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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At seventeen, as a plump, bookish wallflower with big glasses and clothes hand-sewn by her loving but sadly out-of-date mother, Callie was mocked and ignored by the boys at her rural high school.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.
