Читать книгу Proof Of Their One-Night Passion - Louise Fuller - Страница 11

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.’