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“Stand up.”
Callie blinked. “What?”
His dark eyes glittered as raindrops splattered noisily into the trees above. “You heard me.”
She sucked in her breath as fury and fear raced through her. “Forget it! You have no power over me. I’m no longer your secretary, and I’m certainly not your lover. I’m your nothing! I don’t know why you came looking for me, but I want you to go away and leave me alone!”
Eduardo came very, very close, standing over her on the stoop, so close his pant legs brushed her knees. He leaned in to her, and she felt the warmth of his breath against her earlobe as he whispered, “Are you pregnant with my baby, Callie?”
JENNIE LUCAS grew up dreaming about faraway lands. At fifteen, hungry for experience beyond the borders of her small Idaho city, she went to a Connecticut boarding school on scholarship. She took her first solo trip to Europe at sixteen, then put off college and travelled around the US, supporting herself with jobs as diverse as gas station cashier and newspaper advertising assistant.
At twenty-two she met the man who would be her husband. After their marriage she graduated from Kent State with a degree in English. Seven years after she started writing she got the magical call from London that turned her into a published author.
Since then life has been hectic, with a new writing career, a sexy husband and two small children, but she’s having a wonderful (albeit sleepless) time. She loves immersing herself in dramatic, glamorous, passionate stories. Maybe she can’t physically travel to Morocco or Spain right now, but for a few hours a day, while her children are sleeping, she can be there in her books.
Jennie loves to hear from her readers. You can visit her website at www.jennielucas.com, or drop her a note at jennie@jennielucas.com
Recent titles by the same author:
A NIGHT OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY
RECKLESS NIGHT IN RIO
THE VIRGIN’S CHOICE
Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
To Love, Honour and Betray
Jennie Lucas
www.millsandboon.co.uk
To my husband.
Thanks for Europe.
Thanks even more for home.
Thanks for making all my dreams come true.
CHAPTER ONE
CALLIE WOODVILLE had dreamed of her wedding day since she was a little girl.
When she was seven, she placed a long white towel on her head and walked down an imaginary aisle in her father’s barn, surrounded by teddy bears as guests and with her baby sister toddling behind her, chewing on flower petals from a basket.
At seventeen, as a plump, bookish wallflower with big glasses and clothes hand-sewn by her loving but sadly out-of-date mother, Callie was mocked and ignored by the boys at her rural high school. She told herself she didn’t care. She went to prom with her best friend instead, an equally nerdy boy from a neighboring farm. But Callie dreamed of the day she would finally meet the darkly handsome man she could love. She knew that somewhere out there in the wide world, he waited for her, this man who would wake her with the sensual power of his kiss.
Then, when she was twenty-four, that man had come for her.
Her ruthless billionaire boss had kissed her. Seduced her. He’d taken her virginity, as he’d already taken her heart, and for one perfect night she was lost in passion and magic. Waking up in his arms on Christmas morning, in the luxurious bedroom of his New York brownstone, Callie thought she might die of pure happiness. For that one perfect night, the world was a magical place where dreams came true, as long as your heart was pure and you truly believed.
One magical, heartbreaking night.
Now, eight and a half months later, Callie sat on the stoop outside her former apartment on a leafy, quiet street in the West Village. The sky was dark, threatening rain, and though it was early September it was hot and muggy. But her cleaned-out apartment felt almost ghostly in its emptiness, so she’d come outside to wait with the suitcases.
Today was her wedding day. The day she’d always dreamed of. But she’d never dreamed of this.
Callie looked down at her secondhand wedding dress and the wilting bouquet of wildflowers she’d picked from the nearby community garden. Instead of a veil, pearl-laced barrettes strained to hold back her long, light brown hair.
In a few minutes, she’d marry her best friend. A man she’d never kissed—or even wanted to kiss. A man who wasn’t the father of her baby.
As soon as Brandon came back with the rental car, they’d be wed at City Hall, and start the long drive from New York to his parents’ farm in North Dakota.
