Chapter 16

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Sapphie!” Patrice reached her first before reaching out to encompass her in a bone-crushing hug. “It’s so good to see you!” she leaned back slightly to gush. “We were so afraid—” She broke off. “You look so well,” she said instead.

Sapphie’s expression was wooden as she pulled away from the other woman and the waft of the heavy perfume Patrice always wore. Patrice looked older, a lot older, than when she had last seen the other woman.

Sapphie lifted her chin. “What were you afraid of? That your ‘mentally unstable’ daughter-in-law might have killed herself after murdering your granddaughter?” she challenged bitterly.

Patrice gasped, her face pale beneath her expertly applied makeup. “Of course not. Why would you even think such a thing?”

Sapphie could feel a nerve pulsing in her tightly clenched jaw. “Possibly because that’s what the two of you told the police when you asked them to put out a warrant for my arrest.”

“We were upset,” Patrice choked. “We didn’t mean it. We only wanted…” She turned to her husband. “Roman, tell Sapphie we would never have gone through with having her arrested, or taken Angel away from her.”

“I will, honey,” Roman assured, an older version of his blond-haired, blue-eyed son, although his blond hair was more liberally sprinkled with gray than it had been two years ago. “But first, perhaps Sapphie would like to tell us who these gentlemen are that she’s brought with her? Is one of them the Mr. Wilder who made an appointment to see us, or was that a complete ruse?” He narrowed his gaze initially on the two Wynter brothers before moving to the men behind them.

Sapphie straightened to her full height, her gaze unwavering as she answered him. “No ruse. Mr. Wilder is waiting in the SUV. This is my fiancé, Magnus Wynter,” she introduced confidently. “His brother Fergus. Along with six of the men who work for their company, Wynter Security.”

Magnus had never felt prouder of Sapphie than he did at this moment. Not just because she had publicly claimed him as her fiancé, but because he could now clearly see how much she had needed to confront the Carluccis herself on behalf of her daughter and herself.

Which wasn’t to say he wasn’t going to make sure the older couple knew they were dealing with far more than the daughter-in-law they had once tried to break by taking her daughter away from her.

As far as he was concerned, Angel was his daughter too now, and he wouldn’t allow anyone to take the little girl away from Sapphie and him.

The Carluccis’ home was everything Magnus had thought it would be, a huge sprawling mansion that was far too big for two people but spoke of their social standing rather than comfort.

Roman Carlucci was probably twenty years older than him and thick around the waist. His blond hair was also liberally sprinkled with gray, and there were deep grooves beside his eyes and mouth.

Patrice was about the same age as her husband and fashionably thin, with dyed blonde hair and expertly applied makeup that couldn’t quite disguise the unhappy lines fanning out from beside her eyes.

The couple took them into a sitting room, in which Magnus’s men immediately positioned themselves strategically against the four walls, their bodies and eyes on full alert for any danger.

It was an elegant room but somehow characterless. The latter, Magnus realized with a frown, was probably because there were no family photographs on display, either on the side dresser or above the fireplace.

Correction: there was one photograph sitting proudly on the ornate table beside the television set. It was of a happily grinning little girl and a more serious-faced young woman, both of them having golden hair and violet eyes.

Angel and Sapphie.

Magnus turned to look at Sapphie when he heard her gasp beside him, realizing from the shocked expression on her face as she stared at the photograph that it was the last thing she had expected to see. A photograph of Angel, perhaps, but not one that included her.

And where were the photographs of their son?

“This is the only photograph of the two of you we have.” Patrice spoke wistfully as she stepped forward to lightly touch the frame. “It was taken that last Christmas we were all together. Do you remember?”

“I remember,” Sapphie confirmed stiffly.

The last time she had been in this room, it had been full of photographs of Marco, from when he was a child right up to a few months before he died. It shocked her to see that there was now only that one photograph on display, and it wasn’t of Marco.

What did that mean…?

“We made so many mistakes, Sapphie.” Patrice turned to take her hands in hers. “We had no idea what you had to put up with— How you had suffered—” She drew in a shaky breath. “He was our son and, rightly or wrongly, we were so blinded by our love for him, we never saw any of the…less honorable things that he did.”

