Author: Bella Andre

The door closed behind the doctor, leaving Jake and Sophie alone.

She didn’t have the first clue about where to go from here. She’d thought she was past the point where the rug could be pulled out from under her. But hearing that she was pregnant with twins was a whole new level of rug-yanking.

She knew she should get off the table and put her clothes back on, but she wasn’t sure her legs would hold her up.

“Can you believe it?” Her question was more of a whisper than anything, as if she was afraid to say the word aloud. But she had to. “Twins.”

Jake hadn’t moved from behind her and she wanted to lean into him and never let go. Thank God he was here. If she’d had to do this by herself she’d—

“That decides it. We’re definitely getting married now.”

“What?” Sophie jumped off the table, not caring that her cloth gown was gaping open completely in the back. “No!”

Jake’s face was completely shut down. “Yes.”

“But you promised me seven days.”

“You’re having twins, Sophie. You can’t do this alone. Not with two.”

She shook her head. “That’s beside the point.”

He looked frustrated. And just as shell-shocked as she felt. “Then what is the point? It’s just seven goddamned days. We both already know you’re going to marry me.”

How could she say, The point is that if you drag me to Vegas today and make me say “I do” because I’m carrying your children, then you never even have to try to fall in love with me.

But didn’t she already know better? Why was she still hoping for the impossible?

She could taste defeat, that horrible bitterness on her tongue that she’d become so familiar with in the two and a half months after Jake had made love to her in Napa.

“If you don’t know why those seven days matter,” she said in a shaky voice, “then you’re the world’s biggest idiot.”

She was about to grab her clothes and head to the bathroom when she saw Jake’s expression. He looked utterly furious. But there was more than anger there, she realized as she looked closer. He looked ashamed, too.

And wounded. Horribly wounded by her insult.

She rewound through all the names she’d called him in the past day. None of them had made him react like the word idiot. If anything, he’d laughed the rest of them away.

“Jake, I—”

Jake’s voice cut through her like a knife. “I’ll wait for you outside.”

He was gone before she could call him back, before she could apologize for calling him an idiot.

The bathroom mirror mocked her as she caught a glance at her wild eyes, her flushed skin, the reflection always there to highlight just how badly she was screwing everything up. She of all people knew how powerful words were. It made her sick to think she’d just hurt Jake with one.

All she wanted was to love and be loved...and she’d never been further from it.

* * *

Jake didn’t say another word to her until he pulled up in front of the library and she fumbled at the buckle to throw herself out of his car.

“Sit still, princess.” Each word was a bullet aimed straight at her. “You’re going to let me get the goddamned door for you this time and every time after.”

For all the times she’d pushed him before now, something told her not to keep pushing. Not right at this moment.

She cringed at what she’d called him. Idiot. It was a word she’d never spoken to anyone else, not even in her angriest moments. He had to know she hadn’t meant it, that she’d spat it out in the heat of the moment, didn’t he?

A few seconds later, he yanked open the passenger door and leaned in to unbuckle her seatbelt. It took every ounce of self-control she possessed to hold herself rigid as his muscles brushed over her skin, as his scent filled her senses. He held out his hand to help her out of the car and she had no choice but to take it.

“Jake,” she said softly, “I’m sorry for what I called you earlier. I was angry. I didn’t mean it.”

He didn’t acknowledge her apology. “Eight o’clock tonight. Be waiting for me with your bags packed.”

Before she could tell him where to shove his commands, he was pulling her into him and kissing her, so hard but with such finesse that even as she tried to fight him, her body told her just to give in already.

It was what she’d always wanted, after all.

Jake.

But that wasn’t good enough, just fulfilling her body’s needs. Not if her heart was left out in the cold.

He let go of her and was back in his car and speeding away from the library before she could begin to process what had happened on the steps.

“Who was that?”

Sophie still had her hand over her mouth, which was tingling and warm from Jake’s furious onslaught, as she turned to her co-worker with surprise. She’d forgotten she and Jake had been out in public.

He always made her forget everything but him.

Janice didn’t wait for her to reply before saying, “I didn’t think there were any men out there better-looking than your brothers.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Is that your boyfriend?”

No, Sophie thought with an edge of silent hysteria, he’s just the father of the baby I'm going to have soon.

Oh God. Not baby.

Babies.

Digging deep, Sophie faked a smile for the biggest gossip in the San Francisco library system. “I’ve known him forever. He’s a close friend of the family.”

Janice looked at her like she was nuts. “Friends? That’s all you are?” She frowned. “None of my friends have ever kissed me like that.”

Sophie shrugged, as if a kiss like that from a male friend was perfectly normal, then looked at her watch. “I’d better get inside.”

Well, she thought as she walked up to the large front doors, perhaps there was an upside to Janice having seen Jake. At least that way, when she started showing maybe she wouldn’t have to explain as much. Her co-worker would spread the word for her.

