He smiled and tipped his head from one side to the other. ‘All of my sisters are very good at getting what they want in one way or another.’
‘Please thank Ingrid for me. Even if her friend isn’t interested, I appreciate her help.’
‘Does it help you feel better about it all?’
‘I feel back in control for now,’ she said. ‘If Oda says no, I probably need to talk to Snug about where we go from here.’
‘I think that’s smart. This was never part of the plan. It’s important to remember that.’
She looked at him, his face earnest as he spoke about her campaign as if it was as serious as anything he dealt with in his job.
‘I don’t know what I would have done without you tonight, Mats.’
‘You would have found a solution, I know it.’
‘I would have cried myself into oblivion before that happened,’ she said, laughing but knowing that it wasn’t far from the truth.
Mats took them into a shopping centre and down the escalator to a small food court. ‘Do you like Mexican food?’
‘I could murder a burrito.’
They chose their food using an iPad at the entrance of the small Mexican restaurant, then went inside and found a table at the back. Despite being a fast-food restaurant, it felt intimate and relaxed and perfect for tonight. They’d both chosen beer to drink, and Lotta felt it gently take the edge off after a couple of sips.
‘How was your day?’ she asked Mats.
‘The whole day was basically one meeting. Pretty exhausting. This is exactly what I needed,’ he said, lifting his beer bottle.
Lotta felt guilty that she’d been crying into his arms. He didn’t need that kind of drama when his day sounded far more intense than hers had been. ‘Sorry you had to deal with a meltdown on top of that.’
‘Lotta, being with you, being able to help you tonight has been the highlight of my day,’ he said. ‘Otherwise the best thing to happen to me today would be that I had first pick of the lunch sandwiches.’
‘I mean, that is something to be excited about on any day.’
The burritos arrived. Again, they’d ordered the same, but Lotta had added extra jalapeños to hers and Mats had a side of nacho chips covered with runny cheese. ‘Help yourself,’ he said.
Sitting here, eating with Mats for the second night in a row, it was easy to fall into thinking life could be like this all the time, and maybe that was normal with a new relationship, but Lotta was suddenly aware that tomorrow night would be their last chance to see each other on this trip.
‘I know it’s only our second date, but do you think this can work for us? I mean, I live in London, you’re here and it can work now while I’m coming here sometimes, but what will we do after that?’ She felt brave asking him, but it had been on hermind to a greater or lesser extent ever since she’d given him her number in the ramen place the last time she was here. Surely it was normal with any new relationship to think about where it was heading, even at such an early stage? Except this time it felt more important, and she needed to know whether Mats felt like that too.
He looked thoughtful and took another bite of his burrito, which she tried not to take as a bad sign. If he had to think that hard about what to say…
‘It’ll be harder to get to know each other like this. Sporadic meetings, snatched dates in the evenings. In an ideal world, we need to be in the same place if it’s going to become anything. But if this works for us right now, then let’s keep doing this because I’d rather have this than nothing.’
‘Me too.’
She already knew that because he had the hotel, he couldn’t do much about changing where he lived. But could she move to Norway? That’s what it would come to if they became serious about each other, and it was only sensible to think about whether a future could work if she already liked him as much as she did. In theory, she could work from anywhere, although an island in the middle of a fjord might be pushing it.
The irony of the timing of all of this wasn’t lost on her either. Mats was looking to step away from the corporate world, what he’d spent his life building, just as she was stepping into it. Their pace of life might be the same at the moment but that wouldn’t be the case for much longer, and she hadn’t come this far, overcome so much, to move to an island and leave behind the opportunities that were finally presenting themselves to her.
What terrified her most was that she had never been in a relationship that could survive her success. She already knew Mats was no Curtis, but there was still a nagging feeling that itmight not be possible to have a career and a man in her life at the same time.
12
After dinner, Mats couldn’t bear the thought that their evening was already over. They’d bared their souls to each other about how they felt, as if they already had something worth sacrificing everything for. Admittedly, Lotta would have more to sacrifice than him, and that didn’t seem fair, but with the hotel a non-negotiable part of his life now, there was nothing he could do.
‘Would you like to come back to my place for a coffee?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’d love to see where you live.’
