But now she knew she had made hasty and hungry assumptions. And by agreeing to go to Iceland was she making them again?
‘Do you think I’m being stupid?’
Much as she loved her brother, they were different in so many ways. Like Izzy, Lucas was a serial monogamist. He was single-minded, and not subject to any need for permanence or emotional bondage, but he liked women and, probably because he was always so honest, they liked him. It was one of his strengths, that unflinching honesty, and she needed him to be honest with her now.
His forehead creased, and then he shook his head. ‘You made Sóley together, so something was good between you.’ He hesitated. ‘But you need to be careful and clear about where you fit into all this. Don’t complicate what’s already going to be a fairly tricky situation with something that’s out of your hands.’
He was right, Lottie thought as they turned away from the river. However fierce and real it might feel, letting something as fickle and cursory as physical attraction take centre stage was a risk not worth taking. Giving in to her hunger would rob her of perspective.
She and Ragnar had had their chance and they’d failed to make it work—and nothing, including the fact that they had an eleventh-month-old daughter, would change that.
* * *
As his private jet hit a pocket of what felt like hollowed-out air Ragnar felt his pulse accelerate. But it wasn’t the turbulence that was making his heart beat faster. Over the last year he’d racked up enough air miles to have overcome any fear of flying. What was maki
ng his pulse race was the tiny shift in the drone of the engines.
They were making their descent. In less than half an hour they would land in Reykjavik. Then it would be a drive out to his estate on the Troll peninsula, and then finally he would be able to start getting to know his daughter.
Daughter.
The word still felt so unfamiliar, but then he hadn’t expected to become a father for a long time. Maybe not ever. Only then he’d met Lottie, and in that moment when they’d reached for one another in that dark London street his life had changed for all time.
His eyes drifted across the cabin to where she sat, gazing out of one of the small cabin windows. Opposite her, Sóley lay across two seats, with some kind of frayed cuddly toy clamped against her body, her thumb in her mouth. She was asleep and, watching the rise and fall of her tiny body, Ragnar felt his chest ache.
As predicted, his lawyers had insisted on a paternity test, and as predicted it had come back positive. But as far as he was concerned no proof had been required. Sóley was his—and not just because they were so physically alike. There was an intangible thread between them, a bond that started with DNA but went way beyond it. He might have only found out about her existence a couple of days ago, but he already felt an unquestioning, all-encompassing love for her, and a sense of responsibility that was nothing like he’d ever felt before.
He felt his heart contract. She looked so small, so vulnerable, so ill-equipped to deal with the relentless chaos of life.
For chaos read family.
He thought about the complicated layers of parents and children—some related by blood, some by marriage—that made up his family. They were wilful and self-absorbed and thoughtless, but he loved them—all of them. How could he not? They were a force of nature, so full of life, so passionate and vital.
But ever since he could remember they had seemed to him like whirling storm clouds battering a mountain top. Oblivious to the damage they caused, they kept on twisting and raging, and in order to survive he’d chosen—if you could call it a choice—to sit out the storm. To be like the mountain and just let the winds carry on howling around him.
That had been his response as a child. Now, as an adult, he’d embraced the role of mediator and umpire. It was exhausting, often thankless, and always time-consuming. The swooping melodrama of their day-to-day disputes and dramas required the patience of a bomb disposal expert and the diplomacy of a trained hostage negotiator, but it was the only way, for it allowed him to live a life of calm and order on the sidelines.
He shifted in his seat, pressing his spine against the leather to relieve the tension in his back.
Now, though, he felt as though he was being sucked into a new vortex—a vortex that was the unavoidable trade-off for getting to know his daughter.
Across the cabin Sóley shifted in her sleep, losing her grip on her toy, and he watched as Lottie leaned forward and gently tucked the bear back underneath her arm.
By vortex he meant Lottie’s family.
That glimpse in the gallery had been enough of an incentive for him to call his head of security and instruct him to make some discreet enquiries. The slim folder that had arrived on his desk less than twenty-four hours later had made for depressing reading. Both Izzy, Lottie’s mother, and her brother Lucas seemed to live off-grid, rarely staying in one place longer than a couple of years and with no regular partners or jobs.
At least Lottie had an address, and she owned a house, but the idea of his daughter being raised in the eye of that particular storm made Ragnar suddenly so tense that before he knew what he was doing he had stood up and was walking across the cabin.
‘May I?’
He gestured towards the empty seat opposite Sóley.
Lottie looked up at him, her light brown eyes not exactly contradicting the slight nod of her head but reserving judgement. He wondered why he had thought her eyes were boring. Right now, in the softly lit interior of the cabin, they were the same colour as the raw honey produced on his estate.
‘Of course. It’s your plane.’
She spoke politely, and it was tempting to take her words at face value. But, although her voice was free of any resentful undertone, he could sense she was still chafing against what she took to be his high-handed manner.