Kitabı oku: «Proof Of Their One-Night Passion»

CHAPTER ONE

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.’