* * *
Breathing out softly, Ragnar inched backwards, making sure that he didn’t wake the woman sleeping beside him. It was early—too early to get up—but his brain was brimming with unasked and unanswered questions.
Away from the distracting warmth of her body it would be easier to think straight—or at least think instead of feel.
His phone was on silent, but he picked it up anyway, in case its vibrations or flickering screen inadvertently disturbed Lottie.
Closing the bedroom door softly behind him, he made his way quietly through the silent house, moving instinctively in the darkness. Downstairs in the living room he made his way across the rug to where the still glowing embers of the fire spread a soft red light across the walls.
Crouching down, he picked up a couple of logs and pushed them into the amber-tinged ashes. Watching the flames creep over the dry wood, he leaned back against the sofa, stretching his legs out towards the fire’s reviving warmth.
It had been long time since he had woken so early, and more specifically woken with his eyes feeling so heavy in his head that it was as though he hadn’t closed them at all. Nearly twenty years, in fact, since that day when he’d gone to Daniel’s house and realised that he could step back from his parents’ explosive marriage.
His spine tensed against the sofa cushions.
Maybe it would have been different if he’d been the second or third child, but as the firstborn there had been no diluting the impact of their relationship on him, and his parents had been fiercely in love. Every encounter for them had been an emotional collision. Even their kisses had looked like a form of fighting to him, and as a child he’d often wake early, with his head still ringing in the aftermath of yesterday’s feuding.
Going downstairs, he would huddle up in front of the remnants of the fire from the night before. It had been cold and dark, but it had been the only time of the day when he could find the silence and solitude he craved.
And now he was here, in his own home, doing exactly the same thing.
His phone screen lit up and, picking it up, he glanced down automatically to check his notifications.
It was a text from his mother, and there were four missed calls from Marta. His mouth twisted into a reluctant smile. He could imagine his sister’s outrage at being asked to leave a message. She wasn’t used to such treatment—particularly from him—but he didn’t have his phone on at night now that he was with Lottie.
The words echoed inside his head. Now that he was with Lottie. It was a simple sentence, but what did it mean?
He let out a long, slow breath.
He knew what it meant now and up to Christmas. It meant the three of them living as a family, eating meals together and playing in the snow, and it meant that at night he and Lottie would retreat to her room, moving inside and against each other’s bodies until that dizzying mutual moment of swift, shuddering release.
But what would it mean after Christmas?
He swore softly. That was what had woken him this morning.
Out on the beach it had seemed to make perfect sense. Of course he wanted to share Sóley’s first birthday and spend Christmas with her as a family, and inviting Lottie to stay on had felt like an obvious step. Now, though, he couldn’t understand why it had felt like such a big deal—or why he’d chosen to make it about his daughter’s birthday instead of what it was really about.
His hand tightened around the phone.
He’d told Lottie that he would be honest with her, but how could he be when he wasn’t even being honest with himself.
So be honest!
This wasn’t just about playing happy families for the sake of their daughter—in fact it wasn’t really about Sóley at all. He had a relationship with his daughter now, a bond that would endure beyond any fabricated deadline, and he wasn’t going to let anything come between them.
But what about Lottie?
Where did she fit into his life in the long term?
Leaning forward, he picked up another log, and edged it carefully into the embers.
If he’d asked himself that question at any point up until the night in the pool house, when he’d handed her the robe, his answer would have been nowhere—except as Sóley’s mother, of course.
He’d had casual affairs throughout his twenties, but no serious relationships, and he’d never wanted anything more—never wanted anyone for more than sex. To do so would mean getting out of his depth and too close for comfort.
But he wanted Lottie.
Maybe at the beginning their hunger had just been an urgency from which neither of them could turn away. Only now it was different.