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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.
