by Jennie Lucas
Eduardo’s brow creased as he looked down at his tuxedo, then back at Callie in her silver gown—the gown that had made her feel so pretty at the house but that now only seemed to emphasize her overblown figure compared to the stick figures of the models. He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“Oh, forget it!” she choked out. “It doesn’t matter. Not anymore!”
But as she started to leave, she felt his larger hand enfold her own. Taking the empty glass from her, he set it on the silver tray of a passing waiter and pulled her into his arms. His dark eyes searched hers. “I never betrayed you, Callie.”
She licked her suddenly dry lips. “Why would you be faithful to me?”
“If you have to ask, you don’t know me at all.” His hand tightened on hers. “Dance with me.”
Callie stared up at him, her heart in her throat. She knew she should refuse. Her mind was reeling at the thought that he’d been faithful to her. Without her anger, she was vulnerable. She had nothing to defend her. The marriage would end tomorrow. She was so close to being free. She couldn’t let him any closer now. She should run, as fast and hard as she could.
But as he led her to the dance floor, she couldn’t resist, any more than she could resist breathing.
“All right,” she whispered. “Just once.” To say goodbye, she told herself.
Turning to her, Eduardo pulled her against his body. All around them, pale purple shadows moved against soft lavender lights, and the white bare trees looked like lacy latticework beneath twinkling white stars. Surrounded by couples swaying to music, they began to dance. Eduardo held her tightly, nestling her against the white shirt of his tuxedo. She felt his warmth. His heat. She felt the strength of his arms around her.
Callie closed her eyes, pressing her face against his chest. She felt strangely safe. Protected. She felt as if she’d gone back in time, to that one perfect night when she’d felt he cared.
For the next two hours, they never left the dance floor, and Callie was lost in the haze of a perfect, romantic dream. As Eduardo held her, as she swayed in her silver gown, she looked up into his handsome, sensual face and everything else fell away. She barely heard the music. She and Eduardo were alone, in an enchanted winter forest.
And she realized she loved him.
She’d never stopped loving him.
Callie froze, staring up at him as unseen couples whirled around them in the violet shadows.
“What is it, querida?” Eduardo said softly, looking down at her.
Callie licked her lips, feeling dizzy and hot all over. She couldn’t let herself love him again. She couldn’t be that stupid. She couldn’t.
“What are you trying to do to me?” she said hoarsely. “What are you doing?”
Eduardo stood still on the dance floor, looking down at her. A tremble went through her as a current of awareness sizzled down her veins. Her mouth felt suddenly dry as he stroked her cheek.
“What am I doing?” His dark eyes searched hers, and he whispered, “I’m kissing you.”
Callie couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, as he lowered his mouth to hers.
She felt the heat of his sensual lips like satin and the warmth of his breath in an embrace that swirled around her body with breathless magic. She felt his hard, hungry lips against her own. Felt the scratchy roughness of his chin, as his hands ran softly through her hair, then down the bare skin of her back.
His kiss was exactly how she remembered. Exactly how a kiss should be. His deeply passionate embrace didn’t just promise pleasure—it whispered of eternity. And against her will, words filled her soul that were an incantation in her heart.
I love you, Eduardo.
I never stopped loving you.
Oh, God. Could he feel it on her lips as he kissed her? Had her own body betrayed her?
“I want you, Callie,” he murmured against her skin.
She saw the blatant desire in his dark eyes and suddenly felt like crying.
“How can you torture me like this,” she whispered, “when we both know in the morning you’ll only toss me aside? I gave you my devotion. And you treated me like trash!”
“Callie!”
“No!” She ripped away, not wanting him to see the anguish in her eyes. She couldn’t bear that final humiliation. Turning, she ran off the dance floor. Pushing through the crowd, she rushed through the ballroom, running past the coat check without stopping for her wrap. She ran blindly through the lobby and out of the hotel, into the street, where she was nearly run over. A taxi driver honked and yelled at her angrily, but she barely heard him. She crossed the street to Central Park.
