Page 75 of Xander

Whipping around to face me, his eyes blazed with fury. “Nothing,” he slashed a hand in the air, “Absolutely nothing about this is a game to me.”

“You have no idea about the responsibility of a child.”

“On the contrary. Who do you think has been taking care of my entire family all these years?”

“Then why do you want to put yourself in the same position again at such a young age?”

“You want to know why?” he shouted. “Because you belong to me, but you refuse to see it. You always have one foot out the door. I want a baby with you so you’ll stop trying to escape!” He grabbed my bicep and shook me slightly. “You wanted a baby with him, and he was your abuser. But I saved you from him. So why not me? Why won’t you have a baby with me?”

A righteous man was a dangerous man. Xander acted like he was the good prince fighting to save his princess from the dragon. He didn’t realize that he was a dragon, too. In his attempt to save me, he had imprisoned me in a tower of his own.

I let out a shuddering breath. “I don’t think you see the big picture here. I’m old enough to be⁠—”

He yanked at my hair, my scalp burning from pain as he forced me to look at him. “Don’t say it.”

I stared at him, not knowing how to feel about this insane obsession. It had to be some short-lived fantasy. I was twenty-two once and knew how fleeting infatuations worked.

I closed my eyes. “Please, Xander,” I said softly. “Stop this. I’m too old for you. We’re in two different parts of our lives.”

“Is this about your age again?” His voice softened as well. “A woman like you doesn’t suddenly lose her appeal after thirty.”

Thirty-seven, I mentally corrected him, opening my eyes.

He smirked sarcastically as if he had access to my mind. “You keep trying to push me away by mentioning your age. Do you realize that?”

What else was I supposed to do? Xander wouldn’t understand my point until he turned thirty and was at his prime. I’d be celebrating my forty-fifth birthday by then. If he got tied down to me with a baby, it’d fuck up his whole life. And how was I supposed to explain our fucked-up family dynamic to a child?

I said nothing more. He casually grazed his knuckles against my cheeks as if soothing away the position he was putting me in.

I thought he’d show some sympathy for my dilemma when he said, “Get back in bed.”

Lava churned inside me, and all I saw was red.

When I didn’t move, he repeated more firmly, “Get back in bed before I call Jasper in here.”

My hands balled into fists at my sides, but there was nothing I could do. With my head hung low, I followed him back to the bed.

Chapter

Twenty-Three

XANDER

“Jordan!” Logan shouted from across the narrow tunnel under the hockey arena. The ceiling was too low for someone of my stature to stand upright, and the floor was slick from the constant traffic of ice skates, though the only people here at the moment were Jordan, me, and… Logan.

He threw his arms up and waved enthusiastically like a little child. The guys on the team had taken a liking to my girl, especially Logan, who felt a connection to her based on their shared trauma.

“Hi, Logan.” Jordan smiled, and I suddenly wanted to kill the fucker as my sympathy for his abusive past vanished into thin air. I’d do anything for her to direct those smiles at me. Instead, all I received was the brunt of her shame.

Logan rushed forward. Pressing a hand against my chest, he attempted to move me out of the way to hug Jordan. Except he couldn’t budge me.

“Nice try.” I grabbed the hood of his sweatshirt and yanked him back. Was he testing my patience because he saw me being protective of Jordan?

“What’s wrong?” Logan feigned ignorance. “I was just trying to hug our girl.”

My girl, I wanted to yell. I badly wanted to tell the world that she was MINE, but Jordan would die of embarrassment, which further pissed me off. I had no choice but to wait to go public after I won her conservatorship and she couldn’t escape me or after I got her pregnant—her shame be damned.

My jaw was clenched while I dragged Logan away. The tunnel ran lengthwise with a set of double doors behind us and the ice rink in front. Jordan’s security guards stood by the doors. They straightened when I cast Logan aside, but I held up a palm, warding them off.