“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.”
“I will take your parents’ farm. McLinn’s. Everything. Do you understand?” His dark eyes glittered. “So choose your words carefully. Tell me the truth. Am I the—”
“Of course!” she exploded. “Of course you’re the father! You’re the only man I’ve ever slept with! Ever!”
Staggering back a step, Eduardo stared down at her. His jaw hardened. “Still? Do you honestly expect me to believe that?”
“Why would I lie? Do you think I actually want you to be her father?” she cried. “I wish with all my heart it was Brandon, not you! He’s the one I want—the one I trust—the best man in the world! Instead of a selfish workaholic playboy who turns on everyone in his life, who doesn’t trust anyone, who has no real friends—”
Her voice cut off as his fingers tightened into her flesh. “You were never going to tell me about the baby, were you?” His voice was dangerously soft. “You were just going to steal my child from me and put another man in my place. You were going to erase me completely from her life.”
A shiver of fear went through her, but she glared at him. “Yes! She’d be better off without you!”
He sucked in his breath then bared his teeth into a smile.
“And that,” he said, his black eyes gleaming, “is your greatest lie of all.”
They stood glaring at each other on the sidewalk, like mortal enemies. She heard the soft patter of heavy raindrops sliding from the green leafy trees above the brick town houses, and she knew he was right.
For eight months, Callie had told herself that Eduardo wouldn’t want a baby. That his workaholic bachelor lifestyle would be hampered by a child. That he would be a horrible father and she was doing the right thing for everyone. But part of her had always known that wasn’t true. After being orphaned himself, and brought to New York at the age of ten, Eduardo Cruz would want to be a father. He’d never surrender a son or daughter.
It was just Callie he would sweep aside and discard.
And that was what frightened her. With Eduardo Cruz’s wealth and power, if he took her to court to battle for full custody, there was no question who would win.
His dark eyes cut her to the bone. “You should have told me the day you realized you were pregnant.”
She looked up at him, her heart twisting beneath the weight of guilt and regret and the grief of broken love. “How could I,” she whispered, “after you abandoned me?”
His eyes widened. Then he glowered at her, his expression merciless. “You are clever and resourceful. You could have found a way to contact me. But you did not. You tried to hide her, as you hide everything.”
She felt another sharp pain as her belly tightened. “And now I’ve told you the truth, will you try to take her from me?”
His jaw tightened. Then a smile curled his lips. Reaching out his hand, he stroked her cheek. A sizzle of electricity spun across her skin, vibrating down her spine, and she was filled with longing and desire, irrepressible need like fire. All her traitorous body wanted to do, even now, was turn toward him like a flower toward the sun.
“You will be punished, querida,” he said softly. “Oh, yes.”
Callie stared up at him, breathless beneath his touch, trapped beneath the dark force of his gaze. Then she exhaled when she saw a cheap two-door hatchback driving up her street. The cavalry had come to save her. She nearly sobbed with relief. “Brandon!”
Eduardo whipped around. A low, guttural word came from his lips, a word in Spanish she’d only heard him use when he’d just lost a huge deal, or the time a brokenhearted starlet had tried to break into his bedroom. Turning back, he grabbed Callie’s handbag, then her arm. “Come with me.”
Before she even knew what was happening, he’d pulled her across the sidewalk and opened the back door to his black sedan. “Start the engine,” he ordered his driver.
Realizing his intent, she desperately tried to rip her arm away. “Let me go!”
But Eduardo’s grip was like steel. He shoved her into the backseat and climbed in beside her, crowding her with his massive body that seemed far too big for the space.
Eduardo leaned over her, his eyes black with fury as he gripped her wrists. “I’m not giving you another chance to hide my baby.”
Callie breathed in the woodsy, exotic scent of his cologne, overwhelmed by his closeness, by the sensation of his thigh pressed against hers. It was just as she’d dreamed about in the years she’d worked for him, and unwillingly dreamed every night in all the months since he’d fired her. Their faces were inches apart. Callie’s heart thumped in her chest. She felt lost in a dream.
Then Eduardo closed the door with a bang behind him.
“Drive,” he told his chauffeur tersely.
“No!” With an intake of breath, she whirled around in the backseat. Her last vision through the back window was of Brandon standing by the rental car with his door ajar, staring after her with his black-framed glasses askew, his expression anguished. Beside him, their two old suitcases still sat forlornly on the curb.
Their car turned the corner, and Brandon was gone. Callie’s body felt tight with pain that seemed to emanate white-hot from her heart as she turned back to Eduardo with a choked sob. “Take me back. Please.”
His eyes were merciless. “No.”
“You’ve kidnapped me!”
“Call it what you want.”
“You can’t keep me against my will!”
“Can’t I?” he said softly.
She shivered at the look in his eyes. He turned away as if bored, but she saw the hard set of his jaw, heard the clipped tension of his voice as he said coldly, “You will remain with me until the matter of the baby is resolved.”
“So I’m your prisoner?”
“Until my paternal rights are formalized—yes.”