The park looked almost eerie in its snowy whiteness beneath the black, bare trees, just like the illusion inside the ballroom, but dangerous and cold, the real thing.
Moonlight filled the dark sky, illuminating the small clouds around it, making them glow like pearls in black velvet. As Callie ran, she wept, and it wasn’t soft, feminine weeping, but big gulping sobs. Wiping her eyes, she glanced behind her.
And saw Eduardo following, an ominous figure in black.
She gasped and started to run, tripping on her shoes as she ran deeper into the park. She raced headlong down the windswept path, knowing that if he caught up with her, he would see her shameful love for him and he’d see her pathetically broken heart.
One of the high-heeled shoes fell off her feet. Turning around, she started to go back for it, but when she saw him right behind her, she kicked off her other shoe instead and turned back to run. The frozen, snow-kissed path felt like cold knives against her bare feet, the silver dress dragged against her legs and the winter air bit against her naked shoulders.
Then Eduardo caught up with her. His powerful arms lifted her off the frozen ground.
“Go away.” Crying, totally humiliated, she struggled against his hard chest. “Just leave me alone!”
“You think you’re disposable to me?” he said grimly, looking down at her. The moonlight gave his black hair a silver halo, like a sensual, dark angel come to lure her to hell. “Is that what you think?”
“I know it!”
“You just had my baby,” he ground out, his dark eyes glinting. “I’m not a brute. I wasn’t going to force myself on you!”
She tried to kick her way free. “Of course not, when you have half the supermodels of this city queued up outside our door. How can I ever compete with that? You said it yourself—you can’t wait to divorce me!”
“Oh, my God.” His jaw clenched. “Do you know how much I’ve wanted you? How long? Do you?” he thundered.
She stared at him, shocked at his fury.
His voice dropped. “I’ve wanted you for a year, Callie. And I’ve waited for you. For a year.”
“No,” she whispered. “It’s not true.”
What she saw in his dark eyes made her shiver all over. “My God. How can you not know? How have you not seen it?”
Her heart nearly stopped in her chest. She licked her dry lips. “You haven’t tried to touch me, not once. You’ve barely even looked at me.”
“You were a new mother. You were drowning.” Reaching out, he brushed long brown tendrils off her shoulders. “You didn’t need me trying to seduce you, placing more demands on you when you were only getting four hours of sleep. You didn’t need a lover. You needed a partner. You needed me to be a good father.”
She stared at him.
“And you were,” she choked out tearfully. “The best father Marisol could ever have had.”
Callie heard his intake of breath, felt the way his hands tightened on her as he held her against his chest. Looking down at her, his angled face was in dark silhouette.
“Thank you,” he said softly. All around them, the winter landscape glowed in the moonlight.
“You really—wanted me?” she whispered.
He gave a harsh laugh. “I tried not to. Told myself that our night together was meaningless. Reminded myself that you were a liar engaged to anothe
r man, and you’d betrayed us both when you gave me your virginity.”
Ice flashed through her. “I—”
“But I couldn’t forget you. No matter how I tried.” He shifted her weight against his chest. “There has been no other woman since the night you were in my bed,” he said roughly, looking down at her. “Do you understand what I am telling you? No other woman.”
She stared at him. “But … but it’s been a year.”
His dark eyes looked through hers. “Yes.”
Callie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She licked her lips. “But those pictures of you with that duchess in Spain …”
“She is beautiful,” he whispered. He shook his head. “But she left me cold.”
Tears spilled unheeded down Callie’s cheeks, freezing against her skin as she looked up at her husband. “No. No, it can’t be true. You can’t have been celibate for a year, wanting me—”
“You don’t believe me?” he said grimly. He released her, slowly letting her slide down his body to her feet. “Then believe this.”
And lowering his head, he pulled her body roughly against his, and kissed her once more, hot and hard.
