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Callie couldn’t believe he could be so heartless. No, on second thought, she could. What she couldn’t believe was her own stupidity—in believing it was possible for Eduardo Cruz to be anything but heartless! Blinking back tears, she tried to keep her voice from trembling. “Just let me talk to him once. You can listen on the other line. I just need to tell him I’m sorry.” She closed her eyes. “When I think of what I did to him …”
“Yes, I can only imagine how badly you feel,” Eduardo said sardonically. “Knowing you caused him pain by flinging yourself enthusiastically into bed with me and conceiving my child instead of his. A pity raising Marisol is now a responsibility more important than the romantic longings of your heart!”
His sardonic tone tore at her soul like nails on a chalkboard. “Why do you even care?” she spat out. “Our marriage will be over in months. For that matter, why did you even marry me? Why make such a song and dance about giving our child a name and a father and a home, when we both know you’ll never last for long?”
His hand tightened into a fist on the counter. “What are you talking about?”
“I know you too well,” she said. “I know the life you love. Traveling around the world, beating your competitors, buying expensive toys you barely take time to enjoy, any more than the women whose names you can’t remember. Keeping score with your billions in the bank.” She lifted her chin. “Am I leaving anything out?”
His dark eyes were cold. “My priorities have changed.”
“For how long? A few days? A week? How long will you last before you abandon us?”
“Abandon?” he ground out. “You mean, how long until I let you rush into another man’s arms?”
She shook her head. “I’m sick of your stupid jealousy!”
“And I’m sick of constantly being told it’s impossible for me to be a decent husband, oh, no, not like some unemployed farmer who hangs on your every word. Too bad for you he’s not Marisol’s father!”
It was the last straw.
“Yes, it is!” Callie cried, blinking back tears. Grabbing her plate of quesadillas and rice—which indeed looked very poorly cooked—she yanked violently through the cupboards until she found a fork, then stomped across the kitchen. Stopping at the swinging door, she turned and yelled, “Three months can’t come soon enough!”
Then with a sob, she ran upstairs, where she could eat and cry in peace with the one person in this world who still loved her—her baby.
CHAPTER FIVE
Three months later
IT HAD been a horrible three months of watching Eduardo be a perfect, loving, devoted father to their baby, who’d gone from tiny newborn to chubby baby who slept better through the night. Three months of being treated with distant courtesy as his wife. Three months of being tortured with memories, of silent hurt and anger and repressed longing by day—and haunted dreams at night. Three months.
Over.
Looking at herself in the bedroom mirror, Callie zipped up her silver dress, a slinky, strapless gown with a sweetheart neckline that emphasized her bustline. She put on the three-carat diamond stud earrings that matched the ten-carat diamond ring on her hand. Leaning forward, she applied mascara and red lipstick. Stepping back into crystal-studded high heels, she straightened. She stared at her own unsmiling image.
It was like looking at a stranger.
Callie thought of herself as plain and plump but the mirror now plainly told her otherwise. Her light brown hair was long and lustrous, blown-dry straight twice a week at the best salon on the Upper West Side. Her arms and legs had become toned and sleek from carrying Marisol and taking her on long autumn walks. She went to the park almost every day, rain or shine, eager to escape the penthouse, where she felt useless, trapped in the same house as a husband who did not care for her.
But her transformation into his trophy wife was complete. She no longer looked the part of the farm girl, or even the secretary. She was Mrs. Eduardo Cruz. The oil tycoon’s unloved wife.
But tomorrow morning, her three-month marriage sentence would be over. She and her baby would be free.
Callie’s green eyes were pools of misery.
Every night, she’d slept alone in his big bed as he slept in the guest room down the hall. Every day when Eduardo came home from work—earlier than he ever had, before dinner—his face lit up with joy as he scooped Marisol up in his arms. At night, when the baby couldn’t sleep, she heard him walking the halls, cuddling her against his chest, singing her to sleep in his low baritone. Callie had a million new memories that would always twist her heart, because after they divorced, she’d never see them again.
Eduardo had been unfailingly courteous. He’d never brought up Brandon, her family, or any other subject that might cause an argument. Instead, every night as she sat beside him at the dinner table, he read the paper over dinner and kept the discussion to small talk. And her gaze unwillingly traced the sensual curve of his lips and shape of his hands, her body electrified with awareness as she breathed in his masculine scent and felt his warmth.
He never touched her. All he expected of Callie was for her to take care of their child and occasionally accompany him to charitable events. As they were doing tonight.
In the intimate world of New York society, the official Christmas season was kicked off in early December by the annual Winter Ball, which raised money for children’s charities across the five boroughs. Tonight was the last night Callie would wear an elegant gown and accompany Eduardo in his dashing tuxedo. The last night she’d have to look up at her husband and pretend her heart wasn’t breaking.
Tonight was the end.
Fitting that their marriage would end at a Christmas party, she thought dully. Just as it had begun with one. Tomorrow, as outlined by the prenuptial agreement, she would move out and Eduardo would begin divorce proceedings.
Standing in front of her bedroom mirror, Callie exhaled. She didn’t believe for a single second that he’d been faithful to her. She knew him too well. He wasn’t the type of man who could go without physical release for a month, much less three. He must have had lovers since their marriage—but where? How? It tortured her.
