Sign the Papers Mr. Langford novel Chapter 218

Only then did Leo slam his pencil down and sprint toward her.

He threw his arms around her waist, hugging her with desperate strength.

Stepping out of his study, Lawrence witnessed the scene, his footsteps instinctively slowing.

Eleanor sat rigidly on the sofa, her face stormy.

The clinic had clearly already informed her that Margaret had explicitly banned Wren from handling her medical affairs, passing all responsibilities to the paid staff.

Wren didn't bother asking about it.

She simply took Leo's hand and led him to wash up.

As she passed Lawrence, he suddenly lowered his voice. "Do you know about the parent-child event?"

Wren stopped in her tracks.

"What parent-child event?"

Leo also looked up, eyes wide. "At my school?"

Watching his son's bewildered reaction, Lawrence's expression grew even frostier.

He had only asked to gauge if Wren was already aware, but clearly, not even the boy had been informed yet.

Yet Willow had already sniffed it out.

The realization gnawed at him, twisting into something deeply repulsive.

"They probably haven't sent the official notice yet," Lawrence said smoothly. "If there is one, I'll go."

Leo froze.

Wren turned to look at Lawrence.

He had thrown the promise out so fast, as if driven by some volatile, underlying emotion. Maybe he was doing it for Leo. Maybe he was doing it to block Willow from interfering. Or maybe he just desperately needed to prove he still possessed the title of 'Father.'

Wren didn't rip off his mask.

"We'll wait until the school officially announces it."

"Are you really going to come, Dad?" Leo asked, his voice trembling slightly.

Lawrence stared down at his son.

The boy's eyes weren't filled with blind excitement.

There was hope, yes—but it was suffocated by a devastating disbelief.

That raw, unfiltered disbelief was infinitely more agonizing than outright rejection.

Lawrence's throat tightened.

"I'm going."

Slowly, a tiny, tentative smile broke across Leo's face.

It was small, but it was real.

Watching the boy smile, Wren felt no relief whatsoever.

Because she knew better than anyone that Lawrence's promises were always spectacularly effortless to make.

The impossible part was actually prioritizing his son over his empire.

Dinner that night was marginally less suffocating than the day before.

Eleanor didn't bring up family galas, nor did she weaponize the divorce.

Lawrence actually went out of his way to ask Leo two whole questions about school. Though his delivery was painfully stiff, Leo answered him with absolute earnestness.

After dinner, Leo grabbed his notebook and sat at the small table in the living room.

"Dad, can you sit with me while I do my homework?"

Lawrence froze.

Pouring a glass of water, Wren paused and looked over.

Lawrence set his phone down. "Sure."

He sat down next to Leo.

The assignment was a series of applied math word problems.

Lawrence glanced at the page. It looked painfully easy, but the second he opened his mouth, he realized he had zero idea how to actually explain the mechanics to a child.

He was hardwired to demand immediate results.

Leo needed stepping stones.

"Why do we have to calculate this part first?" the boy asked.

Lawrence frowned. "Because that's what the question is asking."

Gripping his pencil, Leo's eyes slowly glazed over in absolute confusion.

Standing nearby, Wren didn't intervene immediately.

Wren hadn't screamed at him.

But the silence was infinitely more agonizing than being cursed out.

Because in those excruciating few minutes, he was forced to stare directly into his own catastrophic failures as a father.

Failures that Wren had spent years seamlessly covering up.

Late that night, Wren sat at her desk, methodically filling out the observation log.

Time. Event. Child's reaction.

Her entries were clinical, completely stripped of emotion.

Just as she finished the last line, a knock echoed from her door.

Lawrence stood in the hallway, clutching his copy of The Parent-Child Observation Log.

Only a few pathetic lines were filled in.

His handwriting was immaculate, but the page was devastatingly empty.

He stared at Wren, his face rigid with humiliated pride.

"What time does Leo usually fall asleep?"

Wren didn't answer immediately.

Lawrence clearly knew how pathetic it was for a father to have to ask a question like that, and his expression darkened even further.

But he stood his ground. He didn't flee.

Wren studied him for a long moment before finally saying, "He's in bed by nine-thirty and asleep before ten. Recently, he's been waking up once a night, usually between two and three in the morning."

Lawrence looked down and wrote it out.

The scratch of his pen against the paper was the only sound in the dead quiet.

The hallway lights cast long, heavy shadows over his broad shoulders.

In that fleeting second, he didn't look like the untouchable CEO of Langford Medical, nor did he look like the god-like husband she used to worship.

He just looked like a desperate father staring at a test he was fundamentally failing.

Wren didn't feel a shred of vindictive pleasure.

She just felt bone-deep exhaustion.

Because when someone has been absent for this long, by the time they finally turn back to write their very first line, the person waiting for them is too drained to even offer sarcasm.