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“Please, don’t swear. I don’t want to see you upset. I’m so tired.”

“Then why were you going out tonight?”

“Because my friends wanted to take me out, okay? And it’s almost Christmas. And I wanted to make them happy.”

He glowers at me. “And what about me? Do you want me to be happy?”

“Of course.”

“Then come home with me.”

I can feel his smoldering heat, and it’s clear what he wants. He wants to get me naked. Right now.

Maybe he wants to spank me and tell me I’ve been a bad girl, until I behave for him. Until I beg for him.

And while that would be fun…

“I’m not sure that fixes anything, Harlan.”

“How can I fix anything,” he says in a low voice, “when I don’t even understand what the problem is?”

“I feel the same way,” I say, frustrated.

Neither of us says anything else. I can feel his anger, too, which I imagine is an expression of his hurt.

Or maybe it’s his fear that I truly see him as nothing but a sperm donor? And not a real father to this baby?

That’s not true.

I’m just hurt, too.

When I look out the window and suddenly realize where we are, that we’re driving into his neighborhood and toward hishouse, I groan. “My god. As if your obsessive, overprotective stalking isn’t enough. Now you’re kidnapping me. Again.”

“You didn’t seem to mind last time,” he says darkly.

A familiar heat washes through my body.

But I glare at him.

“You think I’m just coming up to your bedroom with you? After everything that’s happened?”

“Why wouldn’t you? Explain that to me.”

“Because… I’m upset.”

His eyes narrow. “What are you upset about, exactly?”

I take a breath. “Nicole told me, a few weeks ago, that Megan and Jameson decided to go with another wedding cake designer,” I admit. “Was that your doing?”

“That’s why you’ve been so angry with me?” he demands. “You’re upset that you lost out on a cake design job, so you’re lashing out at me?”

“How am I lashing out at you? I was just going out with my girlfriends, and you crashed the party and stole me like a caveman. I’m surprised you didn’t just drag me away by the hair.”

“I would never do that,” he says stonily. Then he adds with a whiff of indignity, “You’re pregnant.”

“Oh! You think this is funny?”

“Nothing about this is funny.” He adds in a low, chocolatey voice, “And a man can’t steal what belongs to him.”