Chapter Five
Ari
I arrive back to my office just a few minutes before my meeting with Diana.
I hadn’t planned on spending all day at the plant.
But right after Diana had left, I found Xenakis talking with one of my engineers.
He’d been surprisingly cordial—the friendliest he’s been since the first time we met nearly a year ago.
He didn’t bring up my father or the takeover.
But he did ask more questions about the hydrogen and ammonia facilities here in Iceland.
There were no signs of suspicion or anger. Just genuine curiosity.
Through it all, from my conversation with him to the unexpected visit with our maintenance department and a trip to our plant farther north, I thought of Diana.
I punch the button for the elevator. I was hard on her. I’m angry with her, but I’m also angry with myself. And that anger is seeping into how I deal with her.
Damn it, she’s right. Why did I bring her on board if I’m not going to let her do her job?
She’s made more headway in twenty-four hours than I’ve made in months.
I’m not sharing the details of my father’s betrayal.
But letting down my walls a little—letting Xenakis see the personal side of our company—is something I can do.
The elevator doors open. I tense as Diana raises her head and her gaze meets mine.
She’s wearing the same navy suit she had on earlier: a sleek blazer and pants that follow the long length of her legs.
She has on a thick black coat, her maroon leather messenger bag hanging from her shoulder. Her fingers tighten around the strap.
Cold, icy beauty. None of the warmth I saw in her interactions with Xenakis, the friendly smiles she gave my staff as she listened to everything they had to say.
Disconcerting to see traces of the woman I’d bonded with so quickly and unexpectedly in New York.
A woman who had listened, seen parts of me I’d thought long buried.
When she’d asked questions, it wasn’t out of pretense or design.
It had just been her. Her quiet, genuine warmth had drawn me out from behind the wall I’d erected decades ago.
Now she stares at me with chilly professionalism.
“Mr. Valdasson,” she says, her voice professional but cool. “I left my report for the day on your desk. If you have any questions, I’ll be in at eight tomorrow.”
I almost miss the glimmer of pain in her eyes. It’s faint, but it cuts me, sharper than any knife. She starts to brush past me. A fist grabs my heart, squeezes.
“Stay.”
The look she gives me would be amusing if she weren’t so irritated. “I just put in a twelve-hour day. I’m tired. And I’m hungry,” she says with a slight sigh. “Malla told me you had to drive up north today, so I know it’s been a long day for you, too. I just want to—”
“Let me buy you dinner,” I interrupt, not letting her finish.
Her mouth drops open. “What?”
Business, I tell myself. This is just business, reestablishing a working relationship with a woman who just might be able to salvage this deal.
“I had an interesting conversation with Xenakis after you left,” I continue. “The conservation gala is in two days. It’ll be the first time I have another opportunity to talk with him outside of a traditional business setting, and I’d like your opinion.”
She stares at me for so long that I wonder if she’s going to say no. Then a slight smile crosses her face—one that eases some of the tension inside me.
“You’re already paying for my expenses. Alcohol not included,” she adds with a not-so-subtle sassiness.
“I’m assuming you’ve never tasted Brennivín before.”
She bites her bottom lip, thinking. “Why the sudden change of heart?”
Her voice is quiet, her tone curious with the faintest hint of vulnerability that tugs at me.
“I disagree with you on how to best approach this,” I say finally. “But whatever you said to Xenakis today worked.”
Seconds drag out. Then, finally, she answers.
“All right.”
The restaurant is only a couple blocks away, tucked down a winding cobblestone street reserved only for pedestrians.
Diana’s eyes widen as we walk down a flight of stairs flanked by two ponds with shallow fountains gurgling despite the freezing-cold temperature.
Lanterns glow on either side of the doors, which look more like the entrance to a fortress than one of Reykjavik’s highest-rated restaurants.
“Wow,” she murmurs.
It’s hard not to take pleasure in the touch of excitement in her faint smile.
As we walk inside, she takes in the drapes of burgundy silk across the ceiling, the dimly lit chandeliers, and the gleaming hardwood floors with wide eyes.
One side of the restaurant houses long tables with tufted leather chairs, reserved for large groups and boisterous families.
The bar is a work of art, with slightly darker wood than the floors, trimmed with ornate carvings that gleam in the dim light.
Behind the bar, glass shelves host bottle upon bottle of blended wines, liquors, beer, and some of the world’s finest spirits.
To the right are smaller, more intimate tables, with chairs on one side and booths tucked into small recesses in the wall on the other.
The same fabric that drapes across the ceiling falls in panels to the floor, providing pockets of privacy.
Our waiter seats us. I order shots of Brennivín for both of us. When the waiter sets down the glasses, Diana eyes them curiously.
“So, do you just…do it?” she asks.
I smirk at her. “Have you never had a shot?”
“It’s an honest question,” she responds. “Do you just toss it back? Chase it with anything?”
“Sounds like you might be more of an expert than I am.”
She smiles, pure, unabashed pleasure lighting up her face. Even during our time in New York, I never saw that on her face. I don’t quite know how to handle it, nor do I know how to handle the tightening in my gut.
