Page 8 of Magnus
“None of your damned business.”
His jaw clenched. “If you are running from someone or something, then you could both be in danger after Angel’s exposure at the park today.”
Her eyes glittered. “I am well aware of our current situation, thank you.” She turned away before pausing to look back at him, her eyes alight with a gleeful mischief. “By the way, Henry isn’t a cuddly toy.”
His brows rose. “He isn’t?”
“No.” Her smile appeared almost triumphant. “It’s what Angel has named the spider that lives in the bathroom of our apartment.”
His eyes widened in disbelief. “A spider has lived in the bathroom of your apartment long enough for your daughter to havegiven it a fucking name?” He hated the damn things, certainly couldn’t imagine ever giving one a name. The sole of his shoe, maybe, but not an actual name.
Sapphie chuckled as she nodded. “Because she thinks of him as a friend.”
“A friend she named Henry, despite the fact he’s a spider.” Which, when Magnus thought about it, wasn’t in the least bit funny.
Because of what it said about a four-year-old girl who had chosen to name a random arachnid that would probably shrivel up and die when the heat came on in their apartment during the winter months, because she lacked any other friends.
“Yes.”
Magnus gave a shake of his head. “No wonder this Francesca woman didn’t want her to bring him into nursery with her.”
Sapphie Jones sobered. “I really am grateful for your help today.”
“Now you want me to fuck off out of your life and stay out of your business?” he easily guessed.
“Yes,” she confirmed softly before walking away.
Magnus continued to watch her until she turned the corner at the end of the hallway and disappeared from his view.
If Sapphie thought that anything she’d said to him had put an end to his interest in learning more about her and her daughter, then she was sadly mistaken.
And he knew just the person he could ask to find out that information for him. Not without a lot of questions being asked, but Magnus was willing to put up with the curiosity if it meant he also learned more about Sapphie Jones and her daughter.
CHAPTER THREE
“Who is she?”
Magnus glanced up at his youngest brother, Linus, as the other man strolled into Rufus’s office, and Magnus’s temporary one, in the Wynter Security building the following morning.
Asking one of the questions Magnus had predicted he would.
Magnus leaned back in his leather office chair. “I thought you were going to tell me that.”
Linus, along with their other brother and cousin, was another owner and the technical genius behind Wynter Security. If that genius was occasionally—often!—utilized for hacking, then they dismissed their scruples in those cases and accepted it was sometimes necessary when they were asked for help.
Magnus had preferred to actually call in at Linus’s apartment the previous evening rather than just telephone him. He’d wanted to personally give his brother all the details he had on Sapphie and Angel. Which, he accepted, wasn’t much. But those details came with a request for Linus to find out more about them. A lot more.
Because Magnus hadn’t believed Sapphie, not even for a minute, when she’d told him she wasn’t hiding Angel from someone. The logical answer would be an ex-husband or partner, but Magnus wanted to know the specific details before he offered Sapphie his help.
His brother shrugged. “Let me rephrase the question…I now know exactly who she is, I want to knowwhatshe is to you?”
“A new acquaintance.”
“Personal or business?”
“Personal.”
“Very personal?”
