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That now she was here she wasn’t going anywhere.
She was effectively trapped.
Back in England, when she’d acquiesced to coming to Iceland, she had assumed that if she changed her mind she could simply call a taxi.
Of course there was a helicopter sitting outside, like some squat snow-bound dragonfly, but she certainly couldn’t fly it, and nor could she walk all the way back to civilisation with a baby.
Her eyes darted towards the huge expanse of glass that ran from floor to ceiling in the main living area. In the distance jagged snow-covered slopes stretched out towards an empty horizon. There was no sign of any habitation. No other buildings, no roads or telegraph poles. Just sky and snow and a sense of utter solitude.
‘This is Sóley’s room.’
They were upstairs now.
‘The light is softer this side, and there’s a beautiful view of the mountains.’
She turned to where Ragnar was holding open a door and stepped past him, trying to ignore the ripple of heat that spiralled up inside her as she momentarily brushed against his arm.
It was a beautiful room—the kind of pastel minimalist nursery that would feature in one of those upmarket baby magazines. There was a cot and a rocking chair, and a wicker basket piled high with soft toys. Unlike the rest of the house, it wasn’t painted in a muted shade of off-white but in a delicate lilac, exactly the same colour as the lavender that grew in the fields beyond her cottage.
But it wasn’t the unexpected reminder of home that made her body and brain freeze as though she’d fallen through ice—it was the two framed prints on the wall.
‘They’re mine,’ she said slowly.
For a minute she was too stunned to do anything more than stare, but then slowly her brain began working again.
‘You bought these through Rowley’s?’
Ragnar nodded.
She stared at the prints, her heart beating out of time. It felt strange, seeing her work here in this house. Stranger still that he should have bought them unseen. But that must be what had happened, because he hadn’t arrived at the gallery until later that day.
Georgina’s voice floated up from somewhere inside her head. ‘You know what these collectors are like. They love to have the cachet of buying up-and-coming artists’ early work.’
And she was right. A lot of wealthy buyers treated art as a commodity, and got a buzz from seeing the price of their investment soar, but...
Her arm tightened around her daughter’s reassuring warmth as a chill ran down her spine.
But those buyers hadn’t had a one-night stand with the artist and got her pregnant.
Her skin was suddenly too hot and too tight, and she knew without question that Ragnar hadn’t bought her work as an investment. It was something far more subtle, more insidious. He had wanted to give her money, she had refused, and so he had found another, more circuitous but less overt method of getting his own way. And he got to own a little piece of her too.
‘I’ll pay you back.’
Her voice sounded tense and raspy with emotion, but she didn’t care. What mattered was making him understand that she was not going to be outmanoeuvred by him or his wealth.
‘Maybe not right at this moment, but when we get back to England.’
His gaze skimmed her face, a m
uscle pulling at his jaw. ‘Excuse me?’
‘For the prints. I told you before that I didn’t want your money—well, I don’t need your charity either. Whatever it might suit you to think, I’m not some starving artist living a garret.’
As she finished speaking Sóley twisted against her, arching her back and reaching out towards the floor. She had noticed a brightly coloured octopus peeking out of the toy basket and wanted to get closer. Grateful for a reason to break eye-contact, Lottie leaned forward and let her daughter scrabble forward onto the floor.
‘I see.’
There was a short silence, and then he said quietly, ‘Can I ask you something? Is this how it’s always going to be? Or is there the slightest chance that you can imagine a future where I can say or do something innocuous and you won’t immediately put two and two together and make five?’
