The Queen's Baby Scandal
Page 18
She stared at him in silence.
What made this strange, unnerving distance between them a hundred times harder was that she had let herself be distracted by his resemblance to Sóley. Let herself hope that the connection between Ragnar and his daughter would be more than it had been for her and her own father—not just bones and blood, but a willingness to claim her as his own.
But the cool, dispassionate way he had turned the conversation immediately to money was proof that he’d reached the limit of his parental involvement.
She cleared her throat. ‘I know you’re a rich man, Ragnar, but I didn’t come here to beg.’ She swallowed down her regret and disappointment. ‘This was a mistake. Don’t worry, though, it’s not one I’ll make again—so why don’t you get back to the thing that clearly matters most to you? Making money.’
* * *
Ragnar reached across the table, but even before he’d got to his feet she had scraped back her seat and snatched up her coat, and he watched in disbelief as she turned and fled from the cafe.
For a moment he considered chasing after her, but she was moving fast and no doubt would already have reached the underground station on the corner.
He sat back down; his chest tight with an all too familiar frustration.
Her behaviour—having a child with a complete stranger, keeping that child a secret, turning up unannounced to reveal the child’s existence and then storming off—could have come straight from his family’s playbook of chaos.
Glancing down, he felt his pulse scamper forward as for the first time he looked at what she’d pushed across the table. It was a photo of a little girl.
A little girl who looked exactly like him—Sóley.
Reaching out, he touched her face lightly. She was so small, so golden, just like her name. And he was not going to let her grow up with no influence but her chaotic mother and whatever ragtag family she had in tow.
He might love his own family, but he knew only too well the downside of growing up in the eye of a storm and he didn’t want that for his daughter.
So arrangements would have to be made.
Picking up the photo, he slid it into his wallet and pulled out his phone.
Copyright © 2019 by Louise Fuller
ISBN-13: 9781488045011
The Queen’s Baby Scandal
Copyright © 2019 by Maisey Yates
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