Книга - To Love, Honour and Betray

To Love, Honour and Betray
JENNIE LUCAS


Callie Woodville had imagined her wedding day since she was a little girl… She thought she’d found the perfect man in her boss Eduardo Cruz – but, ‘Get out!’ wasn’t exactly the morning-after treatment she’d hoped for. She’d never dreamed it would be like this! Holding her wilting bouquet, Callie waits for her groom – her best friend: a man she’s never kissed – or has even wanted to kiss.But once Eduardo knows about the bump concealed under Callie’s oversized secondhand wedding dress, there’s no way he’s going to let her walk up the aisle with someone else…










“Stand up.”

Callie blinked. “What?”

His dark eyes glittered as raindrops splattered noisily into the trees above. “You heard me.”

She sucked in her breath as fury and fear raced through her. “Forget it! You have no power over me. I’m no longer your secretary, and I’m certainly not your lover. I’m your nothing! I don’t know why you came looking for me, but I want you to go away and leave me alone!”

Eduardo came very, very close, standing over her on the stoop, so close his pant legs brushed her knees. He leaned in to her, and she felt the warmth of his breath against her earlobe as he whispered, “Are you pregnant with my baby, Callie?”




About the Author


JENNIE LUCAS grew up dreaming about faraway lands. At fifteen, hungry for experience beyond the borders of her small Idaho city, she went to a Connecticut boarding school on scholarship. She took her first solo trip to Europe at sixteen, then put off college and travelled around the US, supporting herself with jobs as diverse as gas station cashier and newspaper advertising assistant.

At twenty-two she met the man who would be her husband. After their marriage she graduated from Kent State with a degree in English. Seven years after she started writing she got the magical call from London that turned her into a published author.

Since then life has been hectic, with a new writing career, a sexy husband and two small children, but she’s having a wonderful (albeit sleepless) time. She loves immersing herself in dramatic, glamorous, passionate stories. Maybe she can’t physically travel to Morocco or Spain right now, but for a few hours a day, while her children are sleeping, she can be there in her books.

Jennie loves to hear from her readers. You can visit her website at www.jennielucas.com, or drop her a note at jennie@jennielucas.com

Recent titles by the same author:

A NIGHT OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY

RECKLESS NIGHT IN RIO

THE VIRGIN’S CHOICE

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk


To Love, Honour and Betray









Jennie Lucas














www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


To my husband.

Thanks for Europe.

Thanks even more for home.

Thanks for making all my dreams come true.




CHAPTER ONE


CALLIE WOODVILLE had dreamed of her wedding day since she was a little girl.

When she was seven, she placed a long white towel on her head and walked down an imaginary aisle in her father’s barn, surrounded by teddy bears as guests and with her baby sister toddling behind her, chewing on flower petals from a basket.

At seventeen, as a plump, bookish wallflower with big glasses and clothes hand-sewn by her loving but sadly out-of-date mother, Callie was mocked and ignored by the boys at her rural high school. She told herself she didn’t care. She went to prom with her best friend instead, an equally nerdy boy from a neighboring farm. But Callie dreamed of the day she would finally meet the darkly handsome man she could love. She knew that somewhere out there in the wide world, he waited for her, this man who would wake her with the sensual power of his kiss.

Then, when she was twenty-four, that man had come for her.

Her ruthless billionaire boss had kissed her. Seduced her. He’d taken her virginity, as he’d already taken her heart, and for one perfect night she was lost in passion and magic. Waking up in his arms on Christmas morning, in the luxurious bedroom of his New York brownstone, Callie thought she might die of pure happiness. For that one perfect night, the world was a magical place where dreams came true, as long as your heart was pure and you truly believed.

One magical, heartbreaking night.

Now, eight and a half months later, Callie sat on the stoop outside her former apartment on a leafy, quiet street in the West Village. The sky was dark, threatening rain, and though it was early September it was hot and muggy. But her cleaned-out apartment felt almost ghostly in its emptiness, so she’d come outside to wait with the suitcases.

Today was her wedding day. The day she’d always dreamed of. But she’d never dreamed of this.

Callie looked down at her secondhand wedding dress and the wilting bouquet of wildflowers she’d picked from the nearby community garden. Instead of a veil, pearl-laced barrettes strained to hold back her long, light brown hair.

In a few minutes, she’d marry her best friend. A man she’d never kissed—or even wanted to kiss. A man who wasn’t the father of her baby.

As soon as Brandon came back with the rental car, they’d be wed at City Hall, and start the long drive from New York to his parents’ farm in North Dakota.

Callie closed her eyes. It’s best for the baby, she told herself desperately. Her baby needed a father, and her ex-boss was a selfish, coldhearted playboy, whose deepest relationship was with his bank account. After three years of devoted service as his secretary, Callie had known that. But she’d still been stupid enough to find out the hard way.

A car turned off Seventh Avenue onto her residential street in the West Village. She saw an expensive dark luxury sedan and watched it go by, then exhaled. It wasn’t Eduardo’s style of car, and yet, as clouds covered the noonday sun, Callie looked up at the sky and shivered. If her ex-boss ever found out their single night of passion had created a child …

“He won’t,” she whispered aloud. Last she’d heard, he was in Colombia, developing offshore oil fields for Cruz Oil. After Eduardo possessed a woman in bed, she was pretty much dead to him, never to be remembered again. And though Callie had witnessed this scores of times during her time as his secretary, she’d still thought that she might be different. That she would be the exception.

Get out of my bed, Callie. She’d still been naked and blissful and sleepy in the pink light of Christmas morning when he’d shaken her awake, his voice hard. Get out of my house. I’m through with you.

Eight and a half months later, his words were still an ice pick in her heart. Exhaling, Callie wrapped her arms around her baby bump. He would never know about the life he’d created inside her. He’d made his choice. So she’d made hers. There would be no custody battle, no chance for Eduardo to be as domineering and tyrannical a father as he’d been a boss. Her child would be born into a stable home, with a loving family. Brandon, her best friend since the first grade, would be her baby’s father in all the ways that counted, and Callie would be a devoted wife to him in return. In every way but one.

She’d been doubtful at first that a marriage based on friendship could work. But Brandon had assured her that they didn’t need romance or passion to have a solid partnership. “We’ll be happy, Callie,” he’d promised. “Really happy.” Over the months of her pregnancy, he’d worn her down with kindness.

Now, as Callie leaned back against their suitcases on the stoop, her eyes fell on her Louis Vuitton handbag. Brandon kept telling her to sell it. It would look ridiculous on the farm, she knew. It had been a gift from Eduardo last Christmas. Totally unnecessary, she’d wept, amazed that he’d noticed her gaze lingering upon the shop window months before. I reward those who are loyal to me, Callie, Eduardo had replied. A woman like you comes along only once in a lifetime.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Callie turned her face upward, feeling the first cool raindrops against her skin. Such a ridiculous trophy, a three-thousand-dollar handbag, but it had been a hard-won symbol of her hours of devotion, of their partnership. But Brandon was right. She should just sell it. She was done with Eduardo. With New York. Done with everything she’d once loved.

Except this baby.

A low roll of thunder mingled with the honk of taxis and distant police sirens on Seventh Avenue and the hiss from the subway vent at the end of the street. She heard another car pull down the street. It stopped, and she heard a door slam. Brandon had returned with the rental car. It was time to marry him and start the two-day journey to North Dakota. Forcing her lips into a smile, she opened her eyes.

