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 ass**le 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.

What if he’d been hurt? What if he needed her help and she’d been wasting precious time in her apartment thinking horrible things about him?

No one would know to call her if something happened to Jake. No one would know he was important to her, that she was pregnant with his children.

She didn’t own a car since it was easy enough to rent one from the car share company when she needed one. But they were all out of vehicles for the night and since Sophie didn’t know the bus schedule very well in the evening, it took her far longer than she wanted to get to his house. When all the lights were off and he didn't answer the door, she called the pub. The bartender told her Jake was there, but was in the middle of dealing with an emergency and couldn’t get to the phone.

Twenty-five minutes and two bus changes later, she practically ran inside McCann's, pushing through a crowd of college kids and not caring that they clearly thought she’d lost her mind.

“Where is Jake?” She nearly grabbed the bartender’s shirt to get his attention.

The scruffy man gave her the same look the college kids had. Like she should be on her living room clock with the rest of the cuckoo birds.

“He’s in the back.”

The last thing she expected was to see Jake in his office handing a tissue to a young woman with pink and blue hair. The girl blew her nose loudly just as Sophie saw that there were two other people in the room. The couple was older than Jake. Old enough, she realized, to be the girl’s parents.

She skidded to a stop, but not fast enough for Jake not to see her.

“Sophie!” He said something to the couple, then got up and headed for her. He brushed his fingertips against her skin as he slid a lock of hair back from her face. “It’s late. You know what the doctor said about rest. You should be sleeping.”