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“Followed?” she echoed.
“When Sami told me she was leaving for Marrakech, I skipped out in the middle of the night, slipping past the man watching my house. I drove to Denver and booked a flight. I’ve been staying at a hotel off this square, following your movements through Sami’s messages.”
“You knew I’d be at the market.” Callie stared at him. “It was you I felt, watching me. Following us.”
“Hoping to get you alone.” He looked down at her, his eyes owl-like beneath his glasses. “I tried to contact you. Letters, phone calls. I tried everything short of a singing telegram. Last December, he called me in the middle of the night, warning me off. I threatened to call the police in New York. So he spirited you overseas. For the last four months, I had no idea where you even were!”
Callie remembered the night she’d caught Eduardo talking on the phone to a rival, he’d said, who lived far away. That very same night, he’d suddenly suggested they go to Spain. Once there, he’d never let her out of his sight, or even let her drive her own car, without a bodyguard. He’d said it was to keep her safe.
But safe from whom?
“I promised myself I wouldn’t abandon you,” Brandon said. “I’ve been waiting … praying … desperate. All the time he kept you prisoner.”
Prisoner. Callie stared at him with a sick feeling in her belly. She was starting to think that Eduardo’s planned talk later didn’t involve him taking her in his arms and declaring his eternal love.
“I always knew the man was bad news.” Brandon narrowed his eyes. “From the moment I first heard you talk about him. When he leased you that apartment in the Village, I knew he wanted you.” His voice became bitter. “And from the sound of your voice, I knew you would let him.”
“So you told Eduardo we were engaged,” she said slowly. “The night he stopped by the apartment, you said …”
“I just told him the truth,” he said stubbornly. “We were engaged. We said, if neither of us were married by the time we were thirty …”
“That was a joke!”
“It was never a joke to me.” He looked down. “But I guess it was to you.”
She stared at him, her
cheeks aflame, unable to speak.
“I loved you, Callie,” he said gruffly. “Since we were kids, I loved you.”
She felt a lump in her throat, remembering their childhood. Chasing fireflies on warm summer nights. Watching fireworks on the Fourth. Christmas dinner with her cousins, aunts and uncles, turkey and stuffing and homemade pumpkin pie, sledding with her sister down McGillicuddy’s hill. Even going out with Brandon’s telescope at night and looking at stars until she wanted to claw her eyes out. It had been wonderful.
Her throat hurt. “I should have known. I’m sorry. But … I don’t feel that way about you.”
“Yeah. I figured that out.” He took a deep breath then gave her a sudden crooked smile. “I’ve started to think that maybe I should look for someone who can love me. Who can see me. As more than a goofy, dependable friend.”
Her heart broke a little in her chest. She tilted back her floppy pink hat. “Brandon—”
“But first I’m taking you and the baby home. We’ll get you a good divorce lawyer. I don’t care how much money Cruz has, the courts will see that you are in the right.”
“You don’t understand—”
“You don’t have to be scared. We’ll be with you every step of the way. Me. Your family—”
“I’m in love with him, Brandon,” she blurted out. At his intake of breath, she lifted her eyes miserably. “I love him so much I think I might die of it. Every day all I can think is that I would do anything, absolutely anything, to make him love me back.”
Brandon stared at her, his face pale. His Adam’s apple bobbed then he looked at his feet as he said in a low voice, “I remember that feeling.”
“I’m so sorry.” Reaching out, she pulled him into her arms as she wept. “Forgive me.”
For a moment, he accepted the comfort of her arms. They held each other, like kids dodging a storm.
“How can you love a man like that?” Brandon said in a low voice. “I accept that you can’t love me. All right, fine. But a man who keeps you prisoner? Of all men on earth, you choose Cruz? A cruel, selfish beast of a man?”
Her heart lifted to her throat. “You don’t know him, Brandon. He’s been hurt in the past. But he’s not selfish and he’s not cruel. If you only knew. He has such a good heart—”
Her voice ended in a gasp as Brandon was violently wrenched from her arms.
