Her Motherhood Wish (The Parent Portal Book 3)

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Cassie wasn’t giving in to emotions that weren’t valid. She had enough real-life drama to deal with.

  The lawyer in me wants to tell you I’m sorry. The woman in me is over here beaming.

  She turned off the television to read the text messages.

  So that’s it? That’s all that’s been going on here? That’s why you’ve changed?

  She hadn’t realized he’d noticed. And was ready to cry happy tears because he had. And cared. But he was acting like her constant desire to jump his bones was a small thing.

  Yes.

  She’d never had a one-night stand in her life. And didn’t want one.

  Nor was she going to risk trapping him.

  He was taking too long to respond.

  I’ve typed six responses and deleted them all. I’m relieved as hell. And realize we have a situation. I currently have no workable solution.

  She smiled. Curled her toes and slid back down until her head was on the pillow, one hand holding her phone, the other cradling her belly.

  I feel better, anyway. She hit Send.

  Me too

  His response was followed by a heart emoji.

  She started to cry. Happy tears. He’d just sent her love.

  * * *

  The next Monday evening, Wood pulled into the parking lot of Cassie’s law firm. She’d asked him to meet her at her office for dinner, instead of at a restaurant. She hadn’t said why. He supposed she was working late. And that she’d either have ordered in dinner or they’d eat out of vending machines. Either was fine with him.

  They’d texted every night since that fateful conversation. Neither of them had mentioned the subject for which they had no solution. But she was no longer being distant with him, and that seemed to make his world right again. At least in the moment. He needed more from her. A whole lot more. Physically and otherwise—physically, more and more—but knew that to rush things could blow the rest of their lives. And any chance he’d have to share his son’s life.

  She’d told him that the receptionist would be gone when he arrived, but that he could push a buzzer and someone would come let him in. At the time, the plan had seemed fine. He was completely amenable. He wanted to see her.

  Then he entered the heavy glass door of a building he’d only ever seen finished from the outside. He’d showered after work, but his shorts and flip-flops definitely felt out of place in the marbled plushness awaiting him. When he’d been picturing vending machines, she’d obviously been telling him fine dining.

  At least in terms of setting. So him to go for the vending machine version.

  He’d been about to turn around and leave, text her, maybe with an excuse to be late or a request for a switch to Tuesday for dinner, when she came out into the lobby through a smaller door off to his left.

  In a black dress, matching jacket and black heels with white polka-dot bows on the top, she fit right in with the place. Her long hair was down, flowing around her shoulders, and he could hardly breathe.

  “I was watching for you,” she said, smiling like she was glad to see him—and like she didn’t find one single thing wrong with his appearance. She pointed to a security camera he hadn’t yet noticed.

  “Come on back,” she told him, and because she was happy he was there, because he wanted to spend what time with her he could, he followed her.

  * * *

  Cassie couldn’t remember a time when she’d been so unsure of herself. Everything was ready. Including the fact that she knew two of the partners were working late that night, both with evening client appointments, and would be in the office long after Wood was gone. They both knew he was going to be there. They knew she was hosting a small dinner, using the kitchen in the firm to keep the food warm.

  They would both assume he was a client. She hadn’t said he wasn’t.

  Nervous and excited for no explicable reason, she led him to her office door. It wasn’t her house, but it was still home to her. She was going to have Wood in her personal space, and that felt so good.

  And scary, too. The desire she felt for him was palpable—combustible. So much so that she feared if she even so much as touched his hand, the tight rein she had on herself would explode and they’d both get burned. Sex wasn’t going to solve anything for them. To the contrary, it would only complicate a vulnerable, precious situation.

  “Here we are,” she said, opening the door. The firm’s offices were cleaned professionally once a week. She’d cleaned again, anyway, that afternoon. Dusting behind things. Dusting books. Getting a smudge off the windows that had a lovely ocean view. Straightening the knickknacks on her desk—a framed photo of her and her father, taken at his house in front of the Christmas tree they’d decorated together when she was fourteen. A colorful flower pot she’d picked up in Italy. A carved wooden angel a client had given her.

  She knew she wasn’t going to look anything but pregnant, but she’d worn the dress that showed off her legs best, and had been walking around in her favorite pair of high-heeled shoes all day in spite of the added weight she was carrying.

  “This isn’t a seduction,” she said as soon as he was in the room, afraid to look at his face, to see what his reaction would be. He needed to fit in, to be comfortable in her world. Not to have sex with a randy pregnant woman.

  Sex clouded things and they couldn’t afford any more lack of clarity. Her father never fit in her mother’s world, and they’d all gotten along just fine. She’d grown up well loved. Well taught. Happy. And still alone.

  “I’m not locking the door, and I’ve let the lawyers working late tonight know that I’m available if they need anything. We can be walked in on at any time.” She blurted, in case he thought she was coming on too strong with the dress. And the intimacy.

  He stood there, barely in the door, looking around, and she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Wasn’t even sure he was going to stay.

  “I have some papers for you to look over,” she blurted. “Legal papers.”

  His face turned toward her, his expression easy—and inaccessible. “So we’re not eating?” His head motioned to the table over by the window. Bearing glasses with ice, water and little lemon slices floating on top.

  “I made cabbage rolls again yesterday,” she said. “It’s what I do when I’m working out a problem in my mind. Cook, I mean, in general, not just cabbage rolls...”

  “What papers did you have for me to look at?”

  Okay, so she should have given him some warning. She’d just landed on the idea the day before, when she’d been cooking, in an attempt to find some clarity on their situation. More than anything, she’d needed to have him in her space. Legitimately in her life.

  And knowing that there was a fine line between him playing a part in her world, or being completely out of it.

  She was tired of feeling like they were something scandalous.