Chapter Fifteen

Jake screeched to a stop in his parking space behind McCann’s.

Sophie was right. He was an idiot.

What if their kids could barely read because of him?

A cold sweat broke out across his skin, thinking of his kids going through what he’d been through. School had been hell. He could still remember sitting with the other kids in first, second, third grade, watching them learn to read all around him. But no matter how hard he’d tried, he couldn’t get the letters to make sense.

It was one more way he was worse than everyone else. He wasn't just the poor kid whose clothes stank like his father’s booze and cigarettes.

He was stupid, too.

Sure, numbers always added up easily for him, but words were a part of everything, especially making it all the way through school. He’d cut more classes than he’d attended and he figured they’d only let him graduate because the teachers didn’t want to see his ugly mug another year.

How many times had he told himself it didn’t matter in those teenage years? That he didn’t need to know how to read in order to be a bartender?

But owning a pub was a whole different ballgame from merely working in one. And that was when he’d had to face the truth: If he didn’t learn to read, there wouldn’t be a chance in hell that he could keep the business afloat.

Man, he’d been an asshole with those first tutors he’d hired in secret, enough of a belligerent twenty-one-year-old dickwad that they’d quit one after the other. Finally, he’d found one who seemed more amused by his antics than anything. Mrs. Springs had been in her sixties and was tough on him in a way no one had ever been before, almost as if she cared about whether or not he learned to read.

He still remembered the day things finally started to click. He’d planted a kiss straight on Helen’s lips, but she hadn’t been angry with him. She’d hugged him instead...then told him the road was still going to be long and difficult, but hopefully worth it.

She’d been right about the first part, anyway. He’d continued to sweat it out with her, and then other tutors after she’d retired. The bigger his business grew, the more contracts, the more correspondence he needed to deal with. People often commented on the way he did nearly all of his business on the phone or in person, rather than using email. They called it his “personal touch.” He didn’t care what they called it, just as long as no one ever guessed why he rarely used his computer for anything but spreadsheets and financials.

So, yeah, he could read. But it was still difficult to get through a book and he couldn’t see himself ever doing it for fun.

Whereas Sophie lived and breathed books.

Please, God, he found himself praying silently, let our kids get Sophie’s brain, not mine.

One of his waitresses saw him sitting in his car gripping the steering wheel for dear life, and gave him a startled little wave before turning away quickly as she clearly realized her boss was losing it.

Not little by little, but in big, huge chunks.

Hearing that he was going to be the father of twins by fall had thrown him for the biggest loop of his life. Big enough that he hadn’t been able to think of anything but chaining Sophie to him, doing whatever he needed to do to make sure she didn’t leave him, to ensure that she and his children would be healthy.

Jake started to get out of the car when his eye caught the corner of the thick book the pregnancy doctor had given them. He needed to read it, needed to know everything that could go wrong with Sophie’s pregnancy so that he could make sure nothing bad ever happened to her.

Of course, when he flipped through it, hundreds of tiny little words laughed up at him. Just try to read me now, each of those words challenged him. Best of luck, loser.

If Sophie ever found out that he could barely read—

He shoved the book off his lap onto the floor mat. He didn’t have time to read it right now, anyway. His executive assistant had already called him repeatedly with reminders for the half-dozen conference calls he had scheduled for today. They were important meetings he would normally have given his entire attention to, budding emergencies at his newer sites that should have had him on the next plane out of SFO...rather than just trying to get through them so that he could get back to Sophie.

* * *

8:00 p.m.

If Jake thought she was going to pack up her things and be waiting for him like a good little girl, he was very much mistaken. As soon as he got to her apartment, she was going to give him a piece of her mind.

Just because they were having twins didn’t mean he could treat her like she was his possession.

Sophie paced in her living room and stared daggers at the door.

9:00 p.m.

Seriously? He couldn’t even get here on time to cart her away like a barbarian to his house? That was how little she meant to him? Did anything hurt more than being forgotten? All her life she’d been invisible. Not just to Jake, but to everyone else. How could a bookworm like her even begin to compete with her larger-than-life siblings? She’d never be a movie star, would never throw the winning pitch in the World Series, would never be the sparkling, stunning Sullivan twin.

Once he finally deigned to show up at her door, she swore that nothing was going to stop her from giving him a piece of her mind about what he could do with his six remaining days.

Okay, so maybe she was careening from one extreme to the other like a madwoman, but he could at least give her the respect of showing up less than an hour late to ruin her life.

10:00 p.m.

Sophie’s righteous anger grew bigger, stronger with every passing minute until her cuckoo clock chimed 10:00 p.m. That was when it finally hit her—something had to be wrong. Jake had been too intent on controlling her life this morning to give up just a few hours later. Especially since he wasn’t a man who ever gave up.