bar, or more likely it had been the rush of adrenalin at having finally gone on a date through the app Lucas had found.
She’d had boyfriends—nothing serious or long-lasting, just the usual short-term infatuation followed by disbelief that she had ever found the object of her affections in any way attractive. But after her meeting with Alistair she had felt crushed, rejected.
Unlovable.
Perhaps if she’d been able to talk to her mother or brother about her feelings it would have been easier, but she’d already felt disloyal, going behind their backs. And why upset them when it had all been for nothing?
Her biological father’s panicky need to get back to his life had made her feel ashamed of who she was, and that feeling of not being good enough to deserve his love had coloured her confidence with men generally.
Until Ragnar.
Her pulse twitched. Her nerves had been jangling like a car alarm when she’d walked into the bar. But when Ragnar had stood up in front of her, with his long dark coat curling around his ankles like a cape, her nerves had been swept away not just by his beauty, but his composure. The noisy, shifting mass of people had seemed to fall back so that it was just the two of them in a silence that had felt like a held breath.
She had never felt such a connection with anyone—certainly not with any man. For her—and she’d thought for him too—that night had been an acknowledgement of that feeling and she’d never wanted it to end. In the wordless oblivion of their passion he had made her feel strong and desirable.
Now, though, he felt like a stranger, and she could hardly believe that they had created a child together.
Her ribs squeezed tightly as Sóley wriggled against her and then went limp as she plugged her thumb into her mouth.
‘So why are you here?’ she said quietly.
‘I want to be a part of my daughter’s life—and, yes that includes contributing financially, but more importantly I want to have a hands-on involvement in co-parenting her.’
Co-parenting.
The word ricocheted inside her head.
Her throat seemed to have shrunk, so that suddenly it was difficult to breathe, and her heart was leaping erratically like a fish on a hook.
But why? He was offering her exactly what she’d thought she wanted for her daughter, wasn’t he?
She felt Sóley move against her again, and instantly her panic increased tenfold.
The truth was that she hadn’t really thought about anything beyond Ragnar’s initial reaction to finding out he was a father. The memory of her own father’s glazed expression of shock and panic had still been uppermost in her mind when she’d found out she was pregnant, and that was what she’d wanted to avoid by getting in touch with Ragnar while their daughter was still tiny.
But had she thought beyond the moment of revelation? Had she imagined him being a hands-on presence in Sóley’s life? No, not really. She’d been so self-righteous about Ragnar’s deceit, but now it turned out that she had been deceiving herself the whole time—telling herself that she’d got in touch because she wanted him in her daughter’s life when really it had been as much about rewriting that uncomfortable, unsatisfactory scene between herself and Alistair.
And now, thanks to her stupidity and short-sightedness, she’d let someone into her life she barely knew or liked who had an agenda that was unlikely to be compatible with hers.
‘I don’t know how we could make that work—’ she began.
But Ragnar wasn’t listening. He was staring as though mesmerised at his daughter’s face. And, with shock, she realised that Sóley was awake and was staring back at her father. Her heart contracted. Their blue eyes were so alike.
‘Hey,’ he said softly to his daughter. ‘May I?’
His eyes flickered briefly to hers and without realising that she was even doing so she nodded slowly, holding her breath as he held out his hand to Sóley.
Watching her tiny hand clasp his thumb, she felt the same pride and panic she’d felt back in the cottage, when her daughter had been transfixed by Ragnar’s face. Whatever she felt for him they were father and daughter, and their bond was unassailable.
His next words made it clear that his thoughts were following the same path.
‘We need to sit down and talk about what happens next.’
‘What happens next…?’ she repeated slowly.
He nodded. ‘Obviously we’ll need to sort out something legal, but right now I’d like us to be on the same page.’
From somewhere outside in the street a swell of uncontrollable laughter burst into the near-silent gallery. As everyone turned she glanced past Ragnar, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck stand to attention as she spotted the hem of her mother’s coat and her brother’s familiar black boots stomping down the steps of the gallery.
Panic edged into her head, pushing past all other thought. This wasn’t the right time or place for Ragnar to meet her family. She wasn’t ready, and nor could she imagine their various reactions to one another. Actually, she could—and it was something she wanted to avoid at all costs.
Her mother would walk a tightrope between charm and contempt. Lucas would probably say something he would regret later.
‘Fine,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ll give you my number and you can call me. We can arrange to meet up.’
‘I think it would be better if we made a decision now.’
Watching Lucas turning to flirt with the gallery receptionist, Lottie felt her jaw tighten with resentment. Ragnar was pushing her into a corner. Only what choice did she have?
She glanced despairingly as the inner door to the gallery opened. She couldn’t risk them meeting one another now, but clearly Ragnar wasn’t leaving without a date in place.
