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‘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?’
