by Jennie Lucas
For months he’d tried not to remember her beauty, but being this close to her, the reality overwhelmed him. His wife was the most desirable woman on earth. Even with those dark hollows beneath her eyes.
A sharp edge rose in his throat. Turning, he looked out at the brilliant dappled early evening light glowing gold through the trees. Callie had given birth to their child without anesthesia. He still couldn’t comprehend that kind of bravery, that kind of strength. For the last two nights, as he’d slept in a chair beside her bed, Callie had barely slept at all. The baby had had some difficulty learning how to nurse, and Callie had been up almost every hour. He’d offered to help, and so had the nurses, but she’d insisted on doing everything herself. “She’s my baby,” Callie had whispered, her face pale with exhaustion. “She needs me.”
Looking at Callie now, asleep with her face pressed against the window, Eduardo was forced to acknowledge feelings he’d never thought he’d feel for her again.
Admiration. Appreciation. Respect.
Things she’d clearly never felt for him.
“I’ve heard all about you, Eduardo Cruz.” Walter Woodville had hissed over the phone two days ago. “Do you expect me to be grateful to you for doing the honorable thing and marrying my daughter?”
Eduardo knew Callie’s family meant everything to her, so he’d contained his temper. “Mr. Woodville, I understand your feelings, but surely you can see …”
“Understand? Understand? You seduced my daughter. You used her and tossed her aside.” Walter Woodville’s voice was sodden with anger and grief. “And when you found out she was pregnant, you weren’t even man enough to come and ask me for her hand. You just selfishly took her. You stole my daughter.”
Those particular words ripped through Eduardo like a blade. Then rage built through him in turn. “We never expected it to happen, but I have taken responsibility. I will provide for both Callie and the child—”
“Responsibility,” Walter spat out. “All you can offer is money. You might own half our town, but I know the kind of man you really are.” The old man’s voice caught, then hardened. “You’ll never be a decent husband or father, and you know it. If you’re even half a man, you’ll send her and the baby home to people who are capable of loving them.”
Then to Eduardo’s shock, the man had hung up, leaving him standing in the hospital room, staring at his phone, wide-eyed with rage. No one spoke to him like that—well, no one except Callie.
But the old man wasn’t afraid of him. He knew Eduardo’s faults and flaws. And there could be only one person who’d told him.
Funny to think how he’d once trusted her. He’d wanted her in his bed almost from the start, but he’d needed Callie Woodville so much in his office, in his life, that he’d forbidden himself to ever act on his desire.
Until last Christmas Eve.
In a lavish, gilded ballroom of a Midtown hotel, Eduardo had found himself stone-cold sober at his own Christmas party, surrounded by Cruz Oil’s vice presidents and board members and their trophy wives. The men in tuxedos, the women dripping diamonds and furs, had danced and drunk the spiked eggnog, alternatively boasting about the latest promising data in Colombia or gleefully discussing the expensive toys they planned to buy with their next stock bonuses.
Eduardo had watched them. He should have been in his element. Instead he’d felt lost. Disconnected.
He had everything he’d ever wanted. He controlled everything; he was vulnerable to no one. He’d thought being strong and powerful and rich would make him content, or at least, impervious to pain. Instead he just felt … alone.
Then he saw her on the other side of the ballroom.
Callie wore a simple, modest sheath dress. She stopped, her emerald eyes wide, and a flash went through him like fire.
In this cavernous ballroom, filled with tinsel and champagne and silvery lights, nothing was warm. Nothing was real. Nothing mattered.
Except her.
“Excuse me.” Shoving his untasted glass of mulled wine into his CFO’s hands, he’d walked straight through the crowd. Without a word, he’d taken Callie’s hand. He’d pulled her out of the ballroom, and she didn’t resist as he led her out into the white, icy winter night. Not waiting for his limo, he’d hailed a taxi to Bank Street, where he’d carried her to his bed. There, amid the breathless hush of midnight, he’d made love to her. He’d taken her virginity. He’d held her tight, so tight, as if she were a life raft that might save him from a devouring black sea.
