Dreams in Norway (Norway Romance #1)

Chapter 1

Mats Larsen leant back in his office chair and closed his eyes. He was tired. Even so, he hadn’t intended to take a nap, but that was what happened, only interrupted when his desk phone rang.

‘Yes?’ He picked up the phone, but he was still half asleep, wondering how long he’d been out.

It was his assistant, Hanne. ‘This is your two-thirty wake-up call,’ she said.

He rubbed a hand over his face and smiled. ‘Thanks.’ Hanne was always on his side.

‘Ole is on his way. He wants to talk to you about London.’

Mats put the phone down and stood up, stretching to help revive himself.

It had been a busy few weeks. He’d been flying back and forth to Bergen on the weekends, and although he loved catching up with his brother and sister and checking in on his project, it gave him no time to recover from the work week.

His demanding job as an investment strategist for Halvorsen it was in full swing, but he wasn’t ready to make the move yet.

Ole came into his office like a force nine gale. Where did he get the energy?

‘Mats,’ he said by way of a greeting. ‘Hanne’s booked you on the early flight to London tomorrow. The meeting’s all set, but I can’t go after all. It looks like Camilla is having the baby today.’

‘Congratulations!’

From the look on Ole’s face, it could have been someone else’s wife disrupting his plans rather than a joyful event in his own family. ‘It’s terrible timing, but she insists I have to be there.’

‘Of course.’ Mats smiled, but this was another reason why he wanted out.

Not because Ole’s wife was having a baby, but because in this office, the significance of such things was often dismissed and seen as an inconvenience.

The same thing had happened when his mother had been sick a couple of years ago.

He’d explained that he would work from the family home in Bergen for a few weeks and explained the reason why, but even then, he was called back to Oslo for a meeting that he didn’t need to be at, not really. Not when his mother was dying.

‘The rate we set out is non-negotiable. I know they’re expecting us to move on it, but we’re not going to. You’ve read the file?’

Mats nodded. ‘No problem. I’ll handle the meeting,’ said Mats, even though the last thing he wanted to do was get up at the crack of dawn on a Tuesday and head to London.

‘Thanks. I’ll catch up with you on Friday.’

There was no point asking Ole why he wouldn’t be at home with his wife and newborn baby on Friday because, unfortunately, the culture the rest of Norway had around parental leave and family life hadn’t penetrated the glass walls of Halvorsen he certainly didn’t need to worry about moving chandeliers as well.

‘You know you can have anything you like delivered to the unit. We can make sure it’s tucked away safely, even if it’s not ready to go over to the island yet.’

Knut had kindly offered Mats the use of part of his own business premises as temporary storage so that they could have materials delivered there and stored ready to be taken over to the island.

Being efficient about how they transported everything would go a long way to keeping the costs down, but it was supposed to be a transitory thing, not for light fittings that wouldn’t be needed for months.

Mats thanked Knut and apologised again for the inconvenience. Then, since they were on the phone, they updated each other on the latest news of the project.

‘We’ve had the report from the quantity surveyor,’ said Mats. ‘I’ve started looking at materials, but I could do with your input on it.’

‘Send it over,’ said Knut. ‘I’ll take a look and then we could get together next time you’re here.’

‘I’m hoping to make it this weekend, but I don’t want to take up your Saturday.’

‘No problem, I’m happy to take a trip out to the island. It might make it easier if we’re there.’

Mats didn’t mind that at all. He always went to the island if he was in Bergen, whether he needed to or not.

It helped connect him to the project, to remind himself exactly why he was burning the candle at both ends.

He loved the place, and visiting it was the only time he ever felt his shoulders drop and his breathing relax into a steady rhythm.

It grounded him, and every time he went there, he felt that.

As soon as he’d read about the island in their father’s will, he’d wanted to visit.

He’d known straight away that a distant memory he had of visiting his grandparents when he was small must have been of this place.

Having lost both his parents, it was too late now to ask why his father had become estranged from his parents, or why his father had never told any of them he owned the farm and had done for decades.

His brother and sisters either hadn’t been born, or were too young to remember the visit as Mats did, and he couldn’t remember enough of the detail to know if they’d been there or not.

But he knew — he’d hoped — that the place in the will was the place he had remembered for over thirty years. And it had been.

His first visit since reading about it in the will had been with his siblings.

All five of them were keen to see this place that none of them had known about.

It was so close to where they lived in Loddefjord, just outside Bergen, that it was strange to think of it having been part of their family for all that time without any of them knowing.

When they set foot on the island, it felt to Mats as if it was somewhere he already knew, and he kind of did.

None of the others felt the same and saw it as a useless piece of land that might be sold for building holiday cabins, but no-one was going to farm here anymore.

It was too difficult these days. Mats had thought asking for their shares would be straightforward since none of them were interested in the place, but he’d been wrong.

None of them wanted his money; they were all willing to give their shares, but it had taken him a long time to persuade them that wanting to risk his life savings on a dream that he’d only just told them about was a good idea.

To Mats, it might have been a new idea, but it turned the dream he’d had all along into a possibility.

A dream to escape the life he’d built for himself and do something that mattered.

Build something himself, something real, instead of numbers on a screen.

So when the island presented itself to him, it all fell into place.

It felt like fate in a way he couldn’t explain.

But reconciling that with the fact that his father had distanced himself from it was another thing altogether.