CHAPTER SIX
CALLIE’S mouth parted in a gasp as she felt the smooth satin of his lips, the sweet rough fire of his tongue. She felt the warm strength of his arms around her, and in the dark, cold solitude of Central Park, surrounded by snow and the bare black trees of winter, she felt an explosion of heat.
Murmuring words in Spanish, Eduardo tightened his embrace as he held her against his chest. She dimly felt the icy wind against her cheek as tendrils of her light brown hair blew all around them, but the sensation of his lips against hers felt like a thousand flickers of fire.
As he kissed her, a sigh escaped her lips and she tilted her head back to deepen the embrace. Feeling his body so strong and hard against hers, her endless longing could no longer be repressed. With a soft moan, she wrapped her arms around his neck. She no longer felt the cold air against her skin, the frigid ground beneath her feet. She barely heard the distant traffic of the city and the wind through the bare trees. The night was frozen and dark, but Callie felt hot as a summer’s day, lit up from within.
Eduardo’s hands stroked her back, down her bare arms. Prickles of need spiraled through her everywhere he touched. Everywhere he didn’t touch.
His lips gentled against hers, seducing and enticing where they’d once demanded and taken. Memories of another winter night went through Callie, leaving her lost in time, as if all the grief and pain of the last year hadn’t happened, and she’d teleported back into the most perfect night of her life.
She wrapped her fingers in his hair. He felt so good, so powerful and masculine. His warrior’s body made her feel feminine and small, and as he kissed her, as his sensual mouth moved against hers, she was completely beneath his control….
Then, with a harsh intake of breath, Eduardo pulled away. Taking his phone from his pants pocket, he dialed. “Sanchez,” he panted, never looking away from Callie. “Outside. At the corner.”
Hanging up, he put the phone in his pocket and reached for her, lifting her back into his arms.
“You don’t need to carry me,” she whispered. “I’m not cold.”
He looked down at her almost pleadingly. “Let me.”
Exhaling, she relaxed into the warmth of his arms, and Eduardo carried her back down the path, stopping to pick up each of her shoes, holding Callie with one arm as if she weighed nothing at all. When they reached Central Park South, he put the high-heeled shoes on her feet and gently set her down on the sidewalk.
“Thank you,” she said, shivering, but not from cold.
Without a word, he pulled off his black tuxedo jacket and wrapped it around her bare shoulders and sparkling silver dress. His eyes were dark, his voice deep. “Never thank me. It is what I want to do. Take care of you.”
Callie swallowed, her mouth dry, her heart pounding as she leaned against him. Thick snowflakes, illuminated by streetlights, started to fall from the dark sky. Was it really possible that Eduardo had been celibate for a year, longing for her? That he’d known the same feelings she had … The lonely bed, the regret, and most of all: the endless craving …?
Her mind told her it was impossible, but his kiss had told her differently.
“Callie,” he whispered. “You know what I’m going to do to you when we get home.”
Her heartbeat went crazy, her breathing became quick and shallow and she felt a little dizzy. He wanted her. She wanted him. But the last time he’d made love to her, the joy and heartbreak had nearly killed her. Their marriage was ending in just a few hours. She was so close to being free …
But suddenly, freedom from Eduardo sounded like death. Wrapping her arms around him, she placed her cheek against his white tuxedo shirt and closed her eyes, listening to the beat of his heart. They remained there, holding each other silently, as the soft snowflakes fell in their hair and tangled in their eyelashes.
“The car’s here.” His voice was hoarse. She opened her eyes and he led her into the backseat of the limo. As Sanchez drove them from the curb, Eduardo didn’t seem to care who might see as he turned to her. Reaching out his hands, he cupped her face. He lowered his head toward hers.
At the last instant before their lips touched, she turned her head away. “I can’t.”
“Can’t?” he said hoarsely. “Why? Because—because you love someone else?”