Callie closed her eyes. It’s best for the baby, she told herself desperately. Her baby needed a father, and her ex-boss was a selfish, coldhearted playboy, whose deepest relationship was with his bank account. After three years of devoted service as his secretary, Callie had known that. But she’d still been stupid enough to find out the hard way.
A car turned off Seventh Avenue onto her residential street in the West Village. She saw an expensive dark luxury sedan and watched it go by, then exhaled. It wasn’t Eduardo’s style of car, and yet, as clouds covered the noonday sun, Callie looked up at the sky and shivered. If her ex-boss ever found out their single night of passion had created a child …
“He won’t,” she whispered aloud. Last she’d heard, he was in Colombia, developing offshore oil fields for Cruz Oil. After Eduardo possessed a woman in bed, she was pretty much dead to him, never to be remembered again. And though Callie had witnessed this scores of times during her time as his secretary, she’d still thought that she might be different. That she would be the exception.
Get out of my bed, Callie. She’d still been naked and blissful and sleepy in the pink light of Christmas morning when he’d shaken her awake, his voice hard. Get out of my house. I’m through with you.
Eight and a half months later, his words were still an ice pick in her heart. Exhaling, Callie wrapped her arms around her baby bump. He would never know about the life he’d created inside her. He’d made his choice. So she’d made hers. There would be no custody battle, no chance for Eduardo to be as domineering and tyrannical a father as he’d been a boss. Her child would be born into a stable home, with a loving family. Brandon, her best friend since the first grade, would be her baby’s father in all the ways that counted, and Callie would be a devoted wife to him in return. In every way but one.
She’d been doubtful at first that a marriage based on friendship could work. But Brandon had assured her that they didn’t need romance or passion to have a solid partnership. “We’ll be happy, Callie,” he’d promised. “Really happy.” Over the months of her pregnancy, he’d worn her down with kindness.
Now, as Callie leaned back against their suitcases on the stoop, her eyes fell on her Louis Vuitton handbag. Brandon kept telling her to sell it. It would look ridiculous on the farm, she knew. It had been a gift from Eduardo last Christmas. Totally unnecessary, she’d wept, amazed that he’d noticed her gaze lingering upon the shop window months before. I reward those who are loyal to me, Callie, Eduardo had replied. A woman like you comes along only once in a lifetime.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Callie turned her face upward, feeling the first cool raindrops against her skin. Such a ridiculous trophy, a three-thousand-dollar handbag, but it had been a hard-won symbol of her hours of devotion, of their partnership. But Brandon was right. She should just sell it. She was done with Eduardo. With New York. Done with everything she’d once loved.
Except this baby.
A low roll of thunder mingled with the honk of taxis and distant police sirens on Seventh Avenue and the hiss from the subway vent at the end of the street. She heard another car pull down the street. It stopped, and she heard a door slam. Brandon had returned with the rental car. It was time to marry him and start the two-day journey to North Dakota. Forcing her lips into a smile, she opened her eyes.
Eduardo Cruz stood beside his dark Mercedes sedan, powerful and broad-shouldered in an impeccable black suit.
The blood drained from Callie’s cheeks.
“Eduardo,” she breathed, starting to rise. She stopped herself. Maybe he couldn’t see her pregnant belly. She prayed he couldn’t. Wrapping her arms loosely over her knees, she stammered, “What are you doing here?”
Silently Eduardo stepped onto the sidewalk. His long-limbed, powerful body moved toward her with a warrior’s effortless grace, but she felt every step like a seismic rumble beneath her.
“The question is—” his dark eyes glittered “—what are you doing, Callie?”
His voice was deep, with only a hint of an accent from his childhood in Spain. It was a shock to hear that voice again. She’d never thought she would see him again, outside of her haunted, sensual dreams.
She lifted her chin. “What does it look like I’m doing?” She jabbed her thumb toward the suitcases. “Leaving.” Her voice trembled in spite of her best efforts, and she hated Eduardo for that, as she hated him for so much else. “You’ve won.”
“Won?” he ground out. He slowly circled her at the end of the stoop. “A strange accusation.”
Beneath his gaze, her body shuddered with ice, then fire. She stiffened, glaring at him. “What else would you call it? You fired me then made sure no one else in New York would hire me.”