“Working as an international corporate negotiator means I’ve been to a lot of places and experienced a lot of different kinds of food and drinks.” She picks up the glass. “People bond over food.”
Something in her tone catches me—a hint of the sadness I glimpsed on her face as she stared at the painting of the dancers back in New York.
I know from both our dinner with Liam and the background check I’d had run that they’d met in foster care.
That she’d been in the system for years.
Had she dreamed of taking dance lessons as a little girl?
Or maybe she’d taken them once, in another lifetime before everything had changed.
She picks up her shot glass and holds it up. “Toss it back,” she says with a smile, then proceeds to do just that. I watch, wide-eyed, as she downs the shot.
“Oh. That’s different,” she adds, blinking.
“Iceland’s national drink.” I don’t even bother to hide my slight smile at her unexpected streak of adventurousness. “Nicknamed the Black Death.”
Her eyes flick up to mine. “You’re not serious?”
“Deadly.”
She stares at me for a moment, then throws her head back and laughs. I watch, mesmerized, as her teeth flash white in the dim lighting and her eyes dance.
“I think that’s the first joke I’ve ever heard you utter, Mr. Valdasson.”
“I’m more known for my wit than my humor,” I reply.
Her lips curl into a smile. “I didn’t even realize you had any.”
I can’t help but return her smile as our waiter approaches.
Diana orders a Brennivín cocktail while I order whiskey neat.
She nods her head to me when the waiter asks what we want.
A small sign of trust, one that warms me far more than it should.
I order in Icelandic, enjoying the furrow between her brows and her narrowed eyes, like she’s trying to decipher what I’m saying.
“So,” she says once the waiter departs, “what do you want to know?”
“As I said before, any details I shared with you the other night remain in confidence,” I begin.
“I didn’t share anything that wasn’t publicly avail—”
I cut her off by holding up a hand. “However, I had another conversation with Xenakis this morning after you left. He was more agreeable today than he’s been in months.”
“You two certainly have different expectations when it comes to business. I also think there’s a big cultural misunderstanding here.”
Our waiter interrupts us as he sets plates of rye bread with creamed butter and Icelandic salmon on our table.
“Why don’t you want Xenakis to know about your father?”
“One, because I’m a private person. Two, I want this deal to succeed on AuraGeothermal’s own merits, not pity.”
“But what if it’s not pity?” Diana presses. “What if it’s context? Right now, Xenakis sees you as the man who shoved his own father out because he didn’t want to play nice with others.”
“I don’t play nice with others,” I say bluntly.
Diana’s gaze turns sad. “I don’t think you let yourself play at all.”
I sit back, unnerved by the jolt of truth in my chest. When was the last time I did something for fun?
A memory flickers. The summer before my mother passed.
I hadn’t realized at the time that she’d been pregnant, but she had been exhausted and sick for nearly two months.
One day, she came into my room, eyes bright and face glowing.
She took me out to the yard and we kicked the ball back and forth.
A simple afternoon, yet it plays out in my head as vividly as I were there.
Grief reaches up and clutches at my throat. It takes a moment to wrestle it back under control. My eyes flick up to hers. The compassion and empathy in her gaze is temptation and warning. I want to accept what she’s offering, lean into her ability to see me like no one else has.
But the warning wins out. That and common sense.
I brought Diana here for business, to reestablish boundaries while making use of her talents, not break open my chest and let my tumultuous past bleed onto the floor.
Not when she has yet to share any of herself.
Even during our night together, her answers to my queries were vague.
The one detail she divulged was that her mother had left when she was four and she’s never known who her father was.
At the time, I found her ambiguity intriguing.
Now, as she pushes me to share my life with a man I don’t trust, it irritates the hell out of me.
I raise my glass to my lips. “You grew up in foster care?”
Her eyes snap up to mine, instantly wary.
“Yes.”
I can tell from the way she utters that one word that it wasn’t pleasant.
I know plenty about Diana’s life after she graduated with honors from a high school in New York.
But other than knowing she grew up in foster care, I know nothing about her childhood, including why she ended up there in the first place.
When I had the investigation run on her, I told myself the details of before weren’t important.
A move I now regret. Did she confide in Liam?
Tell him about the reason why the Degas painting made her sad?
The sounds of the dining room fade around us. I’ve been focused all day on Diana as the professional, then Diana as the woman, that I had forgotten Diana’s role as the ex-fiancée of my brother. Forgotten—or pushed aside, a small voice taunts—for my own selfish desire.
My phone rings. I pull it out and glance at the screen. It’s the event planner for the gala. I nod to Diana.
“Excuse me,” I say.
She blinks in surprise. “Of course.”
I stand and walk away from the table. Taking Diana out to dinner was the right thing to do, even if she’s still pushing me to share more than I’m comfortable with.
Her analysis is detailed, knowledgeable.
She’s good at what she does. If I can focus on her role as a negotiator and push aside the glimmers of warmth I’ve experienced over the course of our dinner, this can work.
I tap my phone screen. “Valdasson.”