Page 22 of Fergus

“Thea was a child at the time, and she certainly isn’t responsible for the actions of her mother,” the other man reasoned.

A man Thea realized had to be Fergus’s twin,Magnus Wynter. As far as she knew, Magnus was in England. Which meant the two men were talking on speakerphone?

“Exactly, ten years ago, Thea was a child of fourteen, whereas I was already a thirty-two-year-old man.” Fergus sounded angry at that being the case.

“Did you want her then?”

“Don’t be a fucking pervert!” Fergus snapped.

“Then I don’t see the problem.”

“I did notice her eyes then,” Fergus admitted.

Thea’s attention sharpened.

“Her eyes?” Magnus repeated.

“They’re a rich burnished gold I had never seen before or since.”

“Nice,” Magnus appreciated. “Well, those unusual eyes now belong to a twenty-four-year-old woman.”

“A woman I kissed earlier and now can’t stop thinking about,” Fergus admitted, the sound of his voice now seeming to be moving up and down the room rather than remaining in one place.

Did that mean he was pacing?

“Did she kiss you back?” Magnus probed.

“I… Well… Yes, she did…”

“Then she obviously isn’t bothered by the past or the age gap.”

“I kissed heraftershe’d been hit on the head by a blunt object,” Fergus grumbled.

“Andaftershe’d been examined by a doctor who said she didn’t have a concussion. In other words, despite whatImight think about her mental state for having kissed you, Thea one hundred percent knew what she was doing when she responded to you.”

“Maybe,” Fergus muttered. “You and Sapphie have the same age gap. Did it bother you?”

“Of course it bothered me. But not enough to stop me from asking her to marry me and making her my wife. Because, at the end of the day, I love Sapphie and she loves me. In those circumstances, age becomes just a number that isn’t really relevant to the feelings the two people have for each other.”

“How the hell did you cope with this?”

“Define ‘this.’”

“At ten o‘clock this morning, my life, apart from my annoyance that someone was following me, was the same as yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that.”

“Boring?”

“I’m not bored, Mag. At least, I don’t think I was… Whatever I was,” he continued. “Just hours later, after speaking with and kissing Thea, I want to protect her at the same time as I can’t stop thinking about throwing her down on the nearest flat surface and thrusting my dick inside her!”

“That sounds pretty standard for this sort of situation.”

“Define ‘standard’ and ‘this sort of situation’?”

“You’ve finally met a woman you want physically but also want to protect and take care of. A woman who, according to Declan, you are flying back to England with on the company jet tomorrow. A woman whose safety you have assigned to our best UK team.”

“I don’t?—”

“When I met Sapphie, I followed her to Scotland in the company helicopter. When we had to travel to the US on the company jet to resolve her situation, I assigned our best team over there, headed by Knox, to protect her. You know my aversion to arachnids, and yet I now have one living with me full-time,” Magnus added self-derisively.

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