“So?” he said coldly. “Let McLinn provide for you. You are his bride. His problem.”
A chill went down her spine.
“You know about Brandon?” she whispered. If he knew about her coming marriage, did he also know about her pregnancy? “Who told you?”
“He did.” He gave a harsh laugh. “I met him.”
“You met? When? Where?”
Eduardo gave her a hard smile. “Does it matter?”
She bit her lip. “Was it a chance meeting … or …”
“You might call it chance.” His casual drawl belied the cold accusation in his eyes. He looked up at the expensive town house behind her. “I stopped by your apartment and was surprised to find you had a live-in lover.”
“He’s not my—”
“Not your what?”
“Never mind,” she mumbled.
Eduardo moved closer. “Tell me,” he said acidly, “did McLinn enjoy living here? Did he relish living in the apartment I leased as a gift of gratitude for the secretary I respected?”
She swallowed. A year ago, she’d been living in a cheap studio in Staten Island, so she could send most of her salary to her family back home. Then Eduardo had surprised her with a paid yearlong lease for a gorgeous one-bedroom apartment close to his own expensive brownstone on Bank Street. Callie had nearly wept with joy, believing it was proof that he actually cared. She’d later realized he’d only wanted to eliminate her commute so he could get more hours out of her.
“What could you possibly have to say to me now?” She frowned. She’d been home all week—packing boxes, directing the movers, being informed by the airlines that she was too pregnant to fly, calling car rental agencies. “When were you even here?”
“While you were in bed,” Eduardo ground out.
Her heart lifted to her throat.
“Oh,” she whispered. It suddenly made sense. She slept in the bedroom, while Brandon had the couch. “He never mentioned meeting you. But why? What do you want?”
His black eyes glittered at her. He was staring at her as if she were a stranger. No—as if she were a bug beneath his Italian leather shoe. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about your lover? Why did you lie?”
“I didn’t!”
“You hid his existence from me. The very day after you moved into this apartment, you had him move in with you. But you never mentioned him, because you knew it would make me question your commitment and loyalty.”
She stared at him then her shoulders sagged. “I was afraid to tell you.” She swallowed. “You’re so unreasonable in your demand for absolute loyalty.”
His mouth was a grim line. “So you lied.”
“I never invited him to move in! He … he surprised me.” After Callie had called Brandon in North Dakota to tell him about the apartment her generous boss had just leased for her, he’d shown up on her doorstep the next day, telling her he was worried about her in the big city. “He missed me. He was going to get his own place, but then he couldn’t find a job….”
“Right,” Eduardo said sardonically. “A real man finds a job to support his woman. He doesn’t live off her severance package.”
She gasped at the insult. “He’s not like that!” Throughout her pregnancy, Brandon had cooked, cleaned, rubbed her swollen feet, held her hand at the doctor’s office. All the things that she’d have wanted her baby’s real father to do, if he’d been anyone besides Eduardo. She scowled. “In case you haven’t noticed, there aren’t many jobs in New York for farmers!”
“So why stay in New York?”
Soft, lazy raindrops fell around them, pattering against the hot sidewalk. “I wanted to stay. I hoped I would find a job.”
“And so you have. As a farmer’s wife.”
“What do you want from me? Why did you come—just to insult me?”
“Oh, didn’t I mention why?” His eyes were cold and black. “Your sister called me this morning.”
A chill went through her.
“Sami—called you?” Callie’s conversation with her sister last night had ended badly. But Sami wouldn’t betray her. She wouldn’t … would she? She licked her suddenly dry lips. “Um. What did she say?”
“Two very interesting things that I could hardly believe.” Eduardo took a step closer to her on the stoop and said softly, “But clearly one of them is true. You’re getting married today.”
Her body started to shake. “So?”
“You admit it?”
“I’m wearing a wedding gown. I can’t exactly deny it. But how does that affect you?” Her lips trembled as she tried to shape them into a mocking smile. “Mad because you weren’t invited?”
“You sound nervous.” He slowly walked a semicircle around the end of the stoop. “Is there something you are keeping from me, Callie? Some secret?” He moved closer. “Some lie?”
