The crude ownership in his words made me feel sick. “So, let me get this straight,” I said, my voice dangerously low. “You get to sleep around while I’m supposed to sit here, fat with your child, and be faithful? That’s your grand proposal?”

“I will not have my pregnant wife whoring about,” he stated, as if it were a simple, unassailable fact. “As for me… I am a man with needs. But I will keep it discreet. I will not disrespect you, or the family name, by having the media splash my business across the tabloids. You will never be publicly embarrassed.”

The sheer, unadulterated arrogance of it, the...