Chapter 24
Mats took Lotta’s hand as they left the house and headed along the main road into the small town.
‘I’m so sorry. I thought they knew about your job,’ she said.
He sighed. ‘It’s okay. I should have told them. It’s just that I knew they’d want to help and I can’t let them. It’s one thing me having the island, even though my father clearly wanted nothing to do with it, but to spend his money on it is the worse decision I’ve ever had to make.’
Lotta pulled on his hand and folded herself into him. ‘I had no idea. You could have told me all of this, you know.’
But he couldn’t. How could he share all of this with her when just last night he felt as if she was questioning whether they could even be together?
‘You have enough going on without having to listen to my money problems. I can deal with this. I’ll come up with a strategy just like I do — did — at work.
It’s no different, just a few million kroner less to play with.
’ He managed a grin as they pulled apart.
Hopefully, he’d convinced her. ‘And it just hit me today that this might be the last time we see each other for a while.’
‘It might be.’
Whatever scenarios he’d been playing out in his head, it was like a knife to the heart to hear her say that.
It confirmed his worst fears and played into the feelings of regret that had surfaced about his decision to build a hotel on an island, since he’d had to dip into his inheritance money.
That decision was ruining the only relationship he’d ever been this invested in.
‘It can’t be.’
They stopped walking, the lights of the bar he’d intended to head for, not far away.
‘We always knew this would happen,’ Lotta said.
It was true, but not helpful. He needed solutions, plans, a strategy. That was what his life had been until now, and he was struggling to picture the future without any of that.
‘I’m in love with you. I can’t let that go, Lotta.’ He could hear the desperate tone in his voice, and she must have too.
‘Hey,’ she said gently, taking his cheeks in her hands and forcing his eyes to land on hers, calming him.
‘I feel the same as you. I love you, and this is not the end. It’s going to be a challenge, and we’re going to have to think about how to make it work, but it’s just a problem to solve.
Isn’t that what you told me when I was spiralling because I didn’t have a maker? ’
He took a deep breath and nodded.
‘Okay, so what are we going to do?’
He knew the answer she was looking for wasn’t a repeat of her question but in a much more desperate tone. What are we going to do?? And imagining himself saying that to her made him smile. ‘We need a strategy, and then we execute the strategy.’
‘Come on, then. If we’re strategising, I’m going to need a glass of wine,’ she said.
The bar was busy. It was a huge building that looked as if it had been stuck to the side of a mountain, which it sort of had. There was a lot of outside space with terraces that spilled down towards the water and a very lively atmosphere.
Mats bought a bottle of wine for them to share and they headed upstairs where it was quieter and found a table next to the windows that overlooked the fjord.
‘As usual you bring me somewhere with an amazing view,’ Lotta said, smiling. She took her coat off and folded it over the back of the chair next to her.
‘It’s a great view. It’s a while since I’ve been here.’
‘How bad is this money situation?’ She went right in there.
‘It’s not great. I feel out of control. And I don’t know if I can plan my way out of this. I need to come to terms with the fact that I don’t have a contingency plan if my apartment doesn’t sell quickly. It could be the end of the project.’
‘It won’t come to that. It might slow things down, but this is your dream, Mats. Don’t stop believing in it.’
Seeing her in front of him, telling him to believe in his dream, made his chest hurt.
‘I’ve ruined something great by making a decision based on a very pessimistic assessment of my life. It makes me sad now. I should have had more faith in myself. Why didn’t I believe I could meet someone like you?’
Lotta poured the wine and pushed his glass across the table. ‘You made a solid decision that ultimately will give you the future you want, away from the bank, away from Oslo, back where your family live. It doesn’t mean you can’t have this too,’ she said, waving her hand between the two of them.
He felt like an idiot for allowing himself to get drawn into the depths of despair when Lotta was being so clear-headed about it. ‘You’re very smart.’
‘Well, so are you. But it’s hard to think clearly once you let yourself spiral. Like I said earlier, remember me in Oslo. I’m sure your plan wasn’t to stay on the island for the rest of your life. So tell me your actual strategy.’
She listened intently while he explained exactly what he’d planned with the help of Anders.
It hadn’t taken long for Anders to find he’d needed a full-time hotel manager to share the responsibility with, so he’d advised Mats to put it into the plan right from the start.
The hard part was believing that the whole thing would take off and be successful enough for that strategy to be executed.
‘It sounds as if Anders knows what he’s talking about. You can’t run a place like that alone. I know you’ll want to be hands-on to begin with, but I’m not sure that means you have to live on the island forever and cut yourself off from the world. It should give you freedom.’
Freedom. That’s exactly what he had wanted, and what he’d thought the island was giving him. Freedom from his life in Oslo. Freedom to break out of the day-to-day routine and to live a life where he wasn’t defined by his job or his money.