Eduardo Cruz stood beside his dark Mercedes sedan, powerful and broad-shouldered in an impeccable black suit.

The blood drained from Callie’s cheeks.

“Eduardo,” she breathed, starting to rise. She stopped herself. Maybe he couldn’t see her pregnant belly. She prayed he couldn’t. Wrapping her arms loosely over her knees, she stammered, “What are you doing here?”

Silently Eduardo stepped onto the sidewalk. His long-limbed, powerful body moved toward her with a warrior’s effortless grace, but she felt every step like a seismic rumble beneath her.

“The question is—” his dark eyes glittered “—what are you doing, Callie?”

His voice was deep, with only a hint of an accent from his childhood in Spain. It was a shock to hear that voice again. She’d never thought she would see him again, outside of her haunted, sensual dreams.

She lifted her chin. “What does it look like I’m doing?” She jabbed her thumb toward the suitcases. “Leaving.” Her voice trembled in spite of her best efforts, and she hated Eduardo for that, as she hated him for so much else. “You’ve won.”

“Won?” he ground out. He slowly circled her at the end of the stoop. “A strange accusation.”

Beneath his gaze, her body shuddered with ice, then fire. She stiffened, glaring at him. “What else would you call it? You fired me then made sure no one else in New York would hire me.”

“So?” he said coldly. “Let McLinn provide for you. You are his bride. His problem.”

A chill went down her spine.

“You know about Brandon?” she whispered. If he knew about her coming marriage, did he also know about her pregnancy? “Who told you?”

“He did.” He gave a harsh laugh. “I met him.”

“You met? When? Where?”

Eduardo gave her a hard smile. “Does it matter?”

She bit her lip. “Was it a chance meeting … or …”

“You might call it chance.” His casual drawl belied the cold accusation in his eyes. He looked up at the expensive town house behind her. “I stopped by your apartment and was surprised to find you had a live-in lover.”

“He’s not my—”

“Not your what?”

“Never mind,” she mumbled.

Eduardo moved closer. “Tell me,” he said acidly, “did McLinn enjoy living here? Did he relish living in the apartment I leased as a gift of gratitude for the secretary I respected?”

She swallowed. A year ago, she’d been living in a cheap studio in Staten Island, so she could send most of her salary to her family back home. Then Eduardo had surprised her with a paid yearlong lease for a gorgeous one-bedroom apartment close to his own expensive brownstone on Bank Street. Callie had nearly wept with joy, believing it was proof that he actually cared. She’d later realized he’d only wanted to eliminate her commute so he could get more hours out of her.

“What could you possibly have to say to me now?” She frowned. She’d been home all week—packing boxes, directing the movers, being informed by the airlines that she was too pregnant to fly, calling car rental agencies. “When were you even here?”

“While you were in bed,” Eduardo ground out.

Her heart lifted to her throat.

“Oh,” she whispered. It suddenly made sense. She slept in the bedroom, while Brandon had the couch. “He never mentioned meeting you. But why? What do you want?”

His black eyes glittered at her. He was staring at her as if she were a stranger. No—as if she were a bug beneath his Italian leather shoe. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about your lover? Why did you lie?”

“I didn’t!”

“You hid his existence from me. The very day after you moved into this apartment, you had him move in with you. But you never mentioned him, because you knew it would make me question your commitment and loyalty.”

She stared at him then her shoulders sagged. “I was afraid to tell you.” She swallowed. “You’re so unreasonable in your demand for absolute loyalty.”

His mouth was a grim line. “So you lied.”

“I never invited him to move in! He … he surprised me.” After Callie had called Brandon in North Dakota to tell him about the apartment her generous boss had just leased for her, he’d shown up on her doorstep the next day, telling her he was worried about her in the big city. “He missed me. He was going to get his own place, but then he couldn’t find a job….”

“Right,” Eduardo said sardonically. “A real man finds a job to support his woman. He doesn’t live off her severance package.”

She gasped at the insult. “He’s not like that!” Throughout her pregnancy, Brandon had cooked, cleaned, rubbed her swollen feet, held her hand at the doctor’s office. All the things that she’d have wanted her baby’s real father to do, if he’d been anyone besides Eduardo. She scowled. “In case you haven’t noticed, there aren’t many jobs in New York for farmers!”

“So why stay in New York?”

Soft, lazy raindrops fell around them, pattering against the hot sidewalk. “I wanted to stay. I hoped I would find a job.”

“And so you have. As a farmer’s wife.”

“What do you want from me? Why did you come—just to insult me?”

“Oh, didn’t I mention why?” His eyes were cold and black. “Your sister called me this morning.”

A chill went through her.

“Sami—called you?” Callie’s conversation with her sister last night had ended badly. But Sami wouldn’t betray her. She wouldn’t … would she? She licked her suddenly dry lips. “Um. What did she say?”

“Two very interesting things that I could hardly believe.” Eduardo took a step closer to her on the stoop and said softly, “But clearly one of them is true. You’re getting married today.”

Her body started to shake. “So?”

“You admit it?”

“I’m wearing a wedding gown. I can’t exactly deny it. But how does that affect you?” Her lips trembled as she tried to shape them into a mocking smile. “Mad because you weren’t invited?”

“You sound nervous.” He slowly walked a semicircle around the end of the stoop. “Is there something you are keeping from me, Callie? Some secret?” He moved closer. “Some lie?”

She felt a contraction across her body, her belly tightening. Braxton-Hicks contractions, caused by stress, she told herself. Fake labor, the same that had sent her racing to the hospital last week, only to have the nurses sigh and send her home. But it hurt. One hand went over her belly; the other went to her lower back as she panted, “What could I possibly have to hide?”

“I already know you’re a liar.” A beam of golden light escaped the gray clouds and caressed his handsome face, leaving dark shadows beneath his cheekbones and jawline as he said softly, “But how deep do your lies go?”

The wilted bouquet of wildflowers nearly fell from her numb fingers. She gripped them more tightly in her shaking hands. “Please,” she whispered. “Don’t ruin it.”

“Ruin—what—exactly?”

Her teeth chattered. “My … my …” My life. And my baby’s life. “My wedding day.”

“Ah, yes. Your wedding day. I know how you used to dream about it.” He looked down at her. “So tell me. Is it everything you hoped it would be?”

She felt painfully conscious of the used wedding dress, several sizes too large, with a lace and polyester bodice that kept sliding off one shoulder. She looked down at the wilting flowers, at the two shabby suitcases behind her.

“Yes,” she said in a small voice.

“Where is your family? Where are your friends?”

“We’re getting married at City Hall.” She lifted her chin defiantly, pushing aside the sudden desire to cry. “We’re eloping. It’s romantic.”

“Ah. Of course.” He showed his teeth in a smile. “The wedding would not matter to you and McLinn, would it, as long as you have your honeymoon.”

Honeymoon? She and Brandon planned to break up their drive on a pull-out sofa at his cousin’s house in Wisconsin. Passion was nonexistent between them—she thought of Brandon like a brother. But she could hardly admit to Eduardo that there was only one man on earth she’d ever wanted to kiss, only one man she’d ever dreamed about: the man glaring cold daggers at her right now. “My honeymoon is none of your business.”

Eduardo snorted. “Anything for you would be romantic where Brandon McLinn is concerned. Even an ugly dress and a bouquet of weeds. He’s always been the one you wanted. Even though he is a man without a job, unable to stand on his own two feet. You love him—” his voice was scornful “—though he is barely a man.”

