‘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