‘Okay, then—how about tomorrow? After lunch.’
He nodded. ‘Would you prefer me to come to you?’
‘No—’ She practically shouted the word at him. ‘People are always dropping in. It’ll be easier to talk without any distractions.’
‘Fine. I’ll send a car.’
‘That won’t be—’
‘Necessary? Perhaps not.’ Frowning, he reached into his jacket and pulled out a card. ‘But indulge me. This is my private number. Text me your address and I’ll have my driver collect you.’
There was a pulse of silence. She disliked the feeling of being treated like some kind of special delivery parcel, but no doubt this was just how his life worked, and refusing seemed childish given what was really at stake.
‘Fine—but right now I need you to go. The exhibition will be closing in ten minutes and I want to get Sóley home,’ she said, watching with relief as Georgina sped across the gallery to intercept her mother and her brother. ‘So if you don’t mind—?’
His gaze shifted to her face. ‘Of course.’ He gave her a smile that barely curved his mouth. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
Gently he released his grip from Sóley’s hand. For a moment he hesitated, his eyes locking with his daughter’s, and then he turned and strode towards the door. She watched, her heart in her mouth, as he skirted past her mother and Lucas.
‘Sorry we’re late!’ Her mother ran her hand theatrically through her long dark hair. ‘We bumped into Chris and your brother insisted on buying him a drink—’
‘I felt awkward.’ Lucas shook his head. ‘The poor guy practically lost his mind when you dumped him.’
‘But never mind about him.’
Lottie winced as her mother grabbed her and kissed her on the cheek.
‘Who was that?’ Pivoting round, Izzy gazed after Ragnar with narrowing eyes.
Lottie shrugged. ‘He was just passing,’ she said quickly.
Lucas frowned. ‘I feel like I’ve seen him before…’
‘Unlikely,’ Lottie said crisply. ‘I don’t think you move in the same circles—and don’t try and distract me.’ She raised an eyebrow accusingly. ‘You were supposed to be here an hour ago. But now that you are here, do you think you could take Sóley for me?’
She watched with relief as Lucas reached out and scooped Sóley into his arms. It wasn’t quite as terrifying as the thought of Ragnar meeting her family, but her brother making any kind of connection was something she didn’t need. He might just put two and two together and come up with four—and then she would have to lie to his face or, worse, admit the truth to their mother.
There was no way she was getting into all that in public. She’d already over-complicated everything enough by letting a cool-eyed stranger into her life.
But if Ragnar thought her hasty acquiescence to his demands meant that he could set the boundaries for his relationship with their daughter he was wrong—as he was going to find out tomorrow.
Were they her family?
Mounting the steps from the gallery two at a time, Ragnar felt the onset of a familiar unease—that same feeling of being sucked towards a vortex that usually went hand in hand with spending time with his own family.
The scruffy-looking man with Day-of-the-Dead skulls tattooed on his neck and the dark-haired woman wearing an eye-catching red faux-fur coat must be Lottie’s brother and mother—and the thought was not exactly reassuring. He knew from dealing with his own family that eccentricities might appear charming to an outsider but usually they went hand in hand with a tendency for self-indulgence and melodrama that was exhausting and time-consuming.
But at least with one’s own family you knew what to expect.
Remembering his daughter’s hand gripping his thumb, he felt his jaw tighten. Had he been in any way uncertain as to whether he had a role to play in Sóley’s life that doubt had instantly and completely vanished as her hand gripped his. Children needed stability and support from the adults in their lives, not drama, and it wasn’t hard to imagine exactly what kind of circus those two could create.
No wonder Lottie had been so desperate for him to leave. The sooner he got this matter in hand the better.
Yanking open the door to his car, he threw himself into the back seat. ‘Take me home, John,’ he said curtly.
Home. He almost laughed out loud. What did he know about the concept of home? He’d lived in many houses in numerous countries, with various combinations of parents and step-parents. And now that his wealth had become something managed by other people he owned properties around the globe. Truthfully, though, despite their scale and glossy interiors, none was somewhere he felt relief when he walked through the front door.
No, there was only one place he’d ever considered home, and ironically the person who owned it was not related to him by either blood or marriage.
But he would make certain his child had the home he’d been denied.
The next morning Ragnar woke early.
It was still dark when he got up, but he knew from experience that he wouldn’t get back to sleep. He dressed and made his way downstairs to the gym, and worked the machines until his body ached.
An hour later, having showered and changed, he lay sprawled on a sofa in one of the living rooms. There were eight in total, but this was the one he preferred. He let out a long, slow breath. Outside it was raining, and through the window all he could see was the dark glimmer of water and the occasional crooked outline of antlers as the red deer moved silently across the lawns.