She felt a contraction across her body, her belly tightening. Braxton-Hicks contractions, caused by stress, she told herself. Fake labor, the same that had sent her racing to the hospital last week, only to have the nurses sigh and send her home. But it hurt. One hand went over her belly; the other went to her lower back as she panted, “What could I possibly have to hide?”
“I already know you’re a liar.” A beam of golden light escaped the gray clouds and caressed his handsome face, leaving dark shadows beneath his cheekbones and jawline as he said softly, “But how deep do your lies go?”
The wilted bouquet of wildflowers nearly fell from her numb fingers. She gripped them more tightly in her shaking hands. “Please,” she whispered. “Don’t ruin it.”
“Ruin—what—exactly?”
Her teeth chattered. “My … my …” My life. And my baby’s life. “My wedding day.”
“Ah, yes. Your wedding day. I know how you used to dream about it.” He looked down at her. “So tell me. Is it everything you hoped it would be?”
She felt painfully conscious of the used wedding dress, several sizes too large, with a lace and polyester bodice that kept sliding off one shoulder. She looked down at the wilting flowers, at the two shabby suitcases behind her.
“Yes,” she said in a small voice.
“Where is your family? Where are your friends?”
“We’re getting married at City Hall.” She lifted her chin defiantly, pushing aside the sudden desire to cry. “We’re eloping. It’s romantic.”
“Ah. Of course.” He showed his teeth in a smile. “The wedding would not matter to you and McLinn, would it, as long as you have your honeymoon.”
Honeymoon? She and Brandon planned to break up their drive on a pull-out sofa at his cousin’s house in Wisconsin. Passion was nonexistent between them—she thought of Brandon like a brother. But she could hardly admit to Eduardo that there was only one man on earth she’d ever wanted to kiss, only one man she’d ever dreamed about: the man glaring cold daggers at her right now. “My honeymoon is none of your business.”
Eduardo snorted. “Anything for you would be romantic where Brandon McLinn is concerned. Even an ugly dress and a bouquet of weeds. He’s always been the one you wanted. Even though he is a man without a job, unable to stand on his own two feet. You love him—” his voice was scornful “—though he is barely a man.”
Callie’s jaw clenched. She started to rise to her feet then she remembered she couldn’t let him see her belly. Trembling with fury, she glared up at him. “Rich or poor, Brandon is twice the man you’ll ever be!”
Eduardo’s eyes burned through her. Then he spoke coldly.
“Stand up.”
She blinked. “What?”
“Your sister told me two things. The first is true.” Raindrops splattered noisily into the trees above. “Stand up.”
Callie sucked in her breath. “Forget it! I’m not your secretary, I’m not your lover … I’m your nothing! You have no power over me, not anymore. Stop harassing me before I call the police!”
Eduardo’s dark eyes glittered as he moved closer, standing over her, so close his pant legs brushed her knees. He leaned forward. “Are you pregnant with my baby?”
Staring up at him, Callie sucked in her breath. He knew.
Her sister had betrayed her. She’d told Eduardo everything.
She’d known Sami was angry, but she’d never thought she’d do it. Yesterday, her sister had called to wish her good luck on her trip. Callie had been jittery and afraid she was about to make the worst mistake of her life. When she’d heard her sister’s loving voice, she’d blurted out her plan to elope with Brandon because she was pregnant by her boss. Sami’s reaction had been furious.
I won’t let you trap Brandon this way, with a baby that’s not even his!
Sami, you don’t understand –
Shut up! Even if your old boss is a jerk, it’s his baby and he deserves to know! I won’t let you ruin so many lives with your selfishness!
Callie had been shocked, but she’d never once thought Sami would go through with her threat. Her baby sister adored her. She’d trailed after Callie and Brandon every day for years with hero worship in her eyes. She might be angry, but she’d certainly never betray her. Or so she’d thought.
She’d been wrong.
“Are you?” Eduardo demanded harshly.
Callie felt another hard contraction. She tried to breathe through it, but the childbirth classes she’d attended with Brandon seemed useless. The fake contractions, which were supposed to get her body ready for eventual labor weeks in the future, were getting stronger.