Callie’s jaw clenched. She started to rise to her feet then she remembered she couldn’t let him see her belly. Trembling with fury, she glared up at him. “Rich or poor, Brandon is twice the man you’ll ever be!”

Eduardo’s eyes burned through her. Then he spoke coldly.

“Stand up.”

She blinked. “What?”

“Your sister told me two things. The first is true.” Raindrops splattered noisily into the trees above. “Stand up.”

Callie sucked in her breath. “Forget it! I’m not your secretary, I’m not your lover … I’m your nothing! You have no power over me, not anymore. Stop harassing me before I call the police!”

Eduardo’s dark eyes glittered as he moved closer, standing over her, so close his pant legs brushed her knees. He leaned forward. “Are you pregnant with my baby?”

Staring up at him, Callie sucked in her breath. He knew.

Her sister had betrayed her. She’d told Eduardo everything.

She’d known Sami was angry, but she’d never thought she’d do it. Yesterday, her sister had called to wish her good luck on her trip. Callie had been jittery and afraid she was about to make the worst mistake of her life. When she’d heard her sister’s loving voice, she’d blurted out her plan to elope with Brandon because she was pregnant by her boss. Sami’s reaction had been furious.

I won’t let you trap Brandon this way, with a baby that’s not even his!

Sami, you don’t understand –

Shut up! Even if your old boss is a jerk, it’s his baby and he deserves to know! I won’t let you ruin so many lives with your selfishness!

Callie had been shocked, but she’d never once thought Sami would go through with her threat. Her baby sister adored her. She’d trailed after Callie and Brandon every day for years with hero worship in her eyes. She might be angry, but she’d certainly never betray her. Or so she’d thought.

She’d been wrong.

“Are you?” Eduardo demanded harshly.

Callie felt another hard contraction. She tried to breathe through it, but the childbirth classes she’d attended with Brandon seemed useless. The fake contractions, which were supposed to get her body ready for eventual labor weeks in the future, were getting stronger.

“Very well. Do not answer,” Eduardo said coldly. “I would not believe a word from your lying mouth, in any case. But your body …” He stroked her cheek, and an electric current coursed through her. Callie looked up with a gasp, her lips parted. “Your body won’t lie to me.”

He removed the bouquet of wildflowers from her unresisting hand and dropped it to the ground. Taking both her hands in his own, palm to palm, he gently lifted her to her feet.

Callie stood before him on the sidewalk, shaking and vulnerable and clearly pregnant in an ugly white wedding dress. Closing her eyes, she waited for the explosion.

But when he spoke, his voice was cool. “So it is true. You are pregnant.” He paused. “Who is the father?”

Her eyes flew open. “What?” she stammered.

“Is it me? Or McLinn?”

“How can you ask …?” She faltered, blushing. “You know I was a virgin when we … when we …”

“I thought you were, though I wondered later if I’d been deceived.” He set his jaw. “Perhaps you were saving yourself for your wedding night, and the day after we made love, you went home to your fiancé, and lured him into bed. Perhaps in a fit of remorse, or perhaps to hide what you’d done in case there was a child.”

“How can you even say that?” she gasped. “How can you think I’d do something so disgusting—so low?”

“Is the child is mine? Or is it McLinn’s?” His gaze was like ice. His sensual lips twisted. “Or do you not know?”

Her heart wrenched.

“Why are you trying to hurt me?” She shook her head. “Brandon is my friend. Just my friend.”

“You’ve been living with him for a year. Do you expect me to believe he slept on the couch for all that time?”

“We took turns!”

“You are lying! He is marrying you!”

“Out of kindness, nothing more!”

He gave a harsh laugh. “Por supuesto,” he mocked, folding his arms. “That is why men marry. To be kind.”

She stepped back from him. Her throat throbbed with anguish. “My parents don’t know I’m pregnant. They think I’ve just given up the job hunt and decided to move home.” Her eyes burned as she shook her head fiercely. “I can’t go back there as an unwed mother. My parents would never live it down. And Brandon is the best man on earth. He—”

“I don’t give a damn about him. Or you. I care about one question. Is. This. Baby. Mine?”

Callie took a deep breath. “Please don’t,” she whispered. She despised the pleading note in her voice but couldn’t stop herself. “Don’t make me give you an answer you don’t want. Let me give her a home. A family.”

“Her?”

She could have kicked herself. Reluctantly she looked at him. “I’m having a baby girl.”

He exhaled, setting his jaw. “A girl.”

“It doesn’t matter! You don’t want to be tied to me. You’ve made that clear! She’s nothing to you, any more than I am. You must forget you ever saw me—”

“Are you out of your mind?” he growled, grabbing her shoulders. “I won’t let another man raise a child that could be mine!” He searched her gaze fiercely. “When is the baby due? What is the exact date?”

Thunder rolled across the dark clouds hanging low over the city. Callie felt herself on a precipice of a choice that would change everything.

If she told Eduardo the truth, her baby would never enjoy the idyllic childhood that Callie had had, surrounded by endless prairie, playing in her father’s barn, knowing everyone in their small town. Instead of parents who were best friends, her precious child would have parents who hated each other, and a tyrannical, selfish father.

If only she were the liar Eduardo thought she was, Callie thought miserably. If only she could give him a false date, and say Brandon was the father!

But she couldn’t lie. Not to his face. Especially not about something like this. Grief twisted her heart as she whispered, “September 17.”

Eduardo stared down at her. Then his eyes narrowed and the grip on her shoulders tightened.

“If there’s even the slightest chance McLinn is the father, tell me now,” he ground out. “Before the paternity test. If you’re lying—or if you are simply wrong—and this baby is not mine, I will destroy you for your lie. Do you understand? Not just you, but everyone who loves you. Especially McLinn.”

Her throat ached. She knew her ex-boss’s ruthlessness. She’d seen him use it against others for three years, and finally—inevitably—against her. “I would expect nothing less.”

“I will take your parents’ farm. McLinn’s. Everything. Do you understand?” His dark eyes glittered. “So choose your words carefully. Tell me the truth. Am I the—”

“Of course!” she exploded. “Of course you’re the father! You’re the only man I’ve ever slept with! Ever!”

Staggering back a step, Eduardo stared down at her. His jaw hardened. “Still? Do you honestly expect me to believe that?”

“Why would I lie? Do you think I actually want you to be her father?” she cried. “I wish with all my heart it was Brandon, not you! He’s the one I want—the one I trust—the best man in the world! Instead of a selfish workaholic playboy who turns on everyone in his life, who doesn’t trust anyone, who has no real friends—”

Her voice cut off as his fingers tightened into her flesh. “You were never going to tell me about the baby, were you?” His voice was dangerously soft. “You were just going to steal my child from me and put another man in my place. You were going to erase me completely from her life.”

A shiver of fear went through her, but she glared at him. “Yes! She’d be better off without you!”

He sucked in his breath then bared his teeth into a smile.

“And that,” he said, his black eyes gleaming, “is your greatest lie of all.”

They stood glaring at each other on the sidewalk, like mortal enemies. She heard the soft patter of heavy raindrops sliding from the green leafy trees above the brick town houses, and she knew he was right.

For eight months, Callie had told herself that Eduardo wouldn’t want a baby. That his workaholic bachelor lifestyle would be hampered by a child. That he would be a horrible father and she was doing the right thing for everyone. But part of her had always known that wasn’t true. After being orphaned himself, and brought to New York at the age of ten, Eduardo Cruz would want to be a father. He’d never surrender a son or daughter.