“We learned shortly after you left what a bastard of a husband he had been to you,” Roman acknowledged heavily.

Sapphie swallowed. “Learned how?”

Roman’s jaw tightened. “Do you remember Cami Birchell?”

Yes, Sapphie remembered the other woman very well, because she had been one of the young women Marco slept with during their marriage.

“She committed suicide a little under two years ago,” Patrice put in flatly.

“No!” Sapphie gasped. She hadn’t particularly liked the other woman, but she had only been a year or so older than her, with her whole life ahead of her.

“She left a note,” Patrice continued evenly. “In it, she explained exactly why she felt she had no other choice but to kill herself.” She reached out to grasp her husband’s hand for support before continuing. “She was in love with Marco, had been involved in an affair with him right up until he died. But she then learned from several of her friends after his death that they had been sleeping with him too.”

None of which came as any surprise to Sapphie, but she could imagine how much of a shock it must have been for Cami and Marco’s parents.

“It seemed—it seems that Cami had been pregnant six months before Marco died,” Patrice revealed brokenly. “He persuaded her to get an abortion, claiming that now wasn’t the time for them to go public with their affair, that they could have other children once his political career was established. After he died, and Cami discovered she was only one of the many women Marco was sleeping with before and during your marriage, that there had never been any intent on his part to ever be with her, she realized how stupid she had been to fall for his lies. She said in her letter she couldn’t live with herself after what she’d done.”

Sapphie was past being hurt by anything Marco had done, before or during their marriage. Nor had she ever contemplated suicide because of his infidelity. But she could feel pity for Cami, and all those other women Marco had lied to.

“Her parents were friends of ours, as you know,” Patrice continued. “But they want nothing to do with us now. Nor do the parents of the other young women Marco had affairs with before or during his marriage to you. Not that I blame them for that,” she added bleakly. “I would feel the same way if it had been my daughter Marco had treated so disgracefully.”

Sapphie’s hands tightened about the older woman’s. “I am so sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about,” Patrice choked incredulously. “It’s we who should be apologizing to you. We were unfair to you because you weren’t part of our social set. We never gave you a chance. And all the time Marco was—he was—” She began to cry in earnest.

Roman took his wife in his arms and allowed her to cry for several minutes before once again looking at Sapphie. “I owe you my deepest apology too. Maybe we were to blame for indulging our son too much. But what we’ve learned since Marco’s death means that he’s not a man, or a husband, I could be proud to claim as my son.”

Sapphie couldn’t even begin to imagine how heartbreaking it must have been for them to learn of Marco’s adultery and other undesirable behavior in such tragic circumstances. She was beyond caring for her own part, but she could sympathize with the Carluccis for now knowing what sort of man their son had been.

No, they hadn’t been very nice to her when she came here as Marco’s wife. But Marco could be so disarmingly charming, and she knew from being a mother to Angel that it was hard to ever see any wrong in your own child. Not that Angel was remotely like her father in any way, but Sapphie could still appreciate how hard it was to ever see any faults in your own child.

“None of which explains why you have allowed the accusation of her being mentally unstable and an unfit mother to stand against Sapphie,” Magnus put in harshly.

Reminding Sapphie of exactly why she’d had no choice but to take Angel and run away from here two years ago, and to keep on running.

“That’s my fault,” Roman admitted. “We had people looking for you all over the world, but I thought that if we left the charges here outstanding, that if you ever came back to the States, we would be notified, and we could then apologize to you and explain all the many mistakes we made where you were concerned.”

“It didn’t occur to either of you that because of those charges, Sapphie has been running and hiding for the past two years, terrified those people you had looking for her would find her, and you would try to take Angel away from her?” Magnus accused.

It was all well and good for these people to acknowledge what a shithead of a person their son had been—more so than even Sapphie had known, apparently—but it didn’t change the fact that Sapphie had been living under the cloud of those accusations for the past two years.

“No!” Patrice choked. “Oh my dear, we are so sorry if that has been the case. We just wanted to find you so that we could apologize for all our mistakes.”

“ Then try to take Angel from her,” he accused. “Which isn’t going to happen, by the way. Sapphie and I are getting married, and I’m going to adopt Angel as my daughter.”