“Very well. Do not answer,” Eduardo said coldly. “I would not believe a word from your lying mouth, in any case. But your body …” He stroked her cheek, and an electric current coursed through her. Callie looked up with a gasp, her lips parted. “Your body won’t lie to me.”
He removed the bouquet of wildflowers from her unresisting hand and dropped it to the ground. Taking both her hands in his own, palm to palm, he gently lifted her to her feet.
Callie stood before him on the sidewalk, shaking and vulnerable and clearly pregnant in an ugly white wedding dress. Closing her eyes, she waited for the explosion.
But when he spoke, his voice was cool. “So it is true. You are pregnant.” He paused. “Who is the father?”
Her eyes flew open. “What?” she stammered.
“Is it me? Or McLinn?”
“How can you ask …?” She faltered, blushing. “You know I was a virgin when we … when we …”
“I thought you were, though I wondered later if I’d been deceived.” He set his jaw. “Perhaps you were saving yourself for your wedding night, and the day after we made love, you went home to your fiancé, and lured him into bed. Perhaps in a fit of remorse, or perhaps to hide what you’d done in case there was a child.”
“How can you even say that?” she gasped. “How can you think I’d do something so disgusting—so low?”
“Is the child is mine? Or is it McLinn’s?” His gaze was like ice. His sensual lips twisted. “Or do you not know?”
Her heart wrenched.
“Why are you trying to hurt me?” She shook her head. “Brandon is my friend. Just my friend.”
“You’ve been living with him for a year. Do you expect me to believe he slept on the couch for all that time?”
“We took turns!”
“You are lying! He is marrying you!”
“Out of kindness, nothing more!”
He gave a harsh laugh. “Por supuesto,” he mocked, folding his arms. “That is why men marry. To be kind.”
She stepped back from him. Her throat throbbed with anguish. “My parents don’t know I’m pregnant. They think I’ve just given up the job hunt and decided to move home.” Her eyes burned as she shook her head fiercely. “I can’t go back there as an unwed mother. My parents would never live it down. And Brandon is the best man on earth. He—”
“I don’t give a damn about him. Or you. I care about one question. Is. This. Baby. Mine?”
Callie took a deep breath. “Please don’t,” she whispered. She despised the pleading note in her voice but couldn’t stop herself. “Don’t make me give you an answer you don’t want. Let me give her a home. A family.”
“Her?”
She could have kicked herself. Reluctantly she looked at him. “I’m having a baby girl.”
He exhaled, setting his jaw. “A girl.”
“It doesn’t matter! You don’t want to be tied to me. You’ve made that clear! She’s nothing to you, any more than I am. You must forget you ever saw me—”
“Are you out of your mind?” he growled, grabbing her shoulders. “I won’t let another man raise a child that could be mine!” He searched her gaze fiercely. “When is the baby due? What is the exact date?”
Thunder rolled across the dark clouds hanging low over the city. Callie felt herself on a precipice of a choice that would change everything.
If she told Eduardo the truth, her baby would never enjoy the idyllic childhood that Callie had had, surrounded by endless prairie, playing in her father’s barn, knowing everyone in their small town. Instead of parents who were best friends, her precious child would have parents who hated each other, and a tyrannical, selfish father.
If only she were the liar Eduardo thought she was, Callie thought miserably. If only she could give him a false date, and say Brandon was the father!
But she couldn’t lie. Not to his face. Especially not about something like this. Grief twisted her heart as she whispered, “September 17.”
Eduardo stared down at her. Then his eyes narrowed and the grip on her shoulders tightened.
“If there’s even the slightest chance McLinn is the father, tell me now,” he ground out. “Before the paternity test. If you’re lying—or if you are simply wrong—and this baby is not mine, I will destroy you for your lie. Do you understand? Not just you, but everyone who loves you. Especially McLinn.”
Her throat ached. She knew her ex-boss’s ruthlessness. She’d seen him use it against others for three years, and finally—inevitably—against her. “I would expect nothing less.”