It was just Callie he would sweep aside and discard.

And that was what frightened her. With Eduardo Cruz’s wealth and power, if he took her to court to battle for full custody, there was no question who would win.

His dark eyes cut her to the bone. “You should have told me the day you realized you were pregnant.”

She looked up at him, her heart twisting beneath the weight of guilt and regret and the grief of broken love. “How could I,” she whispered, “after you abandoned me?”

His eyes widened. Then he glowered at her, his expression merciless. “You are clever and resourceful. You could have found a way to contact me. But you did not. You tried to hide her, as you hide everything.”

She felt another sharp pain as her belly tightened. “And now I’ve told you the truth, will you try to take her from me?”

His jaw tightened. Then a smile curled his lips. Reaching out his hand, he stroked her cheek. A sizzle of electricity spun across her skin, vibrating down her spine, and she was filled with longing and desire, irrepressible need like fire. All her traitorous body wanted to do, even now, was turn toward him like a flower toward the sun.

“You will be punished, querida,” he said softly. “Oh, yes.”

Callie stared up at him, breathless beneath his touch, trapped beneath the dark force of his gaze. Then she exhaled when she saw a cheap two-door hatchback driving up her street. The cavalry had come to save her. She nearly sobbed with relief. “Brandon!”

Eduardo whipped around. A low, guttural word came from his lips, a word in Spanish she’d only heard him use when he’d just lost a huge deal, or the time a brokenhearted starlet had tried to break into his bedroom. Turning back, he grabbed Callie’s handbag, then her arm. “Come with me.”

Before she even knew what was happening, he’d pulled her across the sidewalk and opened the back door to his black sedan. “Start the engine,” he ordered his driver.

Realizing his intent, she desperately tried to rip her arm away. “Let me go!”

But Eduardo’s grip was like steel. He shoved her into the backseat and climbed in beside her, crowding her with his massive body that seemed far too big for the space.

Eduardo leaned over her, his eyes black with fury as he gripped her wrists. “I’m not giving you another chance to hide my baby.”

Callie breathed in the woodsy, exotic scent of his cologne, overwhelmed by his closeness, by the sensation of his thigh pressed against hers. It was just as she’d dreamed about in the years she’d worked for him, and unwillingly dreamed every night in all the months since he’d fired her. Their faces were inches apart. Callie’s heart thumped in her chest. She felt lost in a dream.

Then Eduardo closed the door with a bang behind him.

“Drive,” he told his chauffeur tersely.

“No!” With an intake of breath, she whirled around in the backseat. Her last vision through the back window was of Brandon standing by the rental car with his door ajar, staring after her with his black-framed glasses askew, his expression anguished. Beside him, their two old suitcases still sat forlornly on the curb.

Their car turned the corner, and Brandon was gone. Callie’s body felt tight with pain that seemed to emanate white-hot from her heart as she turned back to Eduardo with a choked sob. “Take me back. Please.”

His eyes were merciless. “No.”

“You’ve kidnapped me!”

“Call it what you want.”

“You can’t keep me against my will!”

“Can’t I?” he said softly.

She shivered at the look in his eyes. He turned away as if bored, but she saw the hard set of his jaw, heard the clipped tension of his voice as he said coldly, “You will remain with me until the matter of the baby is resolved.”

“So I’m your prisoner?”

“Until my paternal rights are formalized—yes.”

“So you don’t believe I’m a liar after all,” Callie said bitterly.

“Not about the baby. But there are all kinds of lying. You lie with silence. I wonder,” he said blandly, “if there’s anything else you’ve been hiding from me? My perfect, loyal secretary.”

She wrapped her arms over her belly, which felt hard and tight beneath the polyester blend of her wedding dress. “What do you know about loyalty? You’ve never been loyal to anyone but yourself!”

“I was loyal to you, Callie,” he said in a low voice. “Once.”

Staring into his fathomless dark eyes, she was suddenly lost in memories of their days together, in the office, sharing sushi at midnight, traveling the world on his private jet.

“That was when I mistakenly believed you were worth it.” His tone hardened. “I learned my lesson.”

“What lesson?” she cried out, bewildered. “The instant I slept with you, I went from being your trusted secretary to a disposable one-night stand. After everything we’d been through together, how could you treat me exactly like all the rest?” She lifted her tearful gaze to his and spoke from the heart. “Why did you sleep with me?” she whispered. “Did you ever care for me at all?”

He stared at her.

“You were a convenience,” he said roughly, turning away. “Nothing more.”

The words felt like a knife blade in her heart, serrated, rusty, tearing through her flesh. She’d loved him with such devotion, and the night she’d given him her virginity, she’d thought a miracle had happened: that he’d fallen for her, too.

“Every woman in this city thinks she can tame you. The rich, handsome playboy,” she choked out. She shook her head. “The truth is you’ll never trust anyone long enough to care. You desert a woman the instant you’ve had your minute of cheap pleasure!”

Eduardo’s eyes narrowed. Then his gaze traced slowly over her lips, her neck, her breasts.

“Longer than a minute, I assure you,” he drawled. “Or don’t you remember?”

Their eyes met, and her cheeks flooded with warmth. Heaven help her, but she remembered every hot, sensual detail of the night he’d made love to her. She still dreamed of it every night against her will. How he’d stroked her virginal body, how he’d peeled off her clothes and kissed every inch of her skin, how he’d made her scream with pleasure, crying out his name as he suckled her, as he licked her, as he filled her until she wept with mindless joy.

Heaven help her, but she couldn’t forget.

His gaze dropped. Callie sucked in her breath when she realized the neckline of her tatty, oversize wedding dress had slid down her shoulder to reveal far too much of one plump breast and a full inch of her white cotton bra. She yanked the neckline up, scowling. “I can’t believe I ever let you seduce me.”

“Seduce?” His lips twisted with amusement. “What a charming description. I didn’t seduce you. You jumped into my arms the instant I touched you. But call it seduction, if it makes your conscience easy.”

She gasped in outrage. “You are such a—”

“Oh, I’m sure you regretted it afterward. McLinn must have taken it hard.” He shook his head. “Amazing,” he mused, “to think he was willing to marry you while you were pregnant by another man. He must be insanely in love with you.”

A twinge of unease went through her. “He’s not in love with me. He’s my best friend.”

“And you must have felt so guilty.” Reaching over, he twirled a tendril of her brown hair. “So full of remorse that you ruined your chaste, loyal, boring love affair of years for a single night of hot, raw lust with me.”

She jerked away. “You are so full of yourself to think—”

“Why did I treat you exactly like the rest? I’ll tell you.” Eduardo’s eyes met hers evenly. “Because you are no different.”

“I hate you!”

He snorted a laugh, but his eyes were icy. “Then we agree on something at last.”

Tears fell down her lashes as she looked down, suddenly deflated. “All I wanted was to give my baby a good home,” she whispered. “But now, instead of two loving parents, she’ll be pulled like a tug-of-war rope between a mother and father who hate each other. Two parents who aren’t even married. The world can be cruel. She’ll be called illegitimate. She’ll be called a bastard …”

Eduardo’s eyes widened. “What?” he exploded.

“She’ll always feel she’s not good enough, as if she were some kind of accident, some kind of mistake. When the truth is you and I are the ones to blame.” She looked up at him with a sob. “I don’t want her to suffer. Please, Eduardo. Can’t you just let me marry Brandon? For her sake?”

