Page 16 of Fergus

Thea felt some of the tension ease from her shoulders. “Your niece is a four-year-old who loves spiders.” She couldn’t stop the shudder running through her just thinking about arachnids. She disliked spiders of all sizes.

“Yes,” Fergus confirmed ruefully. “She has her own pet spider she calls Henry. Which totally freaked Magnus out when he first met Angel and Sapphie. He solved the problem by buying her a special see-through Perspex case to keep the spider in. Now she keeps begging Magnus and her mother for a Mrs. Henry, so they can have babies. None of us want to tell her that Mrs. Henry would probably eat Angel’s beloved Henry after they’ve mated.”

This conversation was so ridiculous that Thea knew it had to be the truth. Unless that knock on the head had caused more damage than she’d realized?

“No, I really do have a niece who loves spiders and has one as a pet.” Fergus answered the question Thea had obviously spoken out loud without realizing she had. “I really think you should let me call a doctor to at least check you over,” he added with a frown at what was probably her perplexed expression. “The possibility of a concussion isn’t to be dismissed lightly.”

“We’ll see,” she said evasively. “Why did you tell me all that about Angel?” There was really no reason for him to do so, as far as she could see. Unless…

“I think you know why,” he answered in a low voice.

She tensed. “Do I?”

“Yes.” He stepped so close to her that Thea’s nostrils were filled with the spicy scent of his cologne and male musk.

Fergus’s gaze was searching as it roamed over what Thea guessed would be the paleness of her face. She had little color at the best of times, but she imagined she’d have even less after being knocked unconscious.

He raised one of his hands to cradle the side of her face as he stared down at her intently. “I told you the truth about Angel because I don’t want there to be any more unnecessary misunderstandings or barriers between us.”

Thea didn’t miss the “more” in that statement. Which was ludicrous when all the barriers between them had been created by her mother’s past behavior.

“This was a mistake,” she realized. “I should never have come here and asked for your help.”

“Why did you?”

“Because I don’t have anyone else I can ask,” she was forced to admit.

“No family?”

“No.”

“What about friends?”

“I told you we moved around a lot after my father died. Too much for me to be able to make and keep friends. I did have friends at university.Hadbeing a correct description. That changed after my mother very publicly married Andrei Yegorov. After that, the friends who were ordinary and nice were nervous about who my stepfather was, and tended to avoid me, and the ones who weren’t so nice just wanted to be with the girl whose stepfather was a rich Russian oligarch.”

“Nice.”

She gave a derisive huff. “They very quickly learned I wasn’t in the least wealthy by association, because I had little or nothing to do with the man my mother married, and that included taking money from him. I have my colleagues at school now, of course, most of whom don’t have any idea who my mother and stepfather were. That goes for the parents of the kids I teach too. My mother died during this last Christmas holiday, so I didn’t even have to arrange to take time off for the funeral.”

“What about a boyfriend? And I don’t mean Lev,” he dismissed harshly.

“My last relationship ended several months ago.”

“Your decision or his?”

“Mutual. But it became completely mine after my mother died and left me all that money and Martin then decided that perhaps he could put up with my scrawny arse after all, now that I’m an heiress.”

Fergus’s eyes widened. “He called your arsescrawny?”

“Amongst other things.”

“Firstly, he sounds like an idiot and a bastard, and you’re well rid of him. Secondly, I can say with all sincerity that your arse isn’t in the least scrawny.”

She blinked. “You can?”

He nodded. “It’s pert. Perfectly round and juicy. Biteable,” he grated.

She eyed him uncertainly. “I don’t understand…”

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