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
