we’ll offer the court a better alternative, one no judge could possibly resist if he has the best interests of the baby at heart.”
She considered the all-too-scanty list of possibilities, but there was only one that made sense to her, only one she could live with.
“I could offer to keep the baby myself. I could adopt her,” she said tentatively, then went on with more enthusiasm. “Why not? I’m responsible. I have my own business. I could give her a good home.” Her conviction wavered ever so slightly. “It shouldn’t matter that I’m not married, should it?”
His gaze caught hers as he slowly shook his head. “To be honest, it could.”
There were a zillion single moms in the world. “But—”
He cut off her protest. “Just wait. I have a better plan. You and I will ask for custody.”
“Together? But how...?” Her voice trailed off as understanding dawned. “You and I...” She couldn’t seem to make herself complete the thought.
Cord had no such hesitation. “We’ll get married,” he said as if it were no more than a date for coffee. “We’ll show the court that we can offer Ashley the kind of stable, two-parent home she deserves. It’s the perfect solution.”
She waited for the shock of the outrageous suggestion to sink in, waited for her stomach to rebel at the mere thought of taking another risk on marriage, at going through another ceremony that could end in tragedy, but it didn’t happen. This wasn’t a real marriage he was proposing, after all. It was a strategic alliance, a way to prevent Ashley from going home with that awful woman. And this was Cord, a man she’d come to trust. Her heart wouldn’t be on the line, nor would his.
As she heard herself ticking off rationalizations, she realized that she was going to consider saying yes. If it could keep the baby safe, she would consider it.
She knew what it would mean to her, what it could mean to Ashley to agree to such a marriage, but Cord’s motives were less certain and that troubled her. Of course, he cared about the baby. There wasn’t any doubt about that, but this was a huge step to take to protect a child who wasn’t even his own.
She studied him intently, but his expression was unreadable as he awaited her answer. “Why would you agree to something like that?” she asked eventually.
He grinned. “You seem to forget I’m not agreeing to it. I’m suggesting it.”
She shrugged off the distinction. “Why, though?”
“Because I’ve thought long and hard about this and it’s the only thing that makes sense. It would be the right thing for the baby, to keep her with you.” He shrugged and admitted, “And with me. I’ve fallen for her, too, you know. I want to go on being a part of her life. I want to be a dad, a different kind of dad from the one I had, different from the one biologically responsible for Ashley.”
He cupped her cheek in his palm and the graze of his fingers sent heat flaring through her.
“You’re a strong woman, Sharon Lynn. I have no doubt a court would take your petition for custody seriously, but weighed against a willing blood relation, I don’t know. It could go either way. Even Justin concedes that. Together, though, we’d be an indomitable force to reckon with.”
He made the case passionately. Convincingly. Sharon Lynn’s hand shook as she reached for her cup of coffee to buy herself some time to think it through, to analyze the pitfalls.
There were a million of them, most of them for Cord. She would be getting what she wanted most in this world, a chance to be a mother to a little girl she had already come to think of as her own.
She tried to look at the proposal from Cord’s perspective. He claimed that a chance to be a father would be enough for him, but would it, really? Could any man be satisfied with so little in a marriage, even a temporary one?
“For how long?” she asked eventually. She swallowed hard, then cleared her throat. “How long exactly would we have to stay married?”
For once he couldn’t seem to look directly at her and he hesitated for a very long time before answering. Finally he lifted his eyes to fix a steady gaze on her. “As long as it takes.”
“And you would make that kind of a commitment, just like that?”