He looked at her for a long moment, his expression half-wild.

Then his jaw set. He abruptly leaned forward in his seat to say something in rapid-fire Spanish to his chauffeur then turned away, dialing into his phone and speaking again in the same language, too fast for her to understand. Praying she’d made him see reason, that he’d changed his mind and would let her go, she watched him, tracing the harsh lines of his silhouetted face, the handsome, sensual, cruel face she’d once loved with all her heart.

When Eduardo turned back to her, his dark eyes were strangely bright. “I have happy news for you, querida. You are going to be married today after all.”

She let out a sob of joy. “You’re taking me back to Brandon?”

He gave a hard laugh. “You think I would allow that?”

Callie frowned, confused. “But you just said—”

“You are going to be married today.” Eduardo gave her a smile so icy cold it reminded her of the winter wind whipping across the empty, frozen prairie. “To me.”




CHAPTER TWO


CALLIE gasped. Marry Eduardo? The father of her baby? Her ex-boss? The man she despised more than anyone on earth?

Shocked, she stared at him as she waited for the punch line. Licking her lips nervously, she finally said, “I don’t get the joke.”

Eduardo’s lips curved humorlessly. “It’s not a joke.”

She spread her arms wide in the backseat of the car. “Of course it is!”

Eduardo grabbed her left hand, looking down at her cheap engagement ring with its microscopic diamond. “No, Callie, that is a joke.”

Trying to rip her hand from his grasp, she glared at him. “A ring is a symbol of fidelity, no wonder you hate it!”

“You’ll have a real one.”

“I’m not going to marry you!”

“Oh, right. I forgot you’re a romantic. I should ask you properly,” he said sardonically. His dark eyes gleamed as he wrapped her hand in his own and pressed it against his chest. Before her horrified eyes, he went down on one knee in the back of the car. “Querida, my darling, my dear, will you do me the deep, deep honor of becoming my wife?”

She felt the heat of his hard chest through his suit, and her heart fluttered—even as her cheeks burned at the mockery in his voice. Anger gave her strength, and she jerked her hand from his grasp. “Go to hell!”

He moved back to his seat. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Rain pattered against the roof of the car, horns honking around them as the car moved through traffic. The rain-splattered streets passed in a gray blur.

Callie realized Eduardo meant it.

He actually wanted her to be his wife.

“But you—you don’t want to get married!” she stammered. “You’ve said as much to every woman you’ve dated. You practically had it tattooed on your chest!”

“I always planned to marry the mother of my children.”

“Yes—but you wanted to marry some ritzy Spanish duchess!”

The edges of his lips lifted. “The best laid plans,” he said. “You are having my child. We must wed.”

He made it sound like a punishment—for him. She lifted her chin. “Gee, thanks,” she said sarcastically. “I’m touched. Five minutes ago, you didn’t even believe you were the father. You said you wouldn’t believe a word I said. Now you want to marry me?”

“I’ve decided that not even you, Callie, would lie to me about our baby’s paternity. Not when the truth is so clearly unpleasant to you.”

She folded her arms, glaring at him. “I’m having your baby, all right, but nothing on earth could make me be your wife.”

“Strange. You were keen to get married a few minutes ago.”

“To Brandon!” she cried. “I adore him. I’d trust him with my life!”

“Spare me his list of virtues,” Eduardo said, sounding bored. “Your love makes you blind.”

“He might not be rich and heartless like you, but that’s exactly why he’ll make a wonderful father. Far better than—”

She cut herself off as a painful contraction arced through her body.

“Far better than me?” Eduardo said with dangerous softness. “Because I am not good enough to be her father. And that was your excuse for lying to me and marrying your lover.”

“He’s not my lover—”

“Perhaps not physically. But you love him. So you were going to steal my child. And you accuse me of being heartless,” he said contemptuously. “You are breathtaking.”

The words were not a compliment.

Callie held her breath as new pain assailed her. Her baby wasn’t due for two and a half weeks, but this was starting to feel very different from the Braxton-Hicks contractions she’d had last week. Very different.

Was it possible …?

Could it be …?

No! She forced herself to take a deep, calming breath. It couldn’t be real labor. It was sixteen days too soon. Stress was causing her body to react, that was all. She had to calm down, for the baby’s sake!

She shifted in the backseat of the car, trying to alleviate the stabbing pain in her lower back. “You don’t want to raise a baby and you certainly don’t want me as your wife. It’s only your masculine pride that makes you—”

“My masculine pride.” Eduardo bared his teeth into a smile. “Is that what you call it?”

“You don’t want to marry me, I know you don’t. You’re just in shock. You haven’t had time to think what it would mean for you to raise a child. To have a family.”

“You think I’ve had no time to consider what it means for a child to feel abandoned by his parents? To feel alone? To have no real home?”

Callie closed her mouth with a snap. Of course he knew. Licking her lips, she tried helplessly. “I could give our baby a wonderful home—”

“I know you will.” His eyes were fathomless and stark. “Because I will provide that home. As her father.”

There was no winning this war. Now that Eduardo knew about her pregnancy, he would never give up his rights as a father.

“So what do we do?” Callie said miserably.

“I told you. Marry.”

“But I can’t be your wife.”

“Why?”

“I—I don’t love you.”

“Good,” he bit out. “Your sainted McLinn can keep your love. Just your body and your vow of fidelity are enough.”

Her heart was pounding in her throat. “You really want to marry me?” she whispered. The thought made her tremble. In spite of everything, she couldn’t forget the romantic dreams she’d once had of Eduardo taking her in his arms and saying, I made the worst mistake of my life when I let you go, Callie. I love you. Come back to me. Be mine—forever. “As in forever?”

Eduardo gave an ugly laugh. “Be married to you forever? No. I have no desire to live the rest of my life in hell, chained to a woman I’ll never be able to trust. Our marriage will last just long enough to give our child a name.”

“Oh.” She shifted in her seat then frowned. That changed things a bit. “Like—like a marriage of convenience?”

“Call it what you like.”

“For a week or two?”

“Let us say three months. Long enough for it to actually look like a real marriage. And for our baby’s first months to be the best possible, with us both in the same home.”

“But—where would we live? My lease is gone. You sold your brownstone in the Village.”

“I just bought a place on the Upper West Side.”

She blinked. “You were moving back to New York, because you thought I’d be gone.”

His lips twisted. “I bought it as an investment. But you are correct.”

Callie stared up at him, her heart pounding. “This is never going to work.”

“It will.”

She took a deep breath. Marriage. Would it be good for their baby, as Eduardo believed? Or would it only make their frayed relationship even worse, creating yet more accusations and distrust between them?

“But how would our marriage end?” she said. “With an ugly divorce—throwing plates and screaming at each other? That wouldn’t help anyone, least of all my baby.”

“Our baby,” he corrected, then bared his teeth in a smile. “Our prenuptial agreement will outline our divorce. We will agree from the beginning how it will end.”

“Plan our divorce before we’re even wed? That seems so sad….”

“Not sad. Civilized.” He lifted a dark eyebrow, rubbing the rough, dark edge of his jawline. He gave her a tight smile. “Since we are not in love, there will be no hard feelings when we part.”

