Owned by My Sinful Guardian novel · Chapter 12 of 32

Chapter 12: The Story

Magnus woke up to me sitting bolt upright with the phone in my hands.

"What is it?"

I turned the screen toward him.

He read the headline.

He took the phone out of my hands, very gently, and scrolled.

I watched his face while he read, and I watched it close.

I made him read it out loud.

"'For thirteen years Pittsburgh restaurateur Magnus Thorley paid to keep her close,' says Randall Fisk, 54, of Penn Hills, who raised his wife's orphaned niece..."

"Raised," I said.

Magnus kept reading.

"'He sent money from the time she was eight. He asked for her pictures every year. We stopped sending them when she got older, because frankly it scared us. And the minute she turned twenty-one, there she is, coming out of his restaurant at midnight.'"

He put the phone face down on the blanket.

"Keep going," I said.

"No."

"Magnus."

"You don't need the rest. It's Randall saying he protected you from me for thirteen years." His voice was flat. "There's a quote from Landry. He says you changed after you met me."

"I did change. I dumped him."

Magnus didn't smile.

His own phone started ringing on the dresser across the room.

It didn't stop ringing all morning.

By ten o'clock Hearth had lost every reservation for Saturday night.

By eleven a man from his investors had called four times.

I heard Magnus's half of the fourth call while I made coffee in his kitchen in his T-shirt.

← Chapter 11 · All chapters · Chapter 13 →

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