Baby for Sugar Daddy: A Secret Baby Romance (Heartstring Dating Agency Book 6) by Lauren Wood (inspirational books TXT) 📗

his own, but with a pen in hand. In the evenings, he scribbled down all the notes he could from that evening’s latest financial news—anything that would be relevant to his clients that he wanted to remember the next morning.

My own phone was resting in between us in the sheets—an ordinary occurrence that I didn’t give much thought to until it dinged with a message from him.

The moment Jordan Ashford’s name flashed across the screen, my hand lurched for the phone, and it was hardly subtle.

“Who’s that?” Drew smirked with the same curious baffled expression he shot me when I first came in and fumbled through explaining my lunch-turned-dinner.

“My dad’s partner,” I blurted, shielding the screen from his view as I read the text.

Jordan: Tomorrow at noon. My office. Lawyers and paperwork. Should be exciting.

I felt a warm, gooey feeling rise up in my chest and spread across my lips in a smile. The sensation was brought on for a number of reasons. One—Jordan now had a reason to message me regularly, and would be doing so for the foreseeable future. Two—the idea that I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not melted me inside. No one appreciated a good dose of sarcasm more than me. But if he really did get a thrill from drawing up the initial paperwork for our deal, no matter how dull and tedious it was sure to be, then we had far more in common than I realized.

“Jordan Ashford,” Drew groaned, practically rolling his eyes.

I snapped my eyes over to him with daggers. “What? Why do you say it like that?”

“You forget what you drunkenly confessed to at my friend Jordy’s dinner party,” he replied dryly. “We played that stupid game of truth or dare after we ate, and you admitted to having a huge crush on him when you were a teenager.”

“So what?” I scoffed. “Truth or dare isn’t dumb. I think it’s fine, which is why I actually participated…unlike somebody,” my eyes burned into him. “I remember perfectly well what I said, and I don’t see a reason to be ashamed over hormones I felt in highschool. He’s an old man, my dad’s partner, and obviously I have no interest in him now.”

I swallowed hard, amazed by how easy it was for me to tell one lie right after another. I knew I had to cut things off quick before Drew had a chance to poke holes in anything I said.

But first, my fingers quickly fired off a reply.

Cat: Can’t wait.

I tossed my phone to the nightstand and quickly turned off my lamp before turning to give Drew a quick peck on the cheek.

“Goodnight,” I sighed as I rolled over to my own side of the bed, pulling the covers over me tight.

I wondered if this was a good time to consider how infrequently we had been having sex lately, which seemed like a bad sign for two people set to get married next June. Wasn’t it too early for our honeymoon phase to be over? We hadn’t even had a honeymoon yet, or the wedding for that matter. Was the lull in our sex life to blame for my renewed, uncontrollable sexual attraction to Jordan? Or was I only thinking about it now to excuse said attraction?

The questions overwhelmed me enough to make me eager for sleep. I dozed off quickly, and woke up to the relief of having the apartment all to myself. Drew always left early for the gym before going into the office. I often woke up just as early to join him or go for a run. But on that morning, I only seemed to have enough energy to devote to the thought of seeing Jordan again.

Seeing him had done more than just sent longings of a horny teenage girl intensity surging through me. It had also rolled back my age in a number of other ways, like my sudden need to obsess over what I wore and how I looked…for him. Had I slipped into some kind of time machine? Not even the hottest boys at my highschool had inspired this kind of silliness in me.

But like some kind of slave to the urge, I primped and preened in front of my bedroom mirror—smoothing down every last wrinkle and crease in my pencil skirt, pasting down every flyaway frizzy hair, and readjusting my push-up bra around my boobs to show the most possible amount of office-appropriate cleavage.

Finally, I was looking good and set off to Jordan’s office. My heart pounded as I walked in—particularly because I wasn’t sure if my father would be joining us that day.

“Here she is,” Jordan smiled as I walked in. He jumped straight into introducing me to his team of lawyers around the table, and from there we went straight into analyzing every last word and figure in the mountains of paperwork of legal drafts spread out on the table before us.

The quick start to the work, and the never ending piles of it that consumed the rest of the day, actually made it easier to forget that Jordan was in the room. I wasn’t some sex-crazed bimbo who only cared about men—even if we were talking about him. I had a brain and a career path I loved—which was about to take a huge turn if everything went according to plan. With a job to do, I was focused and happy. Ashford, smashford…I mocked in my head. If only I could figure out how to master that kind of thinking in the rest of my life.

But the hours waned on until there was nothing left for the lawyers to do until we had thoroughly reviewed everything along with their changes and suggestions. Given our tight proposed timeline and the need for perfection, Jordan and I didn’t even pause to question whether or not we’d be staying late to get it done. It was obvious and didn’t even need to be said out loud. We settled in for the