He’d never felt anything like that night, before or since. Their passion had resulted in a baby.
It had resulted in a wife.
Eduardo’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Callie, still sleeping as the car exited Central Park into the city streets of the exclusive Upper West Side.
You seduced my daughter, Walter Woodville had accused. The truth was that she had seduced Eduardo. With her innocence. With her warmth. With her fire.
But she was a liar. She’d hidden so much from him. He could never trust her again.
Only his baby mattered now. With her dark hair, she was his spitting image. Eduardo had known she was his child long before that morning’s paternity test confirmed it. But if Sami Woodville hadn’t called him two days ago out of the blue, his baby would be living in North Dakota right now. She’d be Brandon McLinn’s daughter.
Eduardo’s jaw clenched. Even if Callie was in love with another man, he could hardly believe she’d betrayed him so deeply. But he didn’t have to trust her. He had a private investigator on staff who could tell him everything he needed to know about Callie. He’d never be fooled by her again.
He would keep his friends close, his enemies closer and his wife the closest of all.
The sedan arrived at his twenty-floor building on West End Avenue. As Sanchez opened the door, Eduardo carefully, breathlessly, lifted his sleeping baby out of the car seat. He walked slowly so he didn’t wake her, cradling her head against his chest as the doorman held open the door. The baby was so tiny, he thought. So helpless and fragile. And he loved her. Love swelled his heart until it ached inside his ribs. He let himself love her as he’d never loved anyone.
His plump, gray-haired housekeeper, Mrs. McAuliffe, was waiting in the luxurious lobby. “The nursery is ready. Och, what a sweet babe!”
“Do you know how to hold a baby?” he demanded.
“Why, I’m insulted, Mr. Cruz! You know I raised four children of my own.”
“Here.” Gently he thrust the sleeping baby into her arms, watching anxiously. As the older woman cooed softly in admiration, Eduardo turned and raced back outside.
The September sun was still hot, pouring golden light through the white clouds. His driver was reaching for his wife’s door when Eduardo stopped him. “I’ll do it, Sanchez.”
“Of course, sir.”
Eduardo looked down at Callie through the car window. Her head had fallen back, her beautiful face now leaning against the leather seat. Dark, long eyelashes fluttered against her pale skin. She looked so young. So tired.
As he lifted her into his arms, she stirred but did not wake. Her eyelashes fluttered and she murmured something in her sleep, nestling her cheek against his chest as her wavy light brown hair fell back on his shoulder.
She weighed next to nothing, he thought. Looking down at his wife, his heart gave a strange thump. While Sanchez drove the car to the underground garage, Eduardo carried Callie inside. He took his private elevator to the top floor.
He’d closed on this two-story penthouse a week ago as an investment. The penthouse had been languishing on the market for two years with a thirty-six-million-dollar price tag before he’d bought it for a steal, at the fire sale price of twenty-seven million. He hadn’t intended to live here for long. But now … his plans were rapidly changing.
“I’ll take the baby to the nursery, sir,” his housekeeper said softly when he came out of the elevator. He nodded then carried his wife across the large, two-story foyer wi
th its Brazilian hardwood floor in a patterned mosaic. Going up the sweeping stairs, he started down the hall toward the guest room.
Then he stopped.
The master bedroom would be better for Callie in every way. It was larger, with a huge en suite bathroom and a wall of windows overlooking the city and the Hudson River. Most importantly, it was adjacent to the study, which had been turned into the nursery. Shifting Callie’s weight in his arms, Eduardo turned back. Carrying her into his bedroom, he put her down on his king-size bed. Sí. It was better.
Callie shifted, murmuring in her sleep as she turned on his soft feather pillow with its thousand-thread-count Egyptian cotton pillowcase. Eduardo closed the heavy curtains around the windows, darkening the room. He covered her sleeping form with a blanket, then for a long moment, he looked down at her, listening to her steady, even breath.
