To Love, Honor and Betray (3 page)

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.”

C
ALLIE
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.