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The rest of the tour passed without any further awkward moments—partly because she was too speechless with shock to say much. She could hardly take it all in, and she hadn’t even seen the indoor-outdoor geothermal pool yet, or the several thousand acres of land that made up the estate.
Pleading tiredness from the journey, she retreated to her bedroom and let Sóley explore the contents of the toy basket as she watched the light fade from the sky. It was a relief after their constant enforced proximity on the long journey to be free of that churning undercurrent of sexual tension.
But all too soon it was time for Sóley’s dinner.
With all the other changes going on in her life, she wanted to keep her daughter’s routines as regular as possible—particularly meal times. But venturing downstairs required a concentrated effort of will.
The cool grey kitchen was large and immaculate. Signy, Ragnar’s housekeeper, showed her where everything was kept, and how to work the gleaming professional standard cooker.
‘If there’s anything you can’t find, just tell me and I’ll order it in,’ she said in faultless English, beaming at Sóley.
‘Thank you, but I think you’ve got everything already,’ she said, picturing her own sparsely filled cupboards and comparing them unfavourably with the well-stocked shelves of Signy’s larder.
Sóley was far less intimidated by the upgrade in her surroundings than her mother. Thrilled by her brand-new highchair, she behaved just as she did at home, thumping out a drum solo with her beaker and laughing uncontrollably as she blew peas out of her mouth.
Lottie was laughing too, so that she didn’t notice Ragnar had joined them until he said quietly, ‘I didn’t know vegetables could be that much fun.’
She felt her heart jolt forward. Lost in the familiar rhythm of spooning peas and mashed potato into her daughter’s mouth, she’d started to feel calmer. She had overreacted, but obviously being thrown together like this in a new environment, with a man she barely knew, was going to be confusing and unsettling. It was no wonder she’d got mixed up about what she was feeling.
And so what if Ragnar looked like Thor’s body-double? Once she got used to having him around he would soon lose the power to make her blood catch fire.
She gave him a quick, stiff smile. ‘Neither did she until last week. It’s her latest trick.’
It was harder than she would have liked to shut him out. He was just so there—not just his actual physical presence, but that inner stillness he possessed, a self-contained sense of certainty that she lacked entirely except in her art.
Her fingers felt thick and clumsy as he watched her pick up the empty bowl.
‘Does she have dessert? Or is that not allowed?’
‘Yes, it’s allowed.’
There was a small pause and, nodding reluctantly to his unspoken question, she tried not to feel resentful or, even more ridiculously, betrayed as he picked up a spoon and her daughter obediently swallowed every mouthful of the yoghurt she gave him.
They were bonding, and that was what she’d wanted to happen, so why did it hurt so much? Maybe seeing them together was a reminder of how she’d failed to connect with Alistair. Or perhaps, having been briefly the sole focus of Ragnar’s gaze, it stung to be in the shadows.
Her chest felt tight.
She hated herself for feeling like this—and him too, for stirring up all these ambivalent, unsettling emotions. Suddenly she wanted to be somewhere far away from his orbit. Reaching down, she undid Sóley’s safety harness and lifted her out of the chair.
‘I’m going to take her up now and get her ready for bed.’
She sensed that he was waiting for an invitation to join them, and she knew that she was being mean-spirited by not offering him one, but she couldn
’t make the words form in her mouth. For a moment she thought he would challenge her, but instead he just nodded.
‘I’ll come up and say goodnight in a bit.’
Normally Sóley loved bathtime, but tonight her eyes were already drooping as Lottie started to undress her, and she had barely finished half her regular bottle of milk before falling asleep.
Turning down the lights, she carefully transferred her sleeping daughter to the cot. But where was her bear? Lottie frowned. Mr Shishkin had been a gift from Lucas—Sóley couldn’t sleep without him. Quickly she reversed her steps, but he wasn’t in the bathroom, or on her bed.
As she walked back into her daughter’s bedroom her feet faltered. Ragnar was leaning over the cot.
‘What are you doing?’ Her heart was beating like a snare drum.
He straightened up, his eyes meeting hers in the semi-darkness. ‘I found him downstairs.’ He held something out to her, and she realised what it was. ‘I noticed she was pretty attached to him on the flight and I thought she might need him to sleep. Or is it a her? I didn’t actually look.’
She hesitated, and then saw a faint smile tug at the edges of his mouth, and even though she knew that there were no actual butterflies in her stomach, she finally understood what people meant by that phrase, for it felt as though hundreds of them were fluttering up inside her, each beat of their wings triggering a warm, tingling pulse of pleasure.