Three months. Callie swallowed. She tried to imagine what it would be like to live in Eduardo’s house. Even as his secretary, she’d never lived with him on such intimate terms. And though she was no longer the naive, trusting girl who’d fallen in love with him so stupidly, he still had such frightening power over her. Callie’s foolish, traitorous body yearned for him like a sugary, buttery cake that was impossibly bad for her but she couldn’t stop craving just the same.

“And if I refuse?” she whispered. “If I get out of this car and flag a taxi back to Brandon?”

His expression cooled.

“If you are truly so selfish that you’d put your desire for love ahead of the best interests of our child, I will have no choice but to question your fitness as a mother, and challenge you for full custody.” She started to protest, but he cut her off calmly. “I have limitless funds and the best law firm in the city at my disposal. You will lose.”

She felt another contraction and this time, the pain was so deep and sustained that she closed her eyes, bracing her body against it as she panted, “You’re threatening me?”

“I’m telling you how it will be.”

“We’re here, sir,” Sanchez, the driver, said from the front seat, as he pulled the sedan to the curb.

Looking out her window, Callie saw the same courthouse where she’d gotten a marriage license yesterday with Brandon. The thought of deserting her best friend to marry Eduardo was insane. But she could either become Mrs. Eduardo Cruz for three months, living in the same household and sharing custody of their newborn, or she could possibly lose her child forever.

“And … afterward …” she said haltingly, “how would we arrange custody?”

Eduardo gave her a smile that didn’t meet his eyes. “Once you show that our child means more to you than some lover, and that you are a reasonable and concerned parent, I am sure we can work something out.” As Sanchez got out of the front seat and walked around to open the door, Eduardo’s voice turned hard. “You have thirty seconds to decide.”

Shivering, she stared at him with her hands wrapped over her belly. She felt her baby moving inside her, and she was desperate to protect her. She glared at him, feeling trapped and frightened and furious all at once. “You’ve left me no choice.”

The door opened behind Eduardo.

“I knew you’d see reason,” he said sardonically. Climbing out, he turned back, holding out his hand. “Come, my bride.”

For an instant, Callie was afraid to touch him—afraid of what it did to her. But as he waited, she reluctantly put her hand in his own. His hard, hot palm pressed against her skin, his larger fingers intertwined around hers. As he pulled her from the car to the sidewalk, she looked up at his face, remembering the first time she’d touched his hand.

Callie Woodville? The powerful CEO of Cruz Oil had been visiting his outpost in the Bakken fields of North Dakota. Callie was the local office liaison, sent from the nearby town of Fern. He’d held out his hand, looking sleek and urbane in a black suit, with his helicopter still noisily winding down behind him. I’ve heard you run the entire office here, and do the work of four people. His sudden, gorgeous smile lit up his darkly handsome face. I could use an assistant like you in New York.

She’d looked into the warmth of his dark eyes. Dazzled, she’d taken his outstretched hand. And that had been it. The thunderbolt she’d always prayed for. She’d loved him from that first moment. How she’d loved him …

Now, with Eduardo’s hand still wrapped around hers, Callie was barely aware of people rushing by them on the busy New York sidewalk. The two of them were connected like the moon and the sun, as stars and comets streaked around them in the vastness of space. The two of them. Just like always.

But his handsome face had changed over the last year. It was subtle. Perhaps no one else would have even noticed. But she saw the tighter set of his jaw. The deeper crinkle around his hard eyes. His high, angled cheekbones seemed chiseled out of stone, and so did his jawline, already dark with five o’clock shadow. At thirty-six, he was even more ruthless and powerful than she remembered. His masculine beauty was breathtaking. Looking up into his deep black eyes, Callie trembled. It would be too easy to fall under his spell again, and forget the way he demanded total devotion from others, while offering none in return.

Eduardo’s expression darkened. Reaching down, he tucked a tendril of her wavy brown hair behind her ear. “You will be mine, Callie. Only mine.”

A shudder went through her. She was helpless, lost in his gaze. Lost in his touch. Lost in her traitorous heart’s memory of how, for years, she’d lived for him, only for him.

A cough behind her broke the spell, causing her to jump away. An unsmiling bald man in a plain blue suit stood behind her. She recognized John Bleekman, Eduardo’s chief attorney.

“Hello, Miss Woodville,” he said expressionlessly.

“Um. Hello,” she said, wondering why he was there.

He turned to Eduardo, holding out a file. “I have it, sir.”

Taking the file, Eduardo opened it and glanced over the papers for several minutes. “Good.” He handed it to Callie. “Sign.”

“What is it?”

“Our prenuptial agreement.”

“What? So fast?”

“I had Bleekman start drawing up the draft after I spoke with your sister this morning.”

“But you didn’t even know if it was true about the baby–much less that you wanted to marry me!”

“I always like to be prepared for every possibility.”

“Yes.” She scowled. “To make sure you get your way.”

“To mitigate risk.” He pushed a fountain pen into her hand. “Sign it. And we’ll go get our marriage license.”

Callie looked through the thick stack of papers of the prenuptial agreement. She started to read the first paragraph. It would probably take an hour to read it all. Frowning, she thumbed through the pages uncertainly. She saw the amount of money he intended to give her as alimony and child support and looked up with a gasp. “Are you crazy? I don’t want your money!”

“My child will grow up in a safe, secure, comfortable home. That means she must never worry about money. And neither can you.” He set his jaw, watching her with visible annoyance as she turned back to page two and continued reading through the document. “Do you intend to read every single word?”

“Of course I do.” Lifting her head, she glared at him, even as pedestrians jostled them on the sidewalk. “I know you, Eduardo. I know how you operate—”

Her voice choked off as another sharp pain hit her body, so intense her spine straightened as she nearly gasped aloud. The contractions were getting worse. Surely this wasn’t Braxton-Hicks. She was in labor. Real labor. The baby was on her way. Callie put one hand over her belly and exhaled through her teeth.

“What’s wrong?”

Eduardo’s voice had changed. Trying to hide the pain rolling through her in waves, she looked up.

His handsome face was looking down at her with concern. He was worried about her. His dark eyes were warm, warm as they’d been during the time when she’d been his infallible secretary, when she’d been the one woman he needed, the only woman he trusted. Before they’d slept together in the happiest night of her life, and then she’d lost everything.

The intensity of his gaze caused her heart to twist in her chest. She could cope with his cold anger or cruel words, but not his concern. Not his kindness. A lump rose in her throat, and she suddenly had to fight tears.

“Nothing’s wrong,” she said. “I just want to get this over with.” Gripping the pen, she turned to the pages marked with yellow tags and rapidly scrawled her signature. It was all she could do to keep the pen steady, with her knees shaking. She shoved both the signed prenuptial agreement and pen against Eduardo’s chest, then turned away to focus on her breathing.

Breathe in, breathe out. She tried to let the pain go through her without fighting it or tensing her muscles, but it was impossible. Stupid useless breathing classes!

“You didn’t read it,” Eduardo said behind her, sounding almost bewildered. “That’s not like you.”

A policeman mounted on horseback came clopping in their direction, even as yellow taxis and large buses whizzed down the street, honking noisily. But all the moving colors of the busy world seemed to slide like water around her. She didn’t answer.

Eduardo touched her shoulder, turning her around. “Callie,” he said huskily. “What is it?”

She couldn’t speak over the ache in her throat. She’d loved him, in spite of his faults. She’d thought she was his one indispensible woman. Until he’d discarded her. She couldn’t let herself care for him. And she couldn’t let herself believe, even for an instant, that he cared for her.