He’d only meant their marriage to last three months. He hadn’t thought he could endure it for longer.
But in the forty-eight hours since the birth, his perspective had changed.
His daughter was small and innocent and oh, so fragile. Eduardo knew what it meant to feel like unwanted baggage, like a stray without a home. He wanted his daughter to feel safe and protected, not split between divorced parents, between two lives. He wanted her to have not just a name, but a real home. A real family.
And no matter what Eduardo thought of Callie, he knew she loved their baby. He’d seen it in the way she’d fought through the pain of childbirth with such bravery. In the way she’d sacrificed her own body, her own sleep and peace, in order to nurture and cherish their child. Even in the way she’d fought with him over her name.
Eduardo’s jaw set. If Callie could endure pain, so could he. He turned away. There would be no divorce. They both would sacrifice. He would give up his desire for a wife he could trust. She would give up her dreams of love. Love was an illusion, anyway.
Responsibility was not.
She might not like his plan. Eduardo exhaled, remembering her horrified reaction when he’d first proposed marriage. She wouldn’t accept a permanent union without a fight. So he would give her time to accept their loveless marriage. To appreciate what he could offer. To forget the people she’d left behind.
His hand tightened on the doorknob. He’d give her the agreed-upon three months to see the benefits of their marriage. And if, at the end, Callie still wanted her freedom?
He glanced back through the shadowy bedroom with narrowed eyes. Then he’d ruthlessly keep her prisoner, like a songbird in a gilded cage. Walking into the hallway, Eduardo shut the double doors behind him with quiet, ominous finality.
Now that Callie was his wife, he never intended to let her go.
CHAPTER FOUR
CALLIE sat up straight in bed.
Disoriented, she put her hands to her head, feeling dizzy and half-asleep as she looked around the strange, dark room. Where was she? How did she get in this bed? Her breasts were full and aching, and she was still dressed in the same long-sleeved T-shirt and knit pants she’d worn from the hospital. She had no memory of how she’d gotten here, but she’d thought she heard her baby crying….
Her baby! She sucked in her breath. Where was her baby?
“Soleil?” she whimpered. She jumped up from bed and screamed, “Soleil!”
Light flooded the room from the hallway as double doors opened. Suddenly Eduardo’s arms were around her.
“Where is she?” she cried in panic, struggling in his arms. She looked up at the hard lines of his face, half-hidden in shadows. “Where have you taken her?”
“She’s here.” Eduardo abruptly released her, crossing the bedroom to fling open a door. “Here!”
Her baby’s cries became louder. With a gasp, Callie ran through the door. As he turned on a lamp, she saw the bassinet. Sobbing with relief, she scooped her baby up into her arms.
The baby’s cries subsided the instant she was cradled against her mother’s breast, but she was clearly hungry. Callie sat down in a soft glider near the lamp and started to pull up her T-shirt. She stopped, looking up awkwardly at Eduardo. “I need to feed her.”
His dark eyes shimmered in the dim lamplight. “Go ahead.”
“You’re watching.”
“I’ve seen your breasts before.”
She glared at him. “Turn around!”
He lifted an eyebrow then with a sigh he turned away.
Once he was safely facing the other direction, Callie lifted up her shirt, pulled down her nursing bra and got her baby latched on to her breast. She flinched at first then relaxed as her tiny daughter started gulping blissfully.
“Sounds like she was hungry.”
“Don’t listen!” Callie cried, annoyed.
He gave a low laugh. “Sorry.”
Moments passed in silence, and Callie took a deep breath, suddenly ashamed. “I’m sorry about earlier. I just panicked. I woke up in a strange place and didn’t know where I was.”
His spine stiffened, but he didn’t turn. “You fell asleep in the car, on the way home. I carried you upstairs. Don’t you remember?”
The last thing she recalled was arguing with him as they drove through Central Park. He’d been pressuring her about their baby’s name—as if Callie would ever name her sweet newborn after a spoiled Spanish heiress! But the soft hum of the engine had been hypnotic.