‘I thought it was that. Until I met you. Now everything’s different.’
She looked down at the table, and the way her shoulders slumped made Mats feel like his world had shifted.
‘You’re not worried it’s going to ruin things for you, us? Me?’
‘You haven’t ruined anything, Lotta.’ She was still looking away from him as if she thought she was to blame for something.
‘You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
I’m the one who committed to something that’s hard to unravel.
Nobody thought this was a good idea. I thought getting the island was fate helping me to change my life for the better, when I should have listened to my brother and sisters.
I should have thought harder about all of it. ’
She shook her head. ‘No, Mats. I know your plans have taken a turn, that running out of money is a big deal. It’s scary. But don’t forget, you went into this with your eyes open. You knew the risks, and you did it anyway.’ She said it as if that were a good thing.
‘I did it anyway. Even though my father ignored the island for almost his entire life, I thought I knew better. I thought I was taking our family’s legacy and preserving it, when it was a legacy he never wanted.
’ His chest was tight from the effort of holding all the emotion in.
It felt like fate was laughing at him now.
He’d read everything wrong, gone against what his family wanted.
‘I should cut my losses. Sell the island like everyone wanted in the first place and go back to Oslo. Then we can be together.’
‘None of this is going to stop us from being together, Mats. And doing any of those things isn’t going to make you happy.
It might solve your problems in the short-term but you’ll be back where you were before any of this happened, and you’ll still have that dream, but be farther away from it than ever. ’
Her words cut through. He looked at her and could see the determination in her eyes. The same determination that had taken her from being betrayed by the person she loved to where she was today.
‘What you’ve already done is incredible. Don’t start doubting yourself now.’
‘Don’t start doubting us, Lotta. I know you’re worried that a long-distance relationship is the last thing I need, but it’s the best thing in my life. You’re the best thing in my life, and if I have to come back to London with you for a few days, then I will.’
She sighed. ‘I don’t doubt the way you feel about me, and you know I feel the same. This was your plan before you met me, but I’ve been in your shoes and I can’t be the person on the other side of that.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m going to pull your focus from the island right when everything is becoming more difficult for you.
Maybe I’m not doing it deliberately like Curtis did to me, but it’s happening.
And I know what it’s like to see your life implode because you’re concentrating on someone else instead of thinking about yourself. ’
‘But this is still different. And I’ll fight you forever and a day on it because we matter more than anything.
So I’m coming to London because I want to, because we’re in this together.
You’re not gaslighting me into it, nothing is going to be ruined in the couple of days I am away. I want to do this.’
He saw the relief in her eyes. She needed to hear these things from him, even though he wished they went without saying.
‘Thank you,’ she said quietly, taking a sip of wine.
He reached for her hand and squeezed it, feeling that they were both back on the same page. It was going to be a challenge every step of the way, but he didn’t mind that because it was worth any amount of strategising and negotiation to be with her.
‘How about tomorrow we go over to the island and knock the cabin wall through together?’
‘I’d love that.’ Her eyes lit up for the first time since they’d opened that bottle of wine.
By the time they left the bar, it was drizzling, but neither of them cared. They walked back to the house, side by side, Lotta’s arm around his waist, and his around her shoulders.
‘It’s going to be okay, you know,’ he said to her, wishing he could believe it himself. He’d never had to live with such uncertainty in his life before. It was exhausting. But as long as Lotta could understand that she wasn’t the cause of his doubts, that was all that mattered.
She looked up at him, her blue eyes beautiful, piercing the darkness. ‘I know.’ The uncertainty had gone, for now at least, replaced by love and trust.
‘I want to move here,’ she said. ‘But I’m not ready.’
He sensed that this was what had been worrying her, and for whatever reason she hadn’t felt able to say it earlier in the evening.
‘That’s okay.’
‘It’s taken me a long time to get my life and my business back on track, and that’s important to me.’
‘It’s important to me, too. I know we’ve talked about living on the island together.
I also know that when you meet a new person, it’s normal to imagine how you can fit into each other’s lives.
But that doesn’t make it anything more than dreaming about the future.
I want us to dream about a future together, but for now let’s stick to concentrating on one step at a time. ’
She stopped walking and hugged him. ‘Thank you.’
‘We’re in this together. Any time you feel like you’re losing control, that things between us aren’t going the way you want, talk to me.’
She nodded, leaning her forehead against his chest. ‘Same for you.’ He put a hand on the back of her head, her soft hair underneath his palm, reminding him of the first time they met when he’d longed to touch it.
They’d come a long way since then, and he wasn’t about to let Lotta think that this relationship was going to end in devastation like her previous one.