She looked at him in the backseat of the car. His face was so impossibly handsome that her heart twisted in her chest. Every inch of her body was crying out to be in his arms, but lifting her chin, she forced herself to say, “I’m afraid.”
He blinked. “Afraid?”
Afraid it will rip my heart apart so thoroughly that the pieces will never be glued back together. “I’m afraid … it wasn’t part of our deal.” She swallowed. “Our marriage is in name only.”
Eduardo’s sensual lips curved. “What gave you that idea?”
“At the courthouse, when we got the marriage license, you said—”
“You called it a marriage of convenience. Which it is. But I never said it would be a marriage in name only. I promised to remain faithful, and I have. But I cannot suffer, wanting you, for the rest of my life.”
“You don’t have to. Tomorrow is our three-month anniversary. Our marriage is over.” She paused, suddenly confused by the look in his eyes. “Isn’t it?”
“No.” His eyes glittered in the Christmas lights as they drove through the city. “There will be no divorce.”
Time seemed to stop for Callie.
Behind his head, she dimly saw the bright lights illuminating the colorful displays in shop windows. “But you said three months!”
“I changed my mind.” He scowled at her. “From the day I held our baby, I knew that whatever I’d once planned, our marriage would be—must be—permanent. That is the best way to raise our child. The only way. I’d hoped you would come to realize that.”
“But you said you’d divorce me,” she whispered. The will-o’-the-wisp Christmas lights seemed to be dancing away, disappearing along with her dreams of returning home to her family. “You promised. You said our marriage was just to make our child legitimate, to give her your name!”
His eyes had turned utterly cold, his body taut beneath his tuxedo. “You should be pleased,” he said stiffly. “As my wife, you have everything you could possibly want. A fortune at your disposal, beautiful homes, servants, clothes and jewels.”
“But what about …” Her throat closed and she looked away. “What about the people I love?”
“You’ll love your children,” he ground out.
Wide-eyed, she turned back to face him. “Children?” she stammered. “As in … more than one?”
He narrowed his eyes. “It is lonely to be an only child. Marisol needs siblings. Sisters to play with. Brothers to protect her.”
Callie stared at him, remembering what
she’d heard about Eduardo’s poverty-stricken childhood in Spain, about his mother who’d run off with her lover, and his proud, humiliated father, who’d shot himself in the aftermath with an old World War II rifle. At ten years old, Eduardo had been shipped off to a great-aunt he’d never met in New York, and even she had died when he was eighteen. He had no one. He was alone.
She couldn’t even imagine it. As much as the restrictive rules of her old-fashioned parents had chafed her, and as much as her little sister had irritated her on a regular basis, Callie couldn’t imagine being an only child—and an orphan to boot, whose parents had both chosen to abandon her. Sympathy choked her, but then she hardened her heart. “So just like that, you expect me to agree? You expect us to remain married, to have more children? To plan it all in such a cold-blooded fashion?”
Glaring at her, he sat back in the car seat, folding his arms. “Marisol will be wanted. She will be safe and loved. She will have two parents and a home. There will be no divorce.”
Horrified, Callie stared at him.
Stay Eduardo’s wife?
Forever?
Her heart twisted in her chest. It was all like some strange dream. For a moment she was mesmerized by his certainty. Perhaps Eduardo was right. Perhaps it would be better for Marisol … better for everyone.
But how could she stay married to him, loving him as she did? He still wanted to be married to her for one reason only: to give their child a good home. How could Callie spend the rest of her life giving him her love, when all he wanted was—at most—her body?
Could she sacrifice her heart, and all hope of ever being loved? Could she spend the rest of her life feeling unloved and alone, in order to give her child the home she deserved?
Swallowing, Callie lifted her chin. “My family would have to be part of Marisol’s life. And mine. I miss them. My parents and my sister and—” She cut herself off, but too late.
A sneer rose to his lips. “And Brandon McLinn, of course. His light still glows so brightly in your heart.” He set his jaw, turning away. “You disappoint me.”