He made it sound like a punishment—for him. She lifted her chin. “Gee, thanks,” she said sarcastically. “I’m touched. Five minutes ago, you didn’t even believe you were the father. You said you wouldn’t believe a word I said. Now you want to marry me?”
“I’ve decided that not even you, Callie, would lie to me about our baby’s paternity. Not when the truth is so clearly unpleasant to you.”
She folded her arms, glaring at him. “I’m having your baby, all right, but nothing on earth could make me be your wife.”
“Strange. You were keen to get married a few minutes ago.”
“To Brandon!” she cried. “I adore him. I’d trust him with my life!”
“Spare me his list of virtues,” Eduardo said, sounding bored. “Your love makes you blind.”
“He might not be rich and heartless like you, but that’s exactly why he’ll make a wonderful father. Far better than—”
She cut herself off as a painful contraction arced through her body.
“Far better than me?” Eduardo said with dangerous softness. “Because I am not good enough to be her father. And that was your excuse for lying to me and marrying your lover.”
“He’s not my lover—”
“Perhaps not physically. But you love him. So you were going to steal my child. And you accuse me of being heartless,” he said contemptuously. “You are breathtaking.”
The words were not a compliment.
Callie held her breath as new pain assailed her. Her baby wasn’t due for two and a half weeks, but this was starting to feel very different from the Braxton-Hicks contractions she’d had last week. Very different.
Was it possible …?
Could it be …?
No! She forced herself to take a deep, calming breath. It couldn’t be real labor. It was sixteen days too soon. Stress was causing her body to react, that was all. She had to calm down, for the baby’s sake!
She shifted in the backseat of the car, trying to alleviate the stabbing pain in her lower back. “You don’t want to raise a baby and you certainly don’t want me as your wife. It’s only your masculine pride that makes you—”
“My masculine pride.” Eduardo bared his teeth into a smile. “Is that what you call it?”
“You don’t want to marry me, I know you don’t. You’re just in shock. You haven’t had time to think what it would mean for you to raise a child. To have a family.”
“You think I’ve had no time to consider what it means for a child to feel abandoned by his parents? To feel alone? To have no real home?”
Callie closed her mouth with a snap. Of course he knew. Licking her lips, she tried helplessly. “I could give our baby a wonderful home—”
“I know you will.” His eyes were fathomless and stark. “Because I will provide that home. As her father.”
There was no winning this war. Now that Eduardo knew about her pregnancy, he would never give up his rights as a father.
“So what do we do?” Callie said miserably.
“I told you. Marry.”
“But I can’t be your wife.”
“Why?”
“I—I don’t love you.”
“Good,” he bit out. “Your sainted McLinn can keep your love. Just your body and your vow of fidelity are enough.”
Her heart was pounding in her throat. “You really want to marry me?” she whispered. The thought made her tremble. In spite of everything, she couldn’t forget the romantic dreams she’d once had of Eduardo taking her in his arms and saying, I made the worst mistake of my life when I let you go, Callie. I love you. Come back to me. Be mine—forever. “As in forever?”
Eduardo gave an ugly laugh. “Be married to you forever? No. I have no desire to live the rest of my life in hell, chained to a woman I’ll never be able to trust. Our marriage will last just long enough to give our child a name.”
“Oh.” She shifted in her seat then frowned. That changed things a bit. “Like—like a marriage of convenience?”
“Call it what you like.”
“For a week or two?”
“Let us say three months. Long enough for it to actually look like a real marriage. And for our baby’s first months to be the best possible, with us both in the same home.”
“But—where would we live? My lease is gone. You sold your brownstone in the Village.”
“I just bought a place on the Upper West Side.”
She blinked. “You were moving back to New York, because you thought I’d be gone.”
His lips twisted. “I bought it as an investment. But you are correct.”
Callie stared up at him, her heart pounding. “This is never going to work.”
“It will.”
She took a deep breath. Marriage. Would it be good for their baby, as Eduardo believed? Or would it only make their frayed relationship even worse, creating yet more accusations and distrust between them?
“But how would our marriage end?” she said. “With an ugly divorce—throwing plates and screaming at each other? That wouldn’t help anyone, least of all my baby.”
“Our baby,” he corrected, then bared his teeth in a smile. “Our prenuptial agreement will outline our divorce. We will agree from the beginning how it will end.”
“Plan our divorce before we’re even wed? That seems so sad….”
“Not sad. Civilized.” He lifted a dark eyebrow, rubbing the rough, dark edge of his jawline. He gave her a tight smile. “Since we are not in love, there will be no hard feelings when we part.”
Three months. Callie swallowed. She tried to imagine what it would be like to live in Eduardo’s house. Even as his secretary, she’d never lived with him on such intimate terms. And though she was no longer the naive, trusting girl who’d fallen in love with him so stupidly, he still had such frightening power over her. Callie’s foolish, traitorous body yearned for him like a sugary, buttery cake that was impossibly bad for her but she couldn’t stop craving just the same.
“And if I refuse?” she whispered. “If I get out of this car and flag a taxi back to Brandon?”
His expression cooled.
“If you are truly so selfish that you’d put your desire for love ahead of the best interests of our child, I will have no choice but to question your fitness as a mother, and challenge you for full custody.” She started to protest, but he cut her off calmly. “I have limitless funds and the best law firm in the city at my disposal. You will lose.”
She felt another contraction and this time, the pain was so deep and sustained that she closed her eyes, bracing her body against it as she panted, “You’re threatening me?”
“I’m telling you how it will be.”
“We’re here, sir,” Sanchez, the driver, said from the front seat, as he pulled the sedan to the curb.
Looking out her window, Callie saw the same courthouse where she’d gotten a marriage license yesterday with Brandon. The thought of deserting her best friend to marry Eduardo was insane. But she could either become Mrs. Eduardo Cruz for three months, living in the same household and sharing custody of their newborn, or she could possibly lose her child forever.
“And