The deer had come with Lamerton House, the Jacobean mansion and forty-acre estate that he used as a stopover when he was meeting bankers and investors in London. His gaze narrowed. They were less tame than reindeer, but the grazing herd still reminded him of home.
Home—that word again.
He stared irritably out of the window into the darkness. Normally it was a word that just didn’t register in his day-to-day vocabulary, but this was the second time in as many hours that he’d thought it. His refocused his eyes on his reflection—only it wasn’t his face he could see in the glass but his daughter’s, so like his own and already so essential to him.
He might only have discovered her existence forty-eight hours earlier, but his feelings about Sóley were clear. She deserved a home—somewhere safe and stable. Somewhere she could flourish.
His fingers clenched against the back of the sofa. If only his feelings about Lottie were as straightforward. But they weren’t.
At first he’d wanted to blame her for so carelessly unbalancing his life, and then for keeping the truth from him, only how could he? He was as much to blame on both counts. Nor could he blame her for resenting his heavy-handed offer of money. Having managed alone for the best part of two years, of course she’d feel insulted.
But acknowledging his own flaws didn’t absolve hers. She was stubborn and inconsistent and irrational. His mouth thinned. Sadly acknowledging her flaws didn’t change the facts. Being near Lottie made his body swell with blood and his head swim. He had felt it—that same restless, implacable hunger that had overtaken him that night. A hunger he had spent his life condemning in others and was now suppressing in himself…
Six hours later he stood watching the dark blue saloon move smoothly along the driveway towards the house. From the upper floor window he watched as his driver John opened the door. His heart started a drumroll as Lottie slid from the car and, turning, he made his way downstairs.
As he reached the bottom step she turned and gazed up at him.
There was a moment of silence as he took in her appearance. She was wearing jeans and a baggy cream jumper. Her cheeks were flushed and her hair was tied back with what looked like a man’s black shoelace. For no accountable reason he found himself hoping profoundly that the owner of the shoe in question was her brother. Raising his eyes, he turned towards John and dismissed him with a nod, so that his voice wouldn’t give away the sharp, disconcerting spasm of jealousy that twisted his mouth.
‘You made good time,’ he said.
She nodded, her soft brown eyes locking with his—except they weren’t soft, but tense and wary. ‘Thank you for sending the car. It was very kind of you.’ Her gaze moved past him and then abruptly returned to his face. ‘So what happens next?’
It wasn’t just her voice that upped his heartbeat. Her words reverberated inside his head, pulling at a memory he had never quite forgotten.
So what happens next?
Twenty months ago she had spoken the exact same sentence to him in the street outside that restaurant, and briefly he let his mind go back to that moment. He could picture it precisely. The tremble of her lips, the way her hair had spilled over the collar of her coat, and then the moment when he had lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her.
His body tensed. It had been so effortless. So natural. She had melted into him, her candid words, warm mouth and curving limbs offering up possibilities of an intimacy without the drama he had lived with so long. But of course he’d been kidding himself. Whatever it was that had caused that flashpoint of heat and hunger and hope, it had been contingent on the preordained shortness of its existence.
With an effort he blocked out an image of her body gleaming palely against the dark, crumpled bedding…
‘We talk,’ he said simply. ‘Why don’t we go and get something to drink?’
In the kitchen, his housekeeper Francesca had left tea and coffee and some homemade biscuits on the granite-topped breakfast bar.
‘Take a seat.’ He gestured towards a leather-covered bar stool. ‘Tea or coffee? Do you have a preference?’
‘Tea. Please. And I prefer it black.’
He held out a cup and, giving him a small, stiff smile, she took it from him.
She took a sip, her mouth parting, and he felt his body twitch in response. It felt strange—absurdly, frustratingly strange—to be handing her a cup of tea when part of him could still remember pulling her into his arms. And another part was hungry still to pull her into his arms again.
He cleared his throat. ‘So, shall we get on with it?’
He heard the shift in her breathing.
‘I accept that Sóley is my daughter, but obviously that isn’t going to satisfy my lawyers, so I’m afraid I need to establish paternity. It’s quite simple—just a sample from me and you and Sóley.’
There was a short silence, and then she nodded. ‘Okay.’
‘Good.’ His gaze held hers. ‘Long-term I’ll be looking at establishing custody rights, but initially I just want to spend a bit of time with my daughter.’ And provide a structure and a stability that he instinctively knew must be lacking in her life.
‘Meaning what, exactly?’
The flicker in her gaze held the same message as the rigidity in her jaw but he ignored both.
‘Since everything took off with the app I’ve tried to take a couple of weeks off a year—three at most—just to recharge my batteries.’
