“What if I have it, too? Then we’ll both stink when we make out later.”

Maddie laughed even as his words filled her with edgy anticipation. “What are my other options?”

“Seafood fra diavolo.”

“What’s in that?”

Mac read the description of the spicy pasta dish that included clams, mussels, scallops and shrimp.

“That does sound good. Is it under fifty dollars?”

When he raised a dark eyebrow, he went from sexy straight to rakish. “We’re not looking at that, remember?”

He had a way of making everything fun, even her freak-outs about money. “I don’t know how you do it,” she said with a sigh.

“Do what?”

“Talk me down off the ledge without breaking a sweat.”

“I just want you to be happy. I don’t care what I have to do to make that happen.”

“You really don’t, do you?”

Without taking his eyes off hers, he shook his head. “Whatever you want. Whenever you want it.”

“I still can’t believe you feel that way about me. I’m finding it hard to get used to.”

“Well, you need to get used to it. It’s here to stay.”

“How can you possibly know that after just a few days?”

“I told you. I knew after a few minutes.”

Their waiter returned with the wine Mac had ordered and went through the ritual of uncorking it and giving him a sample. Maddie watched him as he tasted it, nodded his approval to the waiter, and ordered dinner for both of them. Clearly, he’d done this a few times.

“The food here is unreal,” Mac said when their calamari appetizer was delivered.

“It should be for what it costs,” she muttered.

Mac laughed and fed her a ring of fried squid. “So I was thinking. . .”

Maddie eyed him warily. “About?”

“Tom.”

“What about him?”

“You said Thomas’s father was a writer. You didn’t say he was Tom Wilkinson, the bestselling author.”

“Did I forget to mention that?”

“You know you did. But what I don’t get is why you’d let him get away with what he did when he could make life so much easier for you and Thomas.”

“Because I’d never want to risk him trying to take Thomas away from me. What if he decided he couldn’t live without his son? How would I fight back when he has the kind of resources he does?”

“I don’t know too much about being an author, but I can’t imagine he’d want people to know that he lied to you about having a vasectomy and then left you alone and pregnant with a text message to say good-bye. If I heard that, I wouldn’t buy any more of his books, that’s for sure.”

Did he have any idea how adorable he was when he got so indignant on her behalf?

“What?” he huffed. “What’s so funny?”

“You are.”