“Leo.”
“I didn’t hear you.” No doubt she heard Geri calling him out on his crap.
She ignored him and smiled at the receptionist. “Hello. Tess Morrow to see Annabel Sanders.”
“Nice to meet you.” Geri gave her the friendly receptionist look. “Annabel is with a client. Her meeting is running a little late. I apologize for that. If you’ll just have a seat in the waiting area, she’ll be with you both as soon as possible.”
“Thanks,” Tess answered.
“May I get you something? Coffee?”
“No.”
Leo noticed her already pale face go a little whiter. “You okay?”
“Fine.” She smiled at Geri, then walked over to the cushy chairs by the windows and sat.
Leo followed and took the seat at a right angle to hers. Because she’d told him she was pregnant, he knew she was nauseated from morning sickness. He still couldn’t quite wrap his head around the fact that the baby was his. Maybe.
“So, I got the results of the blood tests,” he said.
“Me, too.” There was a “told you so” look in her brown eyes.
“It’s not conclusive,” he pointed out.
“It conclusively confirmed you can’t be excluded as the biological father.”
She was right about that. He’d done the research. The most accurate results came from an infant’s umbilical blood or tissue from the placenta, and that would have to wait another seven or so months. Fetal DNA could be observed in the mother’s blood and rule out someone who absolutely couldn’t be the father. Right now the test results were not admissible in court for purposes of custody or child support.
But they prevented a guy from getting emotionally involved for months only to find out he had no biological connection. And sometimes a man was led to believe he was a father for several years before finding out he wasn’t. He didn’t intend to be that naive a second time.
“Leo? Are you all right?”
“Hmm?” He met Tess’s questioning gaze.
“You look weird.”
Not surprising. He was remembering a weird, painful time in his life. It still hurt and he’d be damned if he’d let another woman pass off another man’s child as his. “I’m fine. But I was going to say the same about you. You’re a little pale.”
“It occurs to me the term morning sickness is inaccurate. This icky feeling doesn’t just happen in the morning. It can be anytime, day or night.”
“So that’s why you turned green when Geri mentioned coffee.”
“I thought I did a good job of hiding it,” she said.
“No.” She might be concealing other relevant facts, but not her current distaste for coffee. “But you’re not supposed to have it anyway, at least not much,” he qualified. “It’s not a complete no on caffeine, but it has to be less than two hundred milligrams a day...” He stopped because she was staring at him as if he’d grown another head. “What?”
“How did you know that about coffee during pregnancy?”
He knew because he’d married the last woman who said she was having his baby and embraced the experience with her. Along with the pain of finding out the son he loved more than life wasn’t his, he remembered pregnancy do’s and don’ts. “I guess I just heard it somewhere.”
“You do meet a lot of women.” There was sarcasm in her voice.
“One of the perks of being a hockey star,” he said, hoping to change the focus of this conversation.
“Must be a difficult cross to bear.” Now bitterness mixed with the sarcasm.
If he didn’t know better, he would say she was a little bit jealous, but that proved again just how bad he was at reading women. She’d taken a dislike to him almost from the moment they met. There was definite female interest in her eyes, right up until Pat Morrow introduced him as a former professional hockey player. An athlete, she’d said, in a disdainful tone that lumped him in with litterbugs and dog haters. Neither of which he was.
He’d liked her from the first but she gave him the cold shoulder. Until the night of her grandfather’s memorial service, when she was hot as hell and took him to heaven. She was right about one thing. He had had no room in his brain to think about protection that night. Holding her felt that good. If the baby was his, the blame could be shared fifty-fifty. But that night proved one thing. Tess was attracted to him even though she disapproved of him personally.
He met her gaze. “I do like women. That’s not a hanging offense.”
“No one said it was.”
“You didn’t have to say it. Judgment is written all over your face.”
“Wow,” she said. “Apparently my face gives away more than just the fact that the thought of coffee makes me want to barf.”
“Was it coffee? I assumed it was the sight of me.”
“Wow again. I’m surprised you could find a helmet big enough for your swelled head. Not everything is about you, Leo.”
“And jumping to that conclusion just proves—”
“Hello, Leo.” His attorney interrupted him. The pretty, green-eyed redhead smiled at Tess and held out her hand. “I’m Annabel Sanders. You must be Ms. Morrow.”
“Tess.” She shook the other woman’s hand.
“I apologize for keeping you waiting. I didn’t expect my last client to take as long as he did.”
“I didn’t see him leave,” Leo said.
“I’m not surprised. You were having an intense chat.” Annabel’s eyes narrowed on him for a moment, and then she smiled at Tess. “It’s nice to meet you.”
As the two women chatted, Leo studied his lawyer. She was a beautiful woman. Spectacular curves were showcased in the body-hugging hunter green dress with the flaring skirt. She was also funny and brilliant but he’d never felt the slightest hint of attraction to her. Not once in the nearly two years he’d known her. Maybe because their relationship was professional.
“If you’ll both follow me into my office, we can go over the agreement.”
He let the women precede him into the large corner office with floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides. In one corner was a conversation area, defined by a leather love seat, two matching club chairs and a glass coffee table. The attorney sat behind her large desk. These digs were much nicer than the small, cramped office where they’d had their very first meeting.
Annabel opened a file on her desk and put on her lawyer face. “Tess, you got the email I sent with the attachment containing the agreement?”
“Yes.”
“You had a chance to read it over and have your attorney look at it?”
“I read it,” Tess said. “It looks fine to me.”
Leo had clued Annabel in on the background that the partnership was a go because Tess was strapped for cash and trying to save her business. He could see her making that connection as the reasoning for not getting a second legal opinion.
“I can assure you that the terms are extremely fair,” Annabel told her.
Tess nodded. “I agree.”
“Do you have any questions?”
“No.”
The attorney nodded.