She tells him, but wants nothing to do with him

He met her on Christmas for a brief moment, when she informed him that she was pregnant and that he was only a donor. He was hurt because he had spent years trying to start a family and failing with Madison, only to find himself thrust into fatherhood under the strangest of circumstances. He had hoped that Laly might change her mind, but he did not have a leg to stand on given how they conceived, and he was still technically stuck living with his wife.

It was a month later, and he had finally moved out into a tiny apartment. He had tried talking to her a few times, but she 1 did her best to ignore him. Meanwhile, Laly's plans for their holiday weekend together had completely fallen through; between Gertrude demanding she get out of the house and urgent demands at the hospital, her schedule was entirely derailed. Frustrated and needing answers, she stormed down to his office branch to confront him.

As she opens the door and sees him, she says, "Are you stalking me?"

He does not say anything, it is obvious that she has been crying.

She leaves the door open and walks further into her lavish apartment. He only thinks at least she did not refuse him; she looks at him with a mistrusting glare. She brings him to the kitchen to show off her culinary attempt, but what she has made is utterly awful.

He tries his absolute best to stomach and eat it. She laughs and says, "Desperate to be in my life? I know my cooking is awful."

She smirks, adding, "I'll tell you what—you cook for me. If yours is better, we'll watch a movie. But it'll be a movie you won't like, and it'll be in French."

He opens the refrigerator to inspect her supplies, only to find it completely packed with expensive restaurant leftovers that clearly should have been thrown out days ago, sitting right alongside an absurd abundance of high-end wine and random cartons of eggs.

He turns back to look at her with a knowing grin, stepping up to the stove to take matters into his own hands and whip up a proper batch of eggs himself.

He digs right into the meal, praising the eggs as if it’s the finest dining he's ever experienced, even though it's just plain eggs and a glass of wine. She loves that he gamely eats it up, laughing as they settle onto the couch to watch a movie. It’s entirely in French with zero subtitles—a slow-burn romance between two women. Before long, the language barrier and the wine catch up to him, and he drifts off to sleep.

When he wakes up hours later, she’s still keeping her distance, lying slightly apart from him given her ingrained distrust of men and exclusive history with female lovers. As she shifts in her sleep, he stares at her slender, hourglass frame, noting just how busty she is and letting his gaze linger on her hips and ass. Taking in the soft, alluring scent of her perfume hanging in the room, a sudden wave of desire hits him, causing him to produce a stiff morning wood.

She spots the undeniable evidence pressing against his pants. She knows she really should give him a sharp lecture about boundaries, but a small part of her finds it darkly amusing—at least he actually finds her attractive, unlike Gertrude.

A knowing smile plays on her lips as she looks down at him and asks, "Are you willing to be my date at the music festival?"

Inside, he races through a quick internal monologue—his foot is finally in the door, and this might be his opening. He looks at her and tells her, "Yes, I would love to."