Page 36 of Magnus
“But—”
“Do you remember what I told you would happen the next time you said anything that sounded even remotely derogatory about yourself?” He arched one dark eyebrow.
Sapphie shot Linus an uncomfortable glance, her cheeks heating at this reminder of Magnus’s threat to spank her bottom.
Between her thighs became moist and hot,throbbed, just thinking about Magnus laying her over his muscular thighs and spanking her. Would he bare her bottom first or just spank her with her clothes on?—
“This sounds interesting,” Linus put in cheekily. “Care to share?”
“No!” Sapphie and Magnus both answered vehemently at the same time.
Sapphie directed an angry frown at Magnus. “I didn’t say anything derogatory about myself.”
“Your words implied that you don’t consider yourself important enough to inconvenience me or anyone else in order to keep you safe.”
“I didn’t say that,” she instantly defended. “Linus?” She turned to him for support.
He gave a pained wince. “I suppose it could have sounded that way.” He shrugged. “Especially so to someone who has become a possessive arsehole where you’re concerned,” he added with a mocking glance toward his brother.
Sapphie breathed out her frustration with this situation. “What did the police have to say?” She deliberately changed the subject.
“Once I explained the possible connection to the robbery at the nursery and the damage at your ex-apartment, which both already have police reports, they said they would send someone out to look at the damage here and to talk to both of us,” Magnus explained.
Sapphie had a feeling the police had made that decision based on the Wynter name alone. The family seemed toownhalf of London and have installed security for the other half. “We can’t be sure those three things are connected.”
“I’d bet the balance in my illegal hacking earnings account, which amounts to millions, by the way,” Linus added unapologetically, “that they will discover the paint used to decorate your old apartment and the one used on the front of this building are one and the same. I’m sure they will also discover that the perpetrator of those crimes retrieved your address during the break-in at the nursery.”
Magnus scowled. “My private card gave her my address here.”
“Miss Fuller is in deep shit, I’d say,” Linus dismissed.
“But—”
“Uncle Linus!” Angel burst excitedly into the room. “Thank yousomuch for the donut!” She was still carrying the case in which her beloved arachnid was living in luxury when she threw herself into Linus’s quickly opened arms.
UncleLinus? Sapphie mentally echoed.
No! No, no, justno.
No way could she allow her daughter to start calling Magnus’s brother Uncle. Because the direct correlation from that was that Angel would start to call Magnus Daddy.
Angel had been only two years old when her real father died. Far too young to even remember him, let alone her baby attempts at saying Dada.
In fact, Angel had only realized these past six months, since she started attending the nursery, that she didn’t have a daddy like a lot of the other children did. Then the questions had started as to why she didn’t. So far, Sapphie had managed to distract her daughter from having to make too specific an answer to Angel asking where her daddy was.
But no way, absolutely no way, was she going to allow Angel to even start to think Magnus might be willing to fulfill that role for her.
Even if his marriage proposal to her already confirmed that he was.
A marriage proposal, and a permanence between them, he noticeably hadn’t mentioned again since Sapphie had refused him so emphatically…
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Everything okay?”Magnus asked the moment Sapphie joined him in the sitting room after she had put a very sleepy Angel to bed for the night.
It had been a very long day.
The police, a man and a woman, had arrived shortly after Linus left. They had taken photographs of the damage to the building and then given them permission to have the graffiti removed. They had remained long enough after that to take down any more information Sapphie and Magnus thought might be relevant.