  Lustful, unsatisfied illegitimate friends who’d met over a medical procedure. He looked uncomfortable.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, standing there with her hands clasped below her pregnant belly.

  “For what?”

  “You can go. And we’ll be fine.”

  Shaking his head, he stepped closer to her. Still with that foot of distance between them, but closer than he’d been. Close enough that she could smell that he’d showered recently. And see the shine of light in his eyes. “I have no desire to leave,” he told her. “I’m just...kind of pleased,” he told her. “This is nice. Completely unexpected. And...smart, too. You’ve thought of everything.”

  She’d tried. “I hope you like beef and rice cabbage rolls.”

  “I do.”

  His hands were in his pockets, pulling his shorts taut. That was the only reason she noticed the bulge there.

  “I thought we should talk, really talk. And in order to do that effectively,
we needed privacy. And no waitstaff watching us and stopping by to see that we were okay.”

  He nodded. Still watching her. Her body was heating up by the second. She could only imagine the man’s effectiveness when he was actually trying to turn on a woman.

  It seemed like he broke a spell when he turned his head toward her desk. “I’m a bit confused about the paperwork you want to go over, though,” he said.

  “You don’t have to agree to anything or sign anything,” she told him, suddenly worried that he’d feel ambushed when, in fact, she was trying to gift him. “Not if you don’t want to. I just...” She shrugged.

  He nodded, walked toward her desk, took a seat in one of the chairs she’d dusted, and for a second there she was jealous of the leather that got to touch his backside.

  This wasn’t going well. Not at all as planned. And she’d given it so much effort.

  Where was her poise? Her talent for taking control of a situation and putting everyone at ease? She’d never been in her office and not had it.

  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.

  He looked from the magnificent view of the sun setting over the ocean to the steaming food on his plate. And knew an intimate thrill even from that. He was about to taste her cooking.

  To have a meal she’d prepared specifically for him.

  What kind of a sap was he turning into?

  And why?

  “You entertain here often?” he asked after he’d consumed half the food on his plate in total silence. The food was that good. He really was starving.

  And he couldn’t say the things that were on his mind. Like how perfect her plan had turned out to be. How beautiful she looked sitting across from him. And how much he wished he had that view every meal, every day.

  It wasn’t fair to her. Or to himself.

  “This is a first,” she said, in answer to his question. “Sharing a meal with someone here. In this room. I eat lunch here most days that I don’t have an appointment, but there’s a room down the hall where we generally have working meals with clients. It’s a conference room, but it is always stocked with napkins, silverware, condiments, glasses and an assortment of drinks.”

  One point stuck. He was a first for her. He liked that.

  “So...” She spoke the one word, fork suspended, in a voice that made him look at her. And then she just sat there.

  “What?”

  “I’ve come up with some potential plans for dealing with our sexual attraction to each other.”

  The bite going down got stuck. Wood swallowed a second time. Coughed. Took a sip of water. And then said, “I’m listening.” Like a guy watching a train wreck as it happened. Fascinated and filled with dread.

  “One. We continue to talk about it, take the mystery out of it, treat it like the rain. It’s natural, serves a purpose, and yet, we don’t want to get caught in it...recognizing the signs when they come for what they are, knowing they’ll pass and continuing on in spite of them.”

  Initially, he liked the theory. But... “Sometimes rain comes without warning, and people get caught in it.”

  Sucking in her lower lip—creating a downpour for him—she nodded. “Right,” she said. “So, number two. We find other lovers pronto.”

  He shook his head. “You’re six months pregnant. Probably not a lot of guys, at least not any that you’d want to be with, are going to be open to casual sex with you right now.” At least he hoped to God not. “And I’m not into being with one woman while imagining she’s someone else.”

  He was fairly certain that any sex he tried to have right then would feature Cassie whether she was present or not.

  “Number three. We do it once. Just get it out of our systems. No foreplay. No extraneous touching or exploring. No looking into each other’s eyes...”

  His penis favored that one in big measure. Huge measure. “I thought you said this wasn’t a seduction.” He was desperate to maintain control.

  “It’s not.”

  “Yet you look like you’re on a date.”

  She didn�
�t even blink as she met his gaze. “I’m twenty-six and a half weeks pregnant,” she said. “I feel like a tub. Kind of hard to discuss sexual attraction in any legitimate way feeling that way.”

  He had no basis with which to argue that one.

  But... “I can’t speak for you, Cassie, but there’s no way once would be enough for me. No matter how much you try to strip it down.”

  He wanted to strip her down. Right then. Right there. In front of a sunset that would grace the entire world within a day.

  “So, four. We each take accountability and responsibility for our own needs, tending to them privately, alone.”

  He came a little as she said the words. And then his body started to relax. He wasn’t going to get any. “I’ll be thinking about you,” he told her, looking her straight in the eye.

  “I’ll be thinking about you, too.”

  * * *

  Wood read the paperwork while Cassie was clearing up dinner. It would have been good if he’d found her work distasteful. Overkill. Invasive.

  “So?”

  He took a second to form words that didn’t send them into another tailspin. To form cohesive, father-like thoughts as he reeled with the unbelievable gift she was giving him. The honor.

  And the responsibility. Would he be good enough at fatherhood to be worthy of her offer? “You want to name me on the birth certificate. To give me legal visitation rights. And to name me as his guardian in the event anything happens to you.” He still couldn’t believe what he’d just read.

  “No custodial rights,” she said, perhaps thinking she sounded stern. He wanted to lay her down on the couch with him and kiss them both crazy. “And no financial support, either,” she said. “Not for anything. I’m willing to listen to your opinion on all major issues, to give you a chance to have one, but all final decisions are mine, just like I said before. And put in there. I need to be the only one supporting him. You can’t be the nice guy that comes around and buys him everything he wants. All purchases, even birthday and Christmas presents, have to go through me.”