Page 92 of How to Belong with a Billionaire

“Yes.” I bobbed my head as eagerly as a cartoon dog. “That’s it exactly. One minute there was an us, and we were working through things, and the next there wasn’t and we weren’t, and I didn’t even get a say.”

“The thing is”—Jonas broke off with a sweet, almost sheepish look—“well, I’m not the person to be giving you advice about relationships, but in my experience, when people are reacting to things within themselves, all you can do is let them.”

He was right, of course, and I hadn’t needed him to tell me that. But I guess it helped hearing it out loud. “It kind of feels like there’s me, and there’s what he went through, but that’s the only thing that counts. Except now it sounds as if I think it’s a competition.”

“It doesn’t sound that way to me.”

“I honestly don’t. I just wish I could be as real to him as his pain.”

“I expect this will come across as a platitude”—Jonas stirred the dregs of his tea—“but time can make a huge difference when it comes to things like this.”

Considering what had happened at the Laine Matthäus Gallery, or more particularly in its fire escape, I was sceptical. “It hasn’t so far.”

“It’s been months. Try years. There will be a point when things are better. For both of you.”

“Really?”

He put a hand to his heart. “I promise.”

We talked about other things after that—or I did, anyway. Simple stuff like work, friends, books I liked, my time at university, both of us edging carefully round the past. He did ask me a couple of times if I remembered anything—the weekend we’d all spent on the Cornish coast or the time he’d read meThe Iron Man—but I was too young. Nothing but blanks. Except for a disconnected sense-memory of the widest, bluest sky, which I kept to myself.

It was only when Starbucks started trying to close around us that I noticed how late it had got. Hastily, we packed up and made for the street. Paused on the pavement in the halo of greeny-gold light that spilled out with us.

“So,” I said, swinging my bag onto my shoulder in what I hoped was a nonchalant manner, and accidentally whacked a passerby. “That was a thing we did.”

Jonas resettled his glasses. “I would like to do it again. If you would.”

Did I? Well, why not? It had gone fine. Nothing terrible had happened. I mean, I still wasn’t ready to roll out a welcome mat to my life, but he wasn’t asking for that. And probably it was better to have a dad whose existence you were vaguely aware of instead of a dad who was lurking in the shadows like a spider under the sofa. “Maybe. Sure. Yeah.”

“I’ll be back down south in about six to eight months.”

“Six to eight months?”

“I can text you. I’ve got your number.”

“Okay.”

“And obviously”—a glimmer of a dimple—“I’m here ’til the end of the week.”

“Any plans?”

“I’ve got some people to see. What about you?”

“Work, nothing major.” I toed at the pavement. “If you’re not busy…since it’s going to be a while…we could probably meet up again before you leave.”

He got that glowy look. “I can do Friday?”

“Yeah, okay. Same Starbucks, same pack-drill?”

“I’ll see you then.”

To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure why I’d suggested it. Only that it had felt right at the time. And, afterwards, I wished I hadn’t—despite the fact I had no concrete reason for being uncomfortable. He’d behaved exactly the way you’d want your abusive absentee father to behave if he’d appeared out of nowhere, claiming to want to be part of your life. Besides, I didn’thaveto meet Jonas again if I didn’t want to. Although cancelling or standing him up would have been shitty. Especially since he hadn’t done anything wrong.

Well. Anything wrong to me.

Chapter 31

Friday fucking sucked. Not in a dramatic, interesting way. My hair wouldn’t get its act together. The Circle line was subject to “minor delays across the service,” which meant everything was stuck. I knocked my Diet Coke over in my drawer. Accidentally hitDO NOT SAVE CHANGESafter editing an entire article on the twenty-seven best pedicures in London. AndREPLY ALLin a moment of mental abstraction. Not disastrously. But it still made me look inept in front of two hundred people, one of whom was my boss. Go me. And then, of course, I ran into further “minor delays” on the way to meet my dad. Leaving me to charge into Starbucks grumpy and sweaty, with stupid hair, and there was Jonas waiting for me at the same table we’d had last time, with a muffin, and a hot chocolate that had clearly gone cold. Which made me feel extra bad for wanting to ditch him.