Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

Sapphie had met and liked Magnus’s brother Linus earlier. She’d also thanked him for his assistance in gathering information on the break-ins at the nursery and her old apartment.

Unlike his older brother, Linus had dirty-blond hair, hazel-colored eyes, and looked to be in his midthirties. Making him several years younger than his twin brothers, Magnus and Fergus.

He’d also spoken a lot of technical jargon that Sapphie didn’t understand as he explained the improved security to the whole building as well as the apartment. A building that, as it transpired, Magnus owned.

Well, he had told her he was richer than the Carluccis!

An exclusive building like this one, in the center of London and twenty stories high, must be worth tens if not hundreds of millions of pounds.

Yep, Magnus really was richer than the Carluccis.

Linus had left shortly after they were introduced. Magnus had then heated up the Chinese food his brother had brought for their supper before Sapphie took Angel off to the en suite bathroom next to their bedroom to bathe her daughter.

Angel had a slight meltdown when Sapphie was running the bath, bursting into tears and crying because she missed Henry.

Sapphie had turned to look at Magnus as he stood in the doorway, his disgusted expression telling her exactly what he thought about Angel being upset about the missing spider.

“To be fair, he did always sit on the side of the bath when Angel was in it, and she would chatter away to him, telling him about her day,” she explained. “Peculiarly, he always looked as if he understood her too.”

She’d laughed when Magnus’s expression of disgust hadn’t lightened in the slightest before he’d turned on his heel and left the room. Seconds later, she’d heard him in the kitchen, no doubt tidying up after their meal.

Sapphie had finished bathing her daughter before drying and dressing her. She’d then carried Angel through to say good night to Magnus, kissing him on the cheek, before toting Angel to the bedroom and tucking her daughter beneath the covers on one of the single beds in the bedroom Sapphie had chosen earlier for the two of them.

Both Angel and Angus, who was curled up at the bottom of Angel’s bed, were asleep before Sapphie finished reading the bedtime story.

Not surprising after the upheaval of the past twenty-four hours.

Sapphie had expected to find Magnus in the sitting room when she left the bedroom, maybe watching the news, but he wasn’t there. The kitchen was clean and tidy, as she had thought it would be. But there was no Magnus there either.

The doors to the other bedrooms in the apartment all stood open, but a wander down the hallway showed Magnus wasn’t in any of those rooms either. Although, Sapphie guessed that the room decorated in blues and grays, with a king-size bed dominating the space, belonged to Magnus.

Having been constantly on the move the past two years, always worried about being found by the Carluccis, Sapphie hadn’t allowed herself the luxury of feeling lonely during that time.

She hadn’t wanted to need anyone, or for anyone, apart from Angel, to need her.

But here and now, with Angel asleep and Magnus nowhere to be found, Sapphie felt the raw depth of the bleakness of that loneliness inside her.

And she was at a loss to explain to herself why, in such a short amount of time, she had come to value and rely on Magnus’s company so much.

He was handsome, yes. His desire to protect her and Angel was so intense, he had totally upended his own life to ensure the two of them not only felt but actually were safe. To the extent he’d even had his younger brother increase the security of this whole building, not just the apartment.

No one had ever protected her the way Magnus now was.

He’d also asked her to marry him.

Twice.

Which… Well, Sapphie wasn’t quite sure what that was about.

She couldn’t accept, of course. But they could have talked about it some more. Magnus could have explained why he was making such a generous offer.

Sapphie certainly hadn’t expected him to just disappear while she was putting Angel to bed.

Had she maybe hoped, now that they were alone again, that she and Magnus might share a few more of those devastating and arousing kisses?

If she had, Magnus’s absence said she was going to be disappointed.

She wandered about the apartment for another half an hour before taking herself off to the bathroom to shower before going to bed. It was still early, but it had been a long night and day, and watching television on her own didn’t appeal.

She had no idea how long she stood beneath the hot shower after washing herself and her hair. Marveling, wallowing in the luxury that the water didn’t go cold after a while, as so many of the showers had in the rooms or apartments she’d rented during the last two years.

Her heart gave a jolt when she heard a noise in the otherwise silent apartment as she stepped out of the shower. A barely discernible noise, and not one she recognized, but she could definitely hear a repetitive thump, thump, thump coming from somewhere close by.

She quickly finished drying herself before pulling on a silky purple camisole top with matching shorts. Her normal bedtime attire, unless it was cold. Which this apartment certainly wasn’t.

Even the wooden floor was heated beneath her bare feet as she cautiously followed the noise to the end of the hallway and took a left. She knew she had taken the correct turn as the thumping sound turned into a steady thwack the farther down the hallway she walked.

A crack of light showed from the door that stood slightly ajar at the end of the dark hallway. Drawing Sapphie closer, and then closer still, until she was near enough to gently push the door open and look inside the room beyond.

Her breath caught and held in her throat as she stared at Magnus.

His tanned body was gleaming with sweat in the places the body-hugging black tank top and loose black shorts didn’t cover. He wore boxing gloves as he methodically landed punch after punch on the scarred leather bag hanging from the ceiling. The source of the thwacking sound.