“I guess I was tired.” She rubbed her hand over her eyes. “I slept so hard that I almost thought you’d drugged me so you could steal the baby. Funny, right?”
His voice was cold. “Hilarious.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to accuse you of …” Her throat constricted.
He turned to face her, but he definitely wasn’t looking at her breasts. “Of stealing the baby?”
She swallowed. “Yes.”
His eyes glimmered in the dim light. “Don’t worry about it.”
He was being nice, which made her feel even worse. For months, she’d hated Eduardo, calling him a coldhearted jerk to her parents and friends, telling them stories about his worst flaws, telling herself he didn’t deserve to be a father.
But she was the coldhearted jerk. Her lips parted. If not for Sami’s meddling, she would have done the dreadful thing she’d just accused him of: she’d have stolen their baby. He never would have even known he had a daughter.
How could Eduardo stand to look at her?
“I was wrong not to tell you.” It took all her courage to meet his eyes. “I’m so sorry. Can you ever forgive me?”
“Forget it,” he said harshly. He folded his arms. “We both made mistakes. It’s in the past. Our marriage is a fresh start.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, feeling like she didn’t deserve his generosity. Awkwardly she looked around them. The nursery was straight out of a celebrity magazine, with soft yellow walls, stuffed animals, and the sleek comfort of an expensive designer crib and bassinet. “This is nice.”
“I had my staff redecorate the study while we were at the hospital.”
“Your staff?”
“Mrs. McAuliffe.”
“I’ve always known I liked her,” Callie said with a smile, trying to lighten the mood. “So next door is the guest room?”
He shook his head. “It’s the master bedroom.”
Her heart plummeted. “I … I was sleeping in your bed?”
“Sí.”
“Oh.” She swallowed and tried to pretend it was no big deal that she’d slept sprawled across the same bed where Eduardo Cruz slept naked every night, when he wasn’t entertaining lingerie models. Feeling self-conscious, she moved her baby to the other breast, quickly covering up any flash of skin with her cotton shirt. Cheeks flaming, she glanced up at Eduardo, but thank heaven, he was carefully looking away. “Well, thanks,” she said with forced cheerfulness. “I’ll move to the guest room later.”
“You will stay in the master bedroom,” he said evenly, “close to our baby.”
“Then w
here would you sleep?” A sudden dreadful thought struck her. “You surely can’t think you and I will—”
He cut her off. “I will take the guest room.”
“I don’t want to inconvenience you.”
“You won’t.” Coming forward, he touched the infant’s soft, downy head. “I want you to be here. Both of you.”
Looking up at him, she breathed, “You—you do?”
“Of course I do.” Eduardo looked at her, and his dark eyes cut straight through her heart. “I’ve dreamed of having a family like this. Of keeping them safe and warm. Protecting them.” He squared his shoulders. “And I will.”
The cold, ruthless edges of his expression had melted away, changing to something warm, something fiercely tender. He looked like another man, she thought in wonder. The man he might have been if his childhood had been less of a tragedy.
Compassion mixed with longing and the echoes of her love, rising in her heart. But she couldn’t let it win. She wouldn’t. She took a deep breath. “Thanks for taking such good care of me.” With a trembling smile, she looked down at the baby falling asleep in her arms. “And Soleil.”
“Marisol,” he said abruptly.
She blinked. “What?”
“Marisol. It’s a classic Spanish name. A blend of your favorite name—Soleil—and my aunt’s name. María.”
Callie licked her lips. “Marisol,” she tried. She didn’t hate it. She tried again, “Marisol … Cruz.”
“Marisol Samantha Cruz,” he said softly.
She looked up, her eyes wide with shock. “After my sister?”
“She brought our family together.”
“Sami betrayed me!”
“She’s family. You will forgive her.” He looked down at her. “We both know you will.”
Callie stared at him in consternation. No. No way! She’d never forgive her sister for going behind her back and telling Eduardo about the baby—never!