To Love, Honour and Betray. Jennie Lucas
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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.
“What’s wrong?”
Eduardo’s voice had changed. Trying to hide the pain rolling through her in waves, she looked up.
His handsome face was looking down at her with concern. He was worried about her. His dark eyes were warm, warm as they’d been during the time when she’d been his infallible secretary, when she’d been the one woman he needed, the only woman he trusted. Before they’d slept together in the happiest night of her life, and then she’d lost everything.
The intensity of his gaze caused her heart to twist in her chest. She could cope with his cold anger or cruel words, but not his concern. Not his kindness. A lump rose in her throat, and she suddenly had to fight tears.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she said. “I just want to get this over with.” Gripping the pen, she turned to the pages marked with yellow tags and rapidly scrawled her signature. It was all she could do to keep the pen steady, with her knees shaking. She shoved both the signed prenuptial agreement and pen against Eduardo’s chest, then turned away to focus on her breathing.
Breathe in, breathe out. She tried to let the pain go through her without fighting it or tensing her muscles, but it was impossible. Stupid useless breathing classes!
“You didn’t read it,” Eduardo said behind her, sounding almost bewildered. “That’s not like you.”
A policeman mounted on horseback came clopping in their direction, even as yellow taxis and large buses whizzed down the street, honking noisily. But all the moving colors of the busy world seemed to slide like water around her. She didn’t answer.
Eduardo touched her shoulder, turning her around. “Callie,” he said huskily. “What is it?”
She couldn’t speak over the ache in her throat. She’d loved him, in spite of his faults. She’d thought she was his one indispensible woman. Until he’d discarded her. She couldn’t let herself care for him. And she couldn’t let herself believe, even for an instant, that he cared for her.
“I just hate you, that’s all,” she bit out, pulling away. Pain ebbed from her body, and she exhaled, forcing her shoulders to relax. “Let’s just get this sham of a wedding over with.”
Without waiting for him, she started walking up the steps toward the courthouse.
“Fine.” When he caught up with her, the brief concern in his voice was gone. He strode ahead to open the door, and when she saw his face, it was hard and cold again. She was glad. She couldn’t bear his tenderness, not in his eyes and not in his voice. Even after all this time, it twisted her heart into a million pieces.
Three months, she told herself, her teeth chattering.