Sapphie could now see that the room was set up as a home gym. But one whose equipment—weights, a cross-trainer, rowing machine, a treadmill, and several other machines she didn’t recognize—rivaled the ones in the exclusive health club she and Marco had belonged to in Washington.

Sapphie couldn’t stop staring at Magnus as he continued to punch the battered leather, so focused on the task he was completely unaware of her watching him.

As she had thought might be the case, without the tailored suit, Magnus had bulging and defined muscles in his arms and shoulders. The tank top clung to his lean torso and washboard abs, with an eight-pack disappearing beneath the loose shorts sitting low on his hips. His long legs were also tanned and muscled, the trainers on his feet black, to match the rest of his attire.

Several damp tendrils of his dark hair, usually brushed back from the harshness of his features, fell over his forehead, making him appear younger than his forty-two years.

Sapphie gave a self-derisive snort, knowing that Magnus could be aged sixty-two and he would still possess that totally masculine aura that drew women’s gazes wherever he went.

She had seen that for herself earlier today as they walked through the park, as female after female, young and old, turned to watch him and his long-legged stride. Those female gazes didn’t seem to be drawn to just his rugged good looks, but also to the way he moved so confidently.

It didn’t seem fair for one man to possess quite so much raw charisma?—

“How long have you been standing there?”

Sapphie’s eyes widened and her cheeks heated with color when she realized she had been so mesmerized by Magnus’s muscular body she’d had no idea he’d stopped punching the leather bag and was now staring at her , his eyes both fierce and hungry.

Magnus had deliberately put some space between himself and Sapphie after witnessing Angel bursting into tears because she wanted her damned spider. It had been even more distressing to watch Sapphie try, and fail, to soothe and comfort her very upset daughter. He knew that part of the little girl’s meltdown had to be because of all the sudden changes in her life these past twenty-four hours. The missing spider from her bath had obviously become the catalyst for all that emotional upheaval.

He’d really hoped that an hour’s workout in the gym, followed by a cold shower, would help to ease some of his tension. Or at least tire him so much, he wouldn’t have the energy to walk around with a constant hard-on to touch and caress every inch of Sapphie.

One glance at Sapphie standing in the doorway of the gym and wearing only a purple camisole that clung to the plump and erect nipples beneath, the matching shorts just as revealing and leaving the whole length of her slender legs bare, and Magnus knew he’d only been kidding himself.

His cock was once again as hard as fucking rock.

Proving he’d need to be six feet underground and no longer breathing to stop desiring her.

His cock gave an eager throb as he watched Sapphie’s tongue tentatively moisten her lips before she spoke. “You said I could go into any of the rooms in the apartment.”

“You can.” Magnus turned away to untie and remove his boxing gloves, needing to look away from her before he spontaneously combusted in his bloody boxers. “I just thought the apartment was so quiet that you must have gone to bed too.”

“Thought or hoped?”

He turned sharply. “What the hell does that mean?”

She swallowed. “We’re in your way, Magnus?—”

He crossed the room so quickly, in just two strides, that he was standing in front of Sapphie seemingly before he was aware of having made the conscious move to be closer to her. “You are not in my way,” he growled.

She looked up at him with wide eyes that had deepened in color to the same purple as her camisole and shorts. “We’re obviously inconveniencing you if you have to escape to your gym just to avoid being anywhere near us.”

He breathed out noisily. “I’m not avoiding you. Either of you. I just needed some exercise to—to work off some of my tension.”

Tension that had now returned tenfold, first from just looking at Sapphie, now from being close enough to smell the citrus shampoo she had obviously used to wash her hair and the more subtle scent of her floral body wash from taking a shower.

The thought of her standing naked in one of his showers was enough to cause his cock to throb and pre-cum to leak from the tip, making his boxers uncomfortably wet.

A frown creased Sapphie’s brow. “Why are you tense?”

Fucking hell, this woman was going to be the death of him! “Two reasons.”

“Which are?”

He released a heavy sigh. “How the hell can you stand watching Angel cry as if her little heart is breaking?”

Sapphie chuckled. “Got to you, huh?”

“Yeah.”

She nodded. “I hate to see her crying too. Hate it. But I also know that, with the resilience of the very young, she’ll recover just as quickly. For example, she fell asleep in the middle of the story I was reading to her with a smile on her face because she had Angus curled up on the bed beside her.”

Magnus felt some of the tightness ease from the knots in his chest.

Until Sapphie asked her next question.

“And the other reason?”

Magnus thought about lying to her and then instantly dismissed the idea. This woman had already been lied to and deceived enough in her life: she really didn’t need him doing it too. “Sexual,” he grated.

“Sexual?” she repeated huskily, the color deepening in her cheeks.

He nodded. “I want you so bad, I can’t fucking think straight.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. Oh,” he confirmed self-derisively.

Her throat moved as she swallowed. “What if I want you in the same way?”

His hands clenched and his body burned so hot, he really felt as if he might spontaneously combust. “Do you?”