‘And…?’ Her eyes were fixed on his face.
‘And now seems like a good time for that to happen. Obviously it’s just a short-term fix, but it would give me a chance to get to know Sóley and find out what’s in her best interests.’
Her expression stiffened. ‘I think I know what’s in her best interests.’
‘Of course. But circumstances have changed.’ He waited a beat. ‘This is just a first step. I understand that there’s going to be a lot to work through, and naturally any future arrangements will take into account Sóley’s needs—her wellbeing comes first.’
Lottie stared at him in silence. ‘In that case, it’s probably easier if you come to me,’ she said finally. ‘Coming here is quite a long way for a day trip.’
He frowned. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to come here, and I wasn’t talking about a day trip.’
‘I don’t understand…’ she said slowly.
‘Then let me explain. The whole point of these weeks is to give me time to think, to unplug myself. That’s why I go back to Iceland. It’s a less hectic, more sedate way of life, and it’s easier to take a step back there. I’d like Sóley to go with me.’
Her eyes slipped across his face, once then twice, as though searching for something. ‘You’re joking, right?’
‘About getting to spend some time with my child? Hardly.’
He watched his put-down meet its target, as he’d intended it to. Colour was spreading over her cheeks.
‘She doesn’t have a passport,’ she countered tonelessly.
‘But she has a birth certificate.’
Her single, reluctant nod looked almost painful.
‘Then it won’t be a problem. I have people who can expedite the paperwork.’
Her face seemed to crack apart. ‘No, this is not happening. She doesn’t know you—and she’s never been anywhere without me.’
He could hear the tension in her voice and unaccountably felt himself respond to it. How could he not? She was scared. Of him. Not physically, but of his claim, both moral and legal, on their daughter, and he couldn’t help but understand and empathise with her. She had carried Sóley for nine months and cared for her on her own for another eleven. Now he was here in her life and everything was going to change.
His back stiffened. He knew exactly how that felt—the dread, then the confusion and the compromises—and for a few half-seconds he was on the verge of reaching out to comfort her. But—
But it was best not to confuse what was actually happening here. Lottie would adapt, and what mattered was agreeing the best possible outcome for Sóley.
‘Clearly I was expecting you to join us.’ He spoke patiently, as though to a confused child, but instead of calming her his words had the opposite effect.
‘Me? Go away with you?’ She shook her head. ‘No, that isn’t going to happen.’
‘Why not? I spoke to the woman at the gallery and you have no upcoming exhibitions.’
‘You spoke to Georgina?’ The tightness in her face broke into a spasm of outrage. ‘How dare you? How dare you talk to people behind my back?’
The note of hysteria in her voice made his shoulders pinch together. ‘You’re being ridiculous.’
‘And you’re being overbearing,’ she snapped. ‘You can’t just expect me to drop everything.’
‘Oh, but I can—and I do. And if you won’t then I will have to apply a little pressure.’
‘And do what, Ragnar?’ She pushed up from the bar stool, her hands curling into fists, two thumbprints of colour burning in her cheeks. ‘Are you going to send round your head of security? Or maybe you could kidnap us?’
How had this spiralled out of control so quickly?
He felt a familiar mix of frustration and fatigue.
‘This is getting us nowhere—and in case you’ve forgotten, you got in touch with me.’
He stared at her in exasperation and then wished he hadn’t. Her hair was coming loose and he had to resist the urge to pull it with his fingers and watch it tumble free.
He waited a moment, and then tried again. ‘Look, Lottie. You go where Sóley goes. That’s a given. And by pressure I just mean lawyers. But I don’t want to escalate this. I just want to do what’s best for our daughter. I think you do too, and that’s why you came to find me the other day.’
There was a small beat of silence.
‘I do want what’s best for her, but…’ She hesitated. ‘But going away with you… I mean, three weeks is a long time for two strangers to spend together.’
There was another pulse of silence. His heart was suddenly digging against his ribs.
‘But we’re not strangers, are we, Lottie?’ he said softly.
The silence was heavy now, pressing them closer.
Her pupils flared like a supernova and he felt his breathing stall in his throat. A minute went by, and then another. They were inches apart, so close that if he reached out he could touch her, pull her closer, draw her body against him…
And then above the pounding of his heart he heard her swallow.
‘Okay. Sóley and I will come to Iceland with you.’ Her expression hardened. ‘And then she and I will go home. Without you.’
CHAPTER THREE (#u89c4ce47-236d-5f0a-a921-da49462a4bba)
LOTTIE AND LUCAS started their walk, as they always did, by climbing over the stile in the wall at the back of the garden. After days of rain, not only was the sun shining but it was unseasonably warm.
‘Usual route?’ Lucas said, steadying himself on the top of the stile.
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