Page 17 of Magnus
“None of the Carlucci money came to me, if that’s what you’re thinking—” She didn’t so much break off what she was saying as Magnus placed a single large digit over her lips to prevent her from continuing.
“If Angel weren’t here, I would spank your arse for even suggesting such a thing,” Magnus growled. “Not because of your continued suspicion regarding my motives, but because I don’t like you saying anything that sounds even remotely derogatory about yourself or your worth.” He grinned in response to her gasp at his threat.
As if he was already looking forward to hearing her gasp in the same way when she transgressed again and the promised spanking took place.
“You’re in your late thirties or early forties…?”
“I’m forty-two,” he confirmed.
She nodded. “You’re a forty-two-year-old attractive and successful man who has obviously remained single through choice.”
“I also lived in New York until two weeks ago, when I came back to England for my cousin’s wedding. Since meeting you, I know that move is going to be permanent.”
“That’s ridiculous. Why on earth would you uproot your life and want to marry a woman you just met and who is so much younger than you? A woman who already has a young child and more baggage than she can comfortably carry?”
“Because I want to carry that baggage for you—and I’m more than big enough to do so—until you’re completely back on your feet and can manage it alone.”
“Butwhywould you want to do that?”
His expression was grim. “I repeat, I don’t like bullies. You should also know I have far more money than the Carluccis, so if there’s any financial bullying to be done, I’m going to win that particular fight,” he added softly.
Sapphie blinked, not sure she wanted to even know how much money that might be. She knew it had to be a lot, because the Carluccis were millionaires many times over.
Roman and Patrice Carlucci had never made any secret of the fact they didn’t approve of her as a wife for their only son and heir. They considered that her background, of her parents dying and her being brought up in an orphanage from the age of eight, had put her far beneath them and their financial and social standing in DC society.
As such, Marco’s parents had made it obvious from the first time they met her that they would much rather their son had married one of the daughters of their close circle of friends. Someone who would have been an asset to his future political career.
Sapphie gave an inward snort at the knowledge Marco might not have married any of those other women, but he had certainly enjoyed fucking most of them during the two years of their marriage. Some of them repeatedly.
Destructive memories which didn’t deserve any of her time and were certainly not relevant to her current situation.
She frowned at Magnus. “Then I understand even less why you would choose to deliberately involve yourself in the complication that is my life.”
Magnus wantedto tell her it was because she was already so deeply embedded in his heart, Angel too, that any other outcome than marriage and forever between the two of them was now unacceptable to him.
But he knew it was too soon. That Sapphie wouldn’t believe him if he told her that.
Hell, he still had trouble believing it!
Until he’d seen Sapphie for the first time, he had been the perennial bachelor. The one out of the four Wynter men least likely to ever marry. To everwantto marry.
He had never been less than honest with the women he went to bed with, had always made it clear from the beginning of any of those brief liaisons that love and the sound of wedding bells had no place in their future.
He had truly believed those things would never, could never, happen to him.
One look at Sapphie, and his whole world had upended itself. When it had reshaped itself, it was with Sapphie and Angel now at its center. Two brightly shining stars around which everything else in Magnus’s life now orbited. Around whichheorbited.
“Next you’ll be telling me that, as we’re in Scotland, you’re going to drag me off to Gretna Green to get married!” she mocked.
“I checked into doing that on the way up here, but it isn’t possible.”
“You…checked…into…it?” she repeated with obvious disbelief.
He nodded, unabashed. “Apparently, they don’t perform elopement weddings anymore. They still perform marriage ceremonies, but I was told they now need twenty-nine days to check the relevant documents before the ceremony. We can get married more quickly in London. I’d suggest Vegas, but if you use your passport to enter the US it will probably throw up a red flag and alert the Carluccis to your being there.”
Sapphie stared at him. “I’m still stuck on the fact you really looked into the two of us getting married at Gretna Green!”
He shrugged. “I thought it might be an option, but it proved not to be a valid one.”
