He never looked away.
He never backed down.
He never left her.
And in the end, the pain was worth it.
A healthy seven-pound-eight-ounce baby girl was finally placed in Callie’s arms. She looked down at her daughter in amazement, at the sweetest weight she’d ever known. Cuddled against her chest, the baby blinked up at her sleepily.
Leaning over them, Eduardo kissed Callie’s sweaty forehead, then their baby’s. For a long, perfect moment, as medical personnel bustled around them, the newly married couple sat together on the bed with their brand-new baby.
“Thank you, Callie, for the greatest gift of my life,” Eduardo said softly, stroking the baby’s cheek. He looked up, and his dark, luminous eyes pierced her soul. “A family.”
CHAPTER THREE
EDUARDO CRUZ had always known he’d have a family different from the one he’d grown up in. Different.
Better.
His home would have the joyous chaos of many children, instead of a lonely, solitary existence. His children would have comfort and security, with plenty of food and money. And most of all: his children would have two parents, neither of whom would be selfish enough to abandon their children.
The first time Eduardo had seen a truly happy family, he’d been ten, hungrily trolling the aisles of a tiny grocer’s shop in his poor village in southern Spain. A gleaming black sedan had pulled up on the dusty road, and a wealthy, distinguished-looking man had entered the shop, followed by his wife and children. As the man asked the shopkeeper for directions to Madrid, Eduardo watched the beautifully dressed woman walk around with her two young children. When they clamored for ice cream, she didn’t yell or slap them. Instead she’d hugged them, ruffled their hair then laughed with her husband as he’d pulled out his wallet with a sigh. Handing out the ice creams, the man had whispered something in his wife’s ear as he wrapped his arm around her waist. Eduardo had watched as they left, getting back in their luxury car and disappearing down the road to their fairy-tale lives.
“Who was that?” Eduardo had breathed.
“The Duke and Duchess of Quixota. I recognize them from the papers,” the elderly shopkeeper had replied, looking equally awed. Then he turned to Eduardo with a frown. “But what are you doing here? I told your parents they’d get no more credit. What’s this?” Grabbing the neck of Eduardo’s threadbare, too-short jacket, he pulled out the three ice cream bars melting in his pocket. “You’re stealing?” he cried, his face harsh. “But I should have expected it, from a family like yours!”
Humiliated and ashamed, Eduardo’s heart felt like it would burst, but his face was blank. At ten years old, he’d learned not to show his feelings from a mother who raged at him if he laughed, and a father who beat him if he cried.
Scowling, the shopkeeper held up the ice cream bars. “Why?”
Eduardo’s stomach growled. There was no food at home, but that wasn’t the reason. He’d been sent home from school early today for getting into a fight, but his father hadn’t cared about what had caused the fight. He’d just hit Eduardo across the face and kicked him from the house. He was too disabled—and too drunk—to do anything but lie on the couch and rage against his faithless wife. Eduardo’s mother, who worked as a barmaid in the next village, had been coming home less and less, and three days ago, she’d disappeared completely. The boys at school had taunted Eduardo. Not even your mother thinks you’re worth staying for.
When he’d seen the Madrileños eating ice creams, Eduardo had had the confused thought that if he took some home, his family might love each other, too. ¡Idiota! Crushing, miserable fury filled him. He suddenly hated them—all of them.
“Well?” the grocer demanded.
“Keep it, then!” Reaching out a grubby hand, Eduardo knocked the ice cream bars to the floor. He’d turned and run out of the shop, running as fast as his legs could carry him, gasping as he ran for home.
And it was then he’d found his father …
Eduardo blinked. He looked around the comfort and luxury of his chauffeured, three-hundred-thousand-dollar car. His eyes were strangely wet as he looked down at his two-day-old baby, sleeping peacefully in her car seat as Sanchez drove them home from the hospital.
Her childhood would be different.
Different.
Better.
He’d never let the selfishness of adults destroy her innocent happiness. He would protect her at all costs. He would kill for her. Die for her. Do anything.
Even be married to her mother.
As the car drove north on Madison Avenue, Eduardo’s eyes looked past the baby to Callie on the other side. He’d once thought she was the only person he could really trust, but the joke was on him.
She’d lied to his face for years.
And not just to him. A few hours after the birth, Callie had called her family to tell them about her new marriage and new baby. White-faced and trembling, she’d refused to speak to her sister then started crying as she spoke to her mother. When Eduardo had heard her father yelling on the other line, leaving Callie in tearful, pitiful sobs, he’d finally snatched the phone away. He’d intended to calm the man down. But it hadn’t exactly turned out that way.
He scowled, remembering Walter Woodville’s angry words. Setting his jaw, Eduardo pushed the memory aside. The man was clearly a tyrant. No wonder Callie had learned to keep things to herself. His eyes narrowed.
Then he looked back at his sleeping daughter, and his heartbeat calmed. For the past two days he hadn’t been able to stop staring at her tiny fingers. Her plump cheeks. Her long eyelashes. The way she unconsciously pursed her tiny mouth to suckle, even while she slept.
Eduardo took a deep breath.
He had a child. A family of his own.
He had a wife.
He’d married Callie to give their baby a name, he reminded himself, then he scowled. And yet she was still nameless.
He glared at his wife and bit out, “María.”
Callie looked back sharply, her vivid green eyes glinting like emeralds sparkling in the sun. “I told you no. My baby will not be named after your Spanish dream wife. No way.”
He exhaled, regretting he’d ever told his trusted secretary that he wished to marry María de Leondros, the young, beautiful Duchess of Alda. They’d only met socially once or twice, but marrying her would have been a satisfying way to prove how far he’d come since the days he’d stolen ice creams. “María is a common name,” he said evenly. “It was my great-aunt’s name.”
“Bite me.”
“You’re being jealous for no reason. I never even slept with María de Leondros!”
“Lucky her.” She folded her arms, glaring at him. “My daughter’s name is Soleil.”
Irritated, Eduardo set his jaw. Was it so strange that he wished to name his child after his Tía María, who’d brought him to New York, who’d worked three jobs to support him? María Cruz had encouraged him to see his high-school job pumping gas in Brooklyn not as a dead-end, but a place to begin. After she’d died, he’d gone from driving a gas truck, to owning a small gasoline distribution business, which he’d sold at twenty-four to become a wildcatter. His first big find had been in Alaska, followed by Oklahoma. Now Cruz Oil had drilling operations all over the world.
Yet Callie stubbornly refused to be reasonable. Instead she pushed for the name Soleil, which meant nothing personal to anyone—she’d just found it in a baby