Tempted by the Tycoon's Proposal

They moved off soon enough, a car rolling in to take them away, but that look was still in Lily’s eye, her hand now pressed up against the glass as she stared out at the stark white landscape.

Sophia looked back to Jack, still pacing, and told herself to grow a pair. This was Lily’s birthday trip; she should be more important than some business call. But then, what did she know about running a corporate empire? The leisure industry was bad enough. Maybe this was the way of things for him. It wasn’t as if the business world stopped just because he was on holiday. And it was a Thursday after all, hardly the weekend.

‘Okay, Lily, let’s go play while we wait for your father.’ She offered out a hand to her, which she took, her smile worth every nervous flutter.

Jack quit pacing. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Just out front; we can make a snowman while you finish your call.’ She smiled down at Lily encouragingly. ‘What do you reckon? Can we make one that looks like Daddy?’

Lily laughed. ‘Yes!’

Jack wasn’t smiling though. When she looked back to him his scowl seemed less about the call and more her suggestion.

‘Don’t worry; we’ll be flattering,’ she said, trying to lighten the sudden darkness in the room.

‘I’d rather you stayed here.’

Sophia frowned. Seconds ago, she’d been convinced he was concerned for her, and how she’d feel playing out in the snow with a small child, and without him. But now...

Then she remembered the time on Samantha’s doorstep when he’d told her with no hesitation that he wouldn’t leave Lily at the party, how clear he’d been about not trusting her with just ‘anyone,’ and the reason he too had joined Lily for her sleepover ultimately.

But it couldn’t be that now? Not after all they had shared, all that had happened between them. He had to trust her...didn’t he?

‘Please, Daddy.’

He looked to Sophia for backup, but she was too flummoxed and upset and confused, trying to convince herself it was because he was worried about her, even though she knew deep down it wasn’t. Maybe it had been initially, but not now.

‘We can stay just the other side of the glass,’ she offered quietly, ignoring the way her skin now prickled, not with her phobia of the snow—or worse, being responsible for a child in the snow—but with his mistrust of her.

He looked from them to the glass and back again, his frown lifting a little. ‘Okay—just keep where I can see you, agreed?’

‘Agreed,’ she said, now feeling like a child herself, anger sparking. She tugged Lily’s hand gently, her death stare for him alone, not that he seemed to notice as his attention shifted back to the phone. ‘Come on, birthday girl, let’s go and have some fun.’

They went outside and she did as she’d promised, kept them close to the glass as they rolled the snow and built their man. With his bulbous belly and a Sophia-fist-sized punch hole for his mouth, two beady rocks for his eyes and a thin stone for his nose.

Lily stood back and laughed. ‘It doesn’t look much like Daddy, does it?’

Sophia had half a mind to storm back inside and pull his scarf off him just to wrap it around his icy counterpart and complete the look.

Still, in her anger, she’d forgotten all about her own trepidation...

Lily looked through the glass to where her father was pacing again, his scowl still present, his hand caught halfway through his hair. Sophia checked her watch. At this rate it would be dark before they even started their tour and whilst they would still hopefully get a glimpse of the northern lights when the sun disappeared, she’d like to see the waterfalls and the black sand beach in daylight.

She gave him a look through the glass, one which she hoped said, Don’t forget whose birthday it is, and tapped her wrist, indicating the time. He grimaced and looked at his own, turning away a second to say something down the phone and then he cut the call and strode for the exit.

‘Here he comes,’ Sophia said, her hands falling to Lily’s shoulders as she turned her to face the door and her father now coming through it.

‘I’m so sorry, birthday girl.’ He raced up to her and swung her up in the air. ‘You ready?’

‘Yes!’ she squealed, her legs kicking excitedly and sending snow flying from her feet.

Sophia smiled at the heart-warming scene, her anger falling away as quickly as it had come. ‘First you need to see our snow Daddy.’

Payback...

He looked at the snowman and back at her, slowly sliding Lily down his front until her feet were back on the ground.

‘It’s you, Daddy.’