Page 11 of Magnus
If that confirmed he was moving back to the UK permanently, then so be it.
“Someone is knockingon the door, Mummy.” Angel didn’t look up from where she was sitting on the carpeted floor next to the bed watching the cartoons playing on the small television in the corner.
She still looked a little lethargic from the nap she’d taken in the double bed that dominated the small room, worn out from only sleeping in fits and starts during the long train journey to Scotland.
And Sapphie was all too aware that someone had just knocked on the door of their rented room.
Damn it, every cell in her body, every nerve ending, every molecule, had gone into flight mode the moment that single knock sounded loudly on the other side of the thin door, which was all that stood between the two of them and the outside world.
The point being, there shouldn’tbesomeone knocking on the door of their room when no one knew they were even in Edinburgh.
Unless…
She needed to calm down. No one knew where they were. It was probably just the landlady, making sure they were comfortable and didn’t need any more towels or other bathroom supplies. Mrs. Fingus had certainly seemed to take a liking to Angel when they made their weary inquiries this morning about the room advertised in the window outside.
Everyone liked Angel, Sapphie acknowledged with maternal affection. Angel’s adorableness was one of the reasons it made it so difficult for the two of them to hide successfully for any length of time.
Not that she would ever wish for her daughter to be less wonderful than she was. It was just another factor Sapphie had to take into account whenever she gauged it was time for them to move on to somewhere new.
Everyone liked Angel except Francesca Fuller, apparently, who, it seemed, hadn’t liked any children.
Sapphie was still furious at learning about the other woman’s unfair and aggressive behavior toward her daughter. Magnus Wynter had been right, Angel did have finger-shaped bruises on her arm today.
Magnus…
Sapphie had only met him briefly, but even in that short time, she knew that his mere presence had caused an excitement inside her more than any other man had in the past two years. Possibly ever.
She had been very young, only nineteen, when she and Marco met when she had been part of the staff catering the wedding in London at which he’d been a guest. It was one of the three part-time jobs Sapphie had to help pay her way through uni, where she was studying for a degree in Art and Design.
Marco had pursued her relentlessly after that first meeting, more often than not waiting for her when she finished her uni classes for the day. On the evenings she wasn’t working, he would insist on taking her out to dinner or to one of the shows in the West End.
It had been impossible for Sapphie not to fall in love with this warm and generous man who claimed to have fallen in love with her at first sight.
Within just a few short weeks, she had found herself married and moving to the States with her new husband.
Sapphie had intended to resume an art course once they were settled in Washington, but then Angel had been born within the first year of their marriage and motherhood had taken Sapphie in another direction completely. Not that she regretted that for a moment: she had loved and still did love every minute of being Angel’s mother.
Their daughter had been only three months old when Sapphie learned of Marco’s first affair. Well…it was the first she had known about for certain, although she had suspected there might have been others. He had been full of apologies, of course, claiming he had been feeling neglected during the pregnancy and those first sleep-deprived months, for Sapphie, at least, after Angel was born.
It had broken Sapphie’s heart to learn of Marco’s infidelity, but with a young baby depending on her and no family of her own and nowhere else to go, she had decided she had no choice but to forgive Marco and continue on with the marriage.
But it had never been the same between them. Sapphie’s trust in Marco, and their marriage, had been completely destroyed by his admitted infidelity.
Another few months had passed, and Sapphie became convinced Marco was having another affair. A second confrontation happened, followed by his admission of it being true, along with a perfunctory apology, and again, Sapphie had forgiven him. But within months, the pattern had repeated itself.
And so their marriage went on, with Marco being unfaithful again and again, until his death when Angel was only two.
Sapphie had grieved for him; of course she had. But more because he was Angel’s father, and the man Sapphie hadthoughthe was when they first met. Rather than the self-centered man who intended to enter politics, already high on his own power, that he had revealed himself to be beneath that charming veneer.
Or possibly Marco had always been that way and Sapphie had just been too blinkered and in love to see it before then?
She did know that she hadn’t felt even mildly attracted to another man in the two years that followed. Instead, she had preferred to remain emotionally distant from everyone but her beloved daughter.
Until she had looked at Magnus Wynter and, despite her wariness of why he was at the nursery, she had felt the stirring of a sexual interest she hadn’t thought she would ever feel again after Marco’s numerous betrayals.
Magnus was just so big and solid, as if it would take an avalanche to move him off his course once he had set his mind on doing something. And the something he’d set his mind on yesterday had been to protect Angel. Sapphie had thought her heart might burst with gratitude when she realized the reason for his concern.
Another heavy knock sounded on the door. “I know you’re in there, Sapphie, so I suggest you open this door before you leave me with no choice but to break it down. Something I don’t think Mrs. Fingus is going to be too enamored with.”
