Chapter 167

He ignored her, “You came to me for a reason. You didn't marry Victor for a reason. And I'm sorry about the things I said in my anger and I'm sorry for getting you pregnant, but I still think we can work things out,”

Her smile was wry. “You said my feelings for you were just a result of a good fucking. It was just sex. Maybe you were right, and honestly maybe I came to you because I needed someone to talk me out of marrying Victor, because deep down I know I wasn't ready.”

“I wasn't right, maybe I was about Victor but not about our feelings, but it still doesn't matter because it made a baby,” he insisted softly.  “We made a baby. Lexi, I want us to tell your father the news when he gets here for the wedding. I’d like it if—”

“What? Why?” She stared up at him in horror, too shocked to move when he slowly closed the distance between them once more. Not here. Not now. “I don’t want to tell anyone about my baby—”

“Your baby? Where do I fit into this picture?”

“I don’t mean to hurt you.”

“You’re hurting yourself. You’re hurting the baby. What the hell are you so afraid of? You weren't so scared of marrying Victor.”

“I’m not afraid of anything.”

His hands fisted at his sides and a muscle ticked just beneath his left eye and in that second he looked formidable and so sexy her toes threatened to curl. How did she realise so late that this alpha side of him would turn her on?

“As mad and upset with me as you are now, it will be worse when you wake up and realize I’m right. You think you’d be nice during a divorce? That we’d be civil? No one is, Tyler. I lost you once already and I know how it felt. Getting married and then divorcing you would break me. And although I didn't really want to marry Victor, I wasn't so scared about it because it was never this complicated. I knew what I was going into… It was all planned and… And Victor isn't you.  I’m doing us both a favor,”

“No, you’re shortchanging us both. You expect me to do the same thing to my baby that was done to me. You want me to go on with my life and not acknowledge its existence?”

Lexi raised her head and glared at Tyler, but instead of intimidating him, Tyler stood his ground and stared into her soul, made her feel vulnerable and angry.

Her sense of foreboding expanded, and when she couldn’t take his stare any longer, she nodded slowly.

Disappointment changed to fury, resignation, and drew his mouth into a tight line. “I’m sorry you feel that way. I’ll call my lawyer and get the ball rolling.”

She blinked. “With what?”

“Getting custody of my child.”

Her breath froze in her chest and it took her several seconds to shake off the shock. “What?”

“You don’t leave me any choice.”

“You’d take the baby from me?”

Tyler scrubbed both hands over his face briskly. “I don’t want to, but if you won’t marry me and give us a shot, then, yes, I’ll do what I have to do. I’m going to be an active father, Lexi, not one missing in action.”

The queasiness became full-fledged nausea and she swallowed repeatedly.

“I won’t argue about visitation. You can come to Olkfield to see us whenever you like.”

Come to—“You can’t do this. How would you take care of a child and work?”

“The same way you would.”

The scent of his cologne teased her nostrils. She’d been so sensitive to scents lately. Food, flowers. But Tyler's smell sent a shiver over her spine and the queasiness abated, just a tad. But that didn’t make sense.

“Lexi, I don’t want it to be this way. I want us to come to terms, for both of us to be involved in our baby’s life. Marriage was—is the way to do that.”  His hand lifted and he cupped her jaw so she'd look him straight in the eyes, “I got you something today. I left it in your car.”

“What is it?”

Tyler hesitated, “I doubt you’ll like it but I thought —” A wry smile pulled at his lips. “I don’t know what I thought. I’d hoped you’d come around. I went into town to clear my head and was walking by a store. It was in the window and…I could see you in it.” A dull hue rose in his face. “I know you like surprises.”

She still did—when they were good surprises. But in an instant she knew what the gift was and, like the baby, it wasn’t a good surprise. “You bought me a wedding dress?”

How arrogant. Every woman wanted to pick out her own dress. Yet she couldn’t help but think that the gesture was also sweet.

“Maybe you can sell it online or something.”

“Tyler—”

“Ssshhh” he said, and Lexi swallowed her words. He leaned in even closer, and his lips brushed against her cheek as he whispered in her ear, “I will be a good husband to you, Lexi. I will take care of you and the baby…” His lips brushed lightly against hers, “And we'll have this…”

Lexi fought the moan that threatened to escape her lips, “I can’t think.” She said breathlessly.

Not with his big body so close that the heat of it slipped beneath her skin, turning her belly molten.

One corner of those beautiful, oh-so-very-male lips turned up, and then, as always, Tyler offered the perfect solution. “Then don’t. Stop thinking… Like we did in Olkfield,”

Don't think….

How could she? Rational thought and conscious decision were beyond her. Annihilated by the immediate, hard press of muscle and man—and the harder press of Tyler's mouth upon hers. Parting her lips beneath the crush of a kiss that was dominating and devastating and left her quivering, pinned between the wall and everything she shouldn’t want.

Oh, God, how she'd missed the ecstasy of this. Of Tyler. Hot and insistent, sliding into her mouth, stroking over her teeth and tongue. Sharing the taste and texture of his need. So good. It was so good, she didn’t want to think.

Except that she knew she had to. So then what was she doing winding her arms around his neck and holding on as if she’d never let go, aching for more of that fleeting perfection, and opening wider to the kiss.

She wanted the taste of him in her. And she wanted it now.

Thankfully, Lily chose that second to knock on the door.