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
