Page 2 of Magnus
Fuck!
“It’s a holiday people go on after they get married,” he bit out.
“Oh.” She looked suitably unimpressed. “My mummy isn’t married.”
Okay. “Neither am I,” Magnus offered.
“Do you have any little girls of your own?”
“No.”
“I’m not your cousin or busi—partner, or your little girl, so can I be your friend instead?”
The thought of this little angel being his daughter caused an ache in Magnus’s chest.
Which was fucking ridiculous!
All Magnus had done was leave the office to go to Rufus’s house at lunchtime to collect Angus and bring the cream-colored West Highland Terrier to the park for a walk. He had then intended taking the dog back to Rufus’s house before returning to work in the executive office situated in the London-based Wynter Security building for the rest of the afternoon.
He certainly hadn’t envisaged being accosted by a three- or four-year-old child—he’d now decided she was probably younger than he’d initially thought—while he was at the park.
Or feeling as if he were being interviewed for a job he hadn’t applied for… “Look, angel?—”
“How do you know my name?” She gave him a pleased smile.
“I don’t,” he answered cautiously.
She frowned slightly. “But you just called me Angel.”
His brows rose. “That’s your name?”
She nodded. “Angelique, but Mummy always calls me Angel.”
Magnus would too. “My name is Magnus. It was the name of a Norwegian king,” he explained when she eyed him quizzically, obviously never having heard the name before. “Where is your mummy right now?” He diverted the conversation rather than continuing to explain the meaning of his name or where Norway was.
“At work. It’s Tuesday, and Mummy always works in the library on a Tuesday?—”
“Angelique Jones!” a strident voice shouted across the park as a thin and harried-looking red-haired woman, probably aged in her midthirties, hurried toward them.
Magnus frowned at her. “Is that your mummy?”
“No, that’s Miss Francesca.” She leaned forward across the table so she could confide, “She’s mean.”
Magnus’s hackles rose defensively at the thought of anyone being mean to this little sweetheart. “In what way is she mean?”
“She won’t let me bring Henry with me into nursery, even on Show and Tell day, and if I don’t eat my lunch quickly enough, she won’t let me have any dessert either.”
Magnus could see by the earnest expression on Angel’s face that she consideredboththose things to be the height of meanness. Magnus didn’t think it was particularly nice to deny a small child her cuddly toy named Henry, or dessert either.
He also found himself agreeing with her that Miss Francesca certainlylookedmean when the cross and slightly breathless redhead arrived beside where they were sitting.
She ignored him completely as she grasped Angel’s arm to pull the little girl off the wooden seat so that the woman was now towering over her. From the way Angel’s skin showed white around the edge of those fingers, the woman wasn’t being gentle about it either.
“I have told you before about wandering off.” She bent down to snap furiously into Angel’s face. “It’s dangerous. There are people in the park who might take you away and do terrible?—”
“Hey, now, I don’t think there’s any need to frighten the child.” Magnus stood to look down the length of his nose at the woman who was obviously an employee at the nursery Angel said she attended. “Unless that last remark was aimed at me? In which case, we’re going to have a problem.” He raised a single eyebrow in challenge.
Magnus was well aware of how some people found his height and appearance alarming.
