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Heaven help her, but she couldn’t forget.
His gaze dropped. Callie sucked in her breath when she realized the neckline of her tatty, oversize wedding dress had slid down her shoulder to reveal far too much of one plump breast and a full inch of her white cotton bra. She yanked the neckline up, scowling. “I can’t believe I ever let you seduce me.”
“Seduce?” His lips twisted with amusement. “What a charming description. I didn’t seduce you. You jumped into my arms the instant I touched you. But call it seduction, if it makes your conscience easy.”
She gasped in outrage. “You are such a—”
“Oh, I’m sure you regretted it afterward. McLinn must have taken it hard.” He shook his head. “Amazing,” he mused, “to think he was willing to marry you while you were pregnant by another man. He must be insanely in love with you.”
A twinge of unease went through her. “He’s not in love with me. He’s my best friend.”
“And you must have felt so guilty.” Reaching over, he twirled a tendril of her brown hair. “So full of remorse that you ruined your chaste, loyal, boring love affair of years for a single night of hot, raw lust with me.”
She jerked away. “You are so full of yourself to think—”
“Why did I treat you exactly like the rest? I’ll tell you.” Eduardo’s eyes met hers evenly. “Because you are no different.”
“I hate you!”
He snorted a laugh, but his eyes were icy. “Then we agree on something at last.”
Tears fell down her lashes as she looked down, suddenly deflated. “All I wanted was to give my baby a good home,” she whispered. “But now, instead of two loving parents, she’ll be pulled like a tug-of-war rope between a mother and father who hate each other. Two parents who a
ren’t even married. The world can be cruel. She’ll be called illegitimate. She’ll be called a bastard …”
Eduardo’s eyes widened. “What?” he exploded.
“She’ll always feel she’s not good enough, as if she were some kind of accident, some kind of mistake. When the truth is you and I are the ones to blame.” She looked up at him with a sob. “I don’t want her to suffer. Please, Eduardo. Can’t you just let me marry Brandon? For her sake?”
He looked at her for a long moment, his expression half-wild.
Then his jaw set. He abruptly leaned forward in his seat to say something in rapid-fire Spanish to his chauffeur then turned away, dialing into his phone and speaking again in the same language, too fast for her to understand. Praying she’d made him see reason, that he’d changed his mind and would let her go, she watched him, tracing the harsh lines of his silhouetted face, the handsome, sensual, cruel face she’d once loved with all her heart.
When Eduardo turned back to her, his dark eyes were strangely bright. “I have happy news for you, querida. You are going to be married today after all.”
She let out a sob of joy. “You’re taking me back to Brandon?”
He gave a hard laugh. “You think I would allow that?”
Callie frowned, confused. “But you just said—”
“You are going to be married today.” Eduardo gave her a smile so icy cold it reminded her of the winter wind whipping across the empty, frozen prairie. “To me.”
CHAPTER TWO
CALLIE gasped. Marry Eduardo? The father of her baby? Her ex-boss? The man she despised more than anyone on earth?
Shocked, she stared at him as she waited for the punch line. Licking her lips nervously, she finally said, “I don’t get the joke.”
Eduardo’s lips curved humorlessly. “It’s not a joke.”
She spread her arms wide in the backseat of the car. “Of course it is!”
Eduardo grabbed her left hand, looking down at her cheap engagement ring with its microscopic diamond. “No, Callie, that is a joke.”
Trying to rip her hand from his grasp, she glared at him. “A ring is a symbol of fidelity, no wonder you hate it!”
“You’ll have a real one.”