“I just hate you, that’s all,” she bit out, pulling away. Pain ebbed from her body, and she exhaled, forcing her shoulders to relax. “Let’s just get this sham of a wedding over with.”

Without waiting for him, she started walking up the steps toward the courthouse.

“Fine.” When he caught up with her, the brief concern in his voice was gone. He strode ahead to open the door, and when she saw his face, it was hard and cold again. She was glad. She couldn’t bear his tenderness, not in his eyes and not in his voice. Even after all this time, it twisted her heart into a million pieces.

Three months, she told herself, her teeth chattering. Then I’ll be free.

She followed him into the courthouse, with his lawyer trailing behind. Twenty-two minutes later, they walked back out with the license. Callie knew it was exactly twenty-two minutes, because she’d started timing her contractions with her watch.

Eduardo didn’t touch her as they walked down the steps. He didn’t smile. He barely looked at her. After bidding the lawyer farewell, he led her toward the black car at the curb. “I have made arrangements for us to be married privately at my home,” he said coolly, as if discussing a business arrangement. Which, Callie reminded herself savagely, was exactly what it was.

She tried to follow, desperate to get their nightmare wedding over and done with, but another contraction hit her. Panting, she grabbed his arm. “I don’t think I can.”

He looked at her, his eyes flinty. “It’s too late for second thoughts.”

Sun burst through the clouds as light rain fell, sprinkling against her hot skin. She felt the contraction build inside her, and she could no longer deny what was happening. She gripped his jacket sleeve tightly. “I think … I think I’m in labor.”

He sucked in his breath, searching her gaze. “Labor?”

Wheezing, she nodded. As the pain built, her knees went weak beneath her and she felt herself start to collapse toward the sidewalk.

Then she felt Eduardo’s strong arms around her as he lifted her against his chest. It felt good, so good, to be cradled in his arms that she nearly wept. He looked down at her, his jaw tight.

“How long?” he demanded.

Her body was starting to shake with the pain and she saw from his expression that he could feel it, too. “All … day … I—I think …”

“Damn you, Callie!” he said hoarsely. “Why do you hide everything?”

She was in too much agony to answer. His jaw clenched and he turned away, racing to the curb. “Sanchez! Door!” he shouted, and his driver sprang into action. Seconds later, she was in the backseat of the black sedan. Eduardo took her hands in his own as he asked urgently, “Which hospital, Callie? The name of your doctor?”

She told him, as Eduardo turned to shout the information at his driver, growling at him to drive faster, faster.

“Just hold on, querida,” Eduardo said softly to her, stroking her hair. “We’re almost there.”

But Callie was lost in pain as the car flew down the streets of New York, taking sharp turns and honking wildly until the car sharply stopped. The car door flung open, and she was dimly aware of Eduardo shouting that his wife needed help, help now dammit!

“But I’m not your wife,” Callie breathed as she was wheeled into the hospital. She looked up at him, blinking back tears even as the pain started to recede. “We only have a license. We’re not married.”

Callie heard him gasp before she was whisked away by a nurse to a private examination room. As the contraction eased, she changed into a hospital gown. When the nurse came back through the door, Callie got a single glimpse of Eduardo pacing in the hallway, barking madly into a phone at his ear. Then the door closed, and the round-faced, smiling nurse came to check her. She straightened. “Six centimeters dilated. Oh, my goodness. This baby is on the way. We’ll notify the doctor and get you to your room. I’m afraid it might be too late for anesthesia …”

“Don’t—care—just want my baby to—be all right …” But before Callie had even been wheeled to her private labor and delivery room, the new contraction had already begun. Each one was worse than the last, and this one hit her so badly it made her whole body shake. Rising to her feet, reaching toward her bed, Callie covered her mouth as nausea suddenly roiled through her.

Quickly Eduardo came behind her. He snatched up the trash can and gave it to her just in time for her to be sick in it. Afterward, as the pain receded, Callie sat down on her hospital bed and cried. She cried from pain, from fear, and most of all from knowing that she’d just been vulnerable in front of Eduardo Cruz … and was about to be even more vulnerable.

But there was no way out now.

Only one way through.

“Help her!” Eduardo bit out at the nurse, who gave him an understanding smile.

“I’m sorry. I don’t think there’s time for meds. But don’t worry. The doctor is on his way….”

Eduardo snarled a curse that involved the doctor’s lacking moral qualities, intelligence and bloodline. Growling, he went to the door and peered out into the hallway for the third time before Callie heard him mutter, “Thank God. What took so long?”

“All good things take time.” A smiling, white-haired man in a suit followed him back into the private delivery suite. Eduardo went to Callie, who was stretched out across the hospital bed with her feet in stirrups, taking deep breaths and trying to relax before the next contraction.

“That’s not my doctor!” she cried.

Eduardo knelt beside the bed. “He’s going to marry us, Callie.”

She looked between them in shock. “Right now?”

He gave her a crooked half smile, pushing sweaty tendrils of hair off her face. “Why? Are you busy?”

Callie looked at the trim man with the white beard and bow tie. “Is he authorized to just randomly marry people?”

The corners of his lips quirked. “He’s a justice of the New York Supreme Court. So yes.”

“There’s a twenty-four-hour waiting period after the license—”

“He’s waived it.”

“And my previous license—”

“Handled.”

“Everything always goes your way, doesn’t it?” she grumbled.

Leaning over the hospital bed, he kissed her sweaty forehead. “No,” he said in a low voice. “But this time it will.” He turned back to the judge. “We are ready.”

“The doctor will be here any second,” the nurse warned.

“I’ll do the express version, then.” The judge stood in front of the beeping, flashing displays that monitored both Callie’s heart rate and the baby’s, and gave the plump nurse a wink. “Will you be my witness?”

“All right,” the nurse said with a girlish blush. “But make it quick.”

“Quicker ‘n quick. So. We’re gathered here in this hospital room to marry this man and this woman.” The judge peered down at Callie’s huge belly. “And none too soon, I’d say …”

“Just get on with it, Leland,” Eduardo snapped.

“Do you, Eduardo Jorge Cruz, take this woman—what’s your name, my dear?”

“It’s Calliope,” Eduardo answered for her through clenched teeth. “Calliope Marlena Woodville.”

“Is it really?” The judge looked at her sympathetically through wire-rimmed glasses. “How very unfortunate for you.”

“From my mother’s—favorite soap opera,” she panted.

“Right. So do you, Eduardo, take this woman, Calliope Marlena Woodville, to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

“I do.”

Callie felt the pain starting to build again, and grabbed Eduardo’s shirt. Looking at her, he put his hand over hers, then said angrily to the judge, “Hurry, damn you!”

“And do you, Calliope Woodville, promise to love Eduardo Jorge Cruz, forsaking all others, till death do you part?”

Eduardo looked down at her with his dark eyes. Once, this had been all Callie ever wanted, to promise her love and fidelity to him forever. And now it was happening. She was promising to love him forever, though she knew it was a lie.

It was a lie, wasn’t it?

“Callie?” Eduardo said in a low voice.

“I do,” she choked out.

Eduardo exhaled. Had he wondered, for a brief instant, if she might refuse? No, impossible. He was too arrogant, too sure of his control over women, to ever doubt….

“I see you already have the ring,” the judge said, then blinked in surprise at the tiny diamond on Callie’s hand. “I must say, Eduardo,” he murmured, “that’s unusually restrained for you.”

