Her Motherhood Wish (Parent Portal 3)

The paperwork was supposed to come at the end of the evening. Preferably with a newly determined resolution for their issue. You didn’t sign deals before you’d worked out the terms. She knew this. And had blurted it right out there anyway.

The man definitely kept her hot and flustered around him.

Moving behind her desk would give her confidence, or so she thought. Standing there, looking at him sitting where many of her clients, paralegals, peers and partners had sat over the years, she had a sudden vision of him taunting her until she brushed everything from her desk to the floor, climbed on top of it and asked him to join her.

So, yeah, probably the paperwork would be best. Out of order and all. Yanking on the top drawer handle, she pulled out the folder she’d prepared that afternoon.

Opened it.

“I’ve laid out terms for after Alan’s born,” she said in the most professional voice she could muster. “This is just my version, meant to be a starting place for us. I figured you could read them and then if you’d like to proceed, offer any changes, we can discuss and then I’ll have the final papers drawn up for both of us to sign.”

She sounded like a prosecutor. Not a mediator.

Not good.

Thinking about the cabbage rolls warming in the kitchen down the hall, the salad in the refrigerator, wondering if dinner would be ruined before it began, she slid the folder across the desk. Sat down to wait.

Wood didn’t move. “I’ll sign,” he said.

“But...”

“Whatever it is...if you’re asking, finding it important, want it, whatever, I agree. Legally, he’s all yours. I’ve never intended to take any of that from you. If you need it, I’ll sign.”

“Wood, not that I’m your lawyer, but as your friend who’s a lawyer, I need to advise you not to do that. In the first, and most basic, place, you shouldn’t ever, ever, ever sign anything without fully reading the document first. And second, I could be asking you for child support in here.”

A lot of women would—given that he wanted to be acknowledged as Alan’s father.

She was getting more agitated by the second. Needing to kiss his infuriating mouth so it would quit saying things that were throwing her off course.

Wood sat forward. “What you don’t seem to get is that I’m okay with whatever it is you need, Cassie. I’ll make it work. Because being the boy’s father means that much to me.”

She teared up. Another first for that chair. That room. He took the folder.

“But if it means that much to you, I’ll read every word.”

She nodded. Good. “It does.” Maybe now she could get back on track.

“I just have one request.”

“Of course, what?”

“Can we please eat dinner first? I knocked half my sandwich off a scaffolding at lunch, and I’m starving.”

And they could talk about other things over dinner.

If he didn’t want to be a full father to her child, she still had some time to enjoy his company.

And his sexy body across from her, in the privacy of her office.

Chapter Eighteen

“This table is as nice as any you’d get at the finest restaurants in the city,” Wood said, putting his napkin across one knee as he sat down opposite Cassie.

He’d offered to help her bring in dinner from the kitchen, but when she’d said she could handle it, he didn’t press. Chances were she wouldn’t want her associates to see him—in shorts, not the business attire of a client—serving up a meal together with her as though they were in their own home.

As she’d returned, everything neatly on the trolley she’d rolled in, he understood that she really hadn’t needed him.

“The view is one of the reasons I chose this office,” she told him then, removing the covers from their dishes.