Roman nodded abruptly. “And from the little I’ve seen, how protective you are of Sapphie, I already know you will be a far better husband to Sapphie and a father to Angel than Marco ever was or could have been.”

Magnus appreciated the comment coming from Marco’s own father. But it didn’t change the fact that it had been the Carluccis’ selfishness that had made Sapphie’s life so difficult these past two years. “I want those charges not just dropped but totally removed from the records, as if they never existed,” he bit out.

“Consider it done,” Roman Carlucci agreed, instantly taking out his cell phone to make a call. “Arnold? Have the police remove all trace of any charges against my daughter-in-law, Sapphire Carlucci. Because they’re fucking bogus! Yes. Right now,” he snapped. “It will be done by the end of the day,” he told them after ending the call.

“Sapphie?” Magnus prompted, knowing that what came next had to be her decision.

He watched as a war was waged behind those beautiful violet eyes, as Sapphie weighed the pros and cons of what she should do for the best.

The moment he saw that decision was made, she turned to the Carluccis. “Do you swear to never again try to take Angel from me?”

“Of course,” Patrice and Roman said at the same time.

Sapphie nodded. “As you can see”—she glanced pointedly about the room—“Magnus and his brother have more than enough men to ensure you will never be allowed near us again if you break your word.”

“We won’t,” Roman assured flatly.

Sapphie drew in a deep breath before slowly releasing it. “Then would you like to be reintroduced to your granddaughter?”

Patrice Carlucci’s face lit up with excitement. “Angel is here?”

“I want your promise first,” Sapphie reminded in a steely voice.

“Sapphie, I swear to you that neither of us ever want to cause you another moment of unhappiness,” Roman stated firmly. “Our son did that far too successfully. We only want to occasionally be allowed to see our granddaughter, with your own and your future husband’s agreement, of course.”

“That’s all?” Sapphie still looked wary.

“I swear to you it is,” Roman vowed.

She studied the couple for several long minutes before nodding. “I’ll go and get Angel. But if I think, even for a moment, that this situation or the two of you frighten her in any way, I will remove her from here and you will never see her again.”

Roman nodded. “We understand and accept your condition wholeheartedly.”

Magnus barely held back his laughter minutes later when he saw the Carluccis’ reaction as Angel was carried into the house by none other than the very protective Knox. Magnus had absolutely no doubt that Knox would shield Angel to his last breath.

As he would.

But their feelings of aggression dissipated the moment Angel asked to be put down and tentatively approached Patrice Carlucci. “Granma?”

“Yes, honeybee,” the older woman confirmed with a choked sob.

Angel turned to Roman. “Grandpa?”

The older man made no effort to stem the tears falling down his cheeks. “That’s me, sweetheart.”

Angel’s smile of recognition for her grandparents was enough to light up the darkest room. Or, in this case, melt the hard hearts of all the men in the room.

“Do you think they’ll honor their promise?” Sapphie prompted once they were on the plane on their way back to England.

“Knox will keep an eye on things over here for a while, but yes, I think they will.” Magnus nodded. “If not, I have no doubt Knox will deal with them without mercy.”

Sapphie had known the depth of Knox’s affection for her daughter when she saw the glisten of tears in his eyes when he had to say goodbye to Angel at the airport. His men had looked almost as heartbroken.

“Angel has an army protecting her now, love,” Magnus said, confirming her suspicion. “I almost—and I do mean almost—felt sorry for the way in which the Carluccis discovered what a disgrace of a human being their son was.”

“A shithead?” Sapphie teasingly reminded him of his earlier description of her deceased husband.

“Yes.”

“You’re going to be such a protective dad.” Sapphie cuddled against Magnus in their adjoining seats on the plane. Angel was once again asleep in the bedroom after spending an enjoyable couple of hours becoming reacquainted with her grandparents.

“Always,” he promised. “Protecting and loving you, Angel, and any more children we might have together, will always be my priority.”

Something that proved all too true ten months later when, as Magnus had warned, Sapphie gave birth to twin sons. Two years later, they had another daughter.

Angel was the best big sister any of them could ever have wished for.

Magnus loved them all equally, but he adored and worshipped Sapphie.