She was still wearing Brandon’s engagement ring! Horrified, Callie tried to pull it off her swollen finger, but it was stuck. “I’m sorry—I … forgot …”

Without a word, Eduardo eased the ring from her finger and tossed it in the trash. “I will buy you a ring,” he said flatly. “One worthy of my wife.”

“Don’t worry.” She gave him a weak smile as she felt the pain start to build again. She panted, “Our marriage will be so short it really doesn’t matter …”

“That’s the spirit,” the judge said jovially. “Ring can come later. Or not. Well, kids, we’ll just skip through and assume the part about forsaking all others and staying together for better or worse. And since with Eduardo I already know it’ll be for richer, not poorer, I reckon that’s about it.”

Callie stared at the judge, then Eduardo. The wedding ceremony had passed by in a flash. Just a few words spoken, and two lives—soon, three—forever changed. How could something so life-changing be so fast?

The judge gave them a big grin. “You may now kiss the bride.”

She nearly gasped. Kiss? She’d forgotten that part! He was going to kiss her?

Eduardo turned to her. Their eyes met. He slowly leaned over the bed, and for an instant, all the pain fled Callie’s body in a breathless flash.

When his mouth was an inch from hers, he hesitated. She could feel the warmth of his breath against her skin, causing prickles up and down the length of her body.

Then he lowered his lips to hers.

Eduardo kissed her, and prickles turned to spiraling electricity, sizzling her nerves like a current sparking up and down her body. His lips were hot and soft, in pledge of their promise, inflaming her senses from within. It lasted only a brief moment, but when he pulled away, Callie’s hands were shaking, and not from pain.

“Congratulations, you crazy kids,” the justice said, beaming at them. “You’re married.”

Married. Callie’s body flashed cold over the magnitude of what she’d just done. She’d married Eduardo. She was his wife.

Just for three months, she reminded herself desperately. The prenuptial agreement had been clear about the timetable. At least in the paragraphs she’d skimmed before the contraction had hit her … She tensed as another contraction hit, burning through her like wildfire. She gasped, biting back a cry as her doctor came in, a brown-haired man in his late fifties. Glancing at the monitors, he checked her. Then he smiled. “Seems you’re good at this, especially for a first-time mother. All right, Callie. Time to push.”

Her eyes went wide as fear ripped through her. Instinctively she reached for Eduardo’s hand, looking up at him with pleading eyes.

Eduardo took both her hands in his. “Callie, I’m here.” His voice was deep and calm as his dark eyes looked straight into hers. “I’m right here.”

Panting, she focused only on his black eyes, letting herself be drawn into them. As she started to push, bringing her baby into the world, she’d never felt any pain so deep. She gripped her new husband’s hands so tightly she thought she’d break his bones, but Eduardo never flinched, not once. He never left her. As she held on to him for dear life, nurses moving around them at lightning speed, monitors beeping, she focused through her tears on his single, blurry image. Eduardo was her one solid, immovable focal point.

He never looked away.

He never backed down.

He never left her.

And in the end, the pain was worth it.

A healthy seven-pound-eight-ounce baby girl was finally placed in Callie’s arms. She looked down at her daughter in amazement, at the sweetest weight she’d ever known. Cuddled against her chest, the baby blinked up at her sleepily.

Leaning over them, Eduardo kissed Callie’s sweaty forehead, then their baby’s. For a long, perfect moment, as medical personnel bustled around them, the newly married couple sat together on the bed with their brand-new baby.

“Thank you, Callie, for the greatest gift of my life,” Eduardo said softly, stroking the baby’s cheek. He looked up, and his dark, luminous eyes pierced her soul. “A family.”




CHAPTER THREE


EDUARDO CRUZ had always known he’d have a family different from the one he’d grown up in. Different.

Better.

His home would have the joyous chaos of many children, instead of a lonely, solitary existence. His children would have comfort and security, with plenty of food and money. And most of all: his children would have two parents, neither of whom would be selfish enough to abandon their children.

The first time Eduardo had seen a truly happy family, he’d been ten, hungrily trolling the aisles of a tiny grocer’s shop in his poor village in southern Spain. A gleaming black sedan had pulled up on the dusty road, and a wealthy, distinguished-looking man had entered the shop, followed by his wife and children. As the man asked the shopkeeper for directions to Madrid, Eduardo watched the beautifully dressed woman walk around with her two young children. When they clamored for ice cream, she didn’t yell or slap them. Instead she’d hugged them, ruffled their hair then laughed with her husband as he’d pulled out his wallet with a sigh. Handing out the ice creams, the man had whispered something in his wife’s ear as he wrapped his arm around her waist. Eduardo had watched as they left, getting back in their luxury car and disappearing down the road to their fairy-tale lives.

“Who was that?” Eduardo had breathed.

“The Duke and Duchess of Quixota. I recognize them from the papers,” the elderly shopkeeper had replied, looking equally awed. Then he turned to Eduardo with a frown. “But what are you doing here? I told your parents they’d get no more credit. What’s this?” Grabbing the neck of Eduardo’s threadbare, too-short jacket, he pulled out the three ice cream bars melting in his pocket. “You’re stealing?” he cried, his face harsh. “But I should have expected it, from a family like yours!”

Humiliated and ashamed, Eduardo’s heart felt like it would burst, but his face was blank. At ten years old, he’d learned not to show his feelings from a mother who raged at him if he laughed, and a father who beat him if he cried.

Scowling, the shopkeeper held up the ice cream bars. “Why?”

Eduardo’s stomach growled. There was no food at home, but that wasn’t the reason. He’d been sent home from school early today for getting into a fight, but his father hadn’t cared about what had caused the fight. He’d just hit Eduardo across the face and kicked him from the house. He was too disabled—and too drunk—to do anything but lie on the couch and rage against his faithless wife. Eduardo’s mother, who worked as a barmaid in the next village, had been coming home less and less, and three days ago, she’d disappeared completely. The boys at school had taunted Eduardo. Not even your mother thinks you’re worth staying for.

When he’d seen the Madrileños eating ice creams, Eduardo had had the confused thought that if he took some home, his family might love each other, too. ¡Idiota! Crushing, miserable fury filled him. He suddenly hated them—all of them.

“Well?” the grocer demanded.

“Keep it, then!” Reaching out a grubby hand, Eduardo knocked the ice cream bars to the floor. He’d turned and run out of the shop, running as fast as his legs could carry him, gasping as he ran for home.

And it was then he’d found his father …

Eduardo blinked. He looked around the comfort and luxury of his chauffeured, three-hundred-thousand-dollar car. His eyes were strangely wet as he looked down at his two-day-old baby, sleeping peacefully in her car seat as Sanchez drove them home from the hospital.

Her childhood would be different.

Different.

Better.

He’d never let the selfishness of adults destroy her innocent happiness. He would protect her at all costs. He would kill for her. Die for her. Do anything.

Even be married to her mother.

As the car drove north on Madison Avenue, Eduardo’s eyes looked past the baby to Callie on the other side. He’d once thought she was the only person he could really trust, but the joke was on him.

She’d lied to his face for years.

And not just to him. A few hours after the birth, Callie had called her family to tell them about her new marriage and new baby. White-faced and trembling, she’d refused to speak to her sister then started crying as she spoke to her mother. When Eduardo had heard her father yelling on the other line, leaving Callie in tearful, pitiful sobs, he’d finally snatched the phone away. He’d intended to calm the man down. But it hadn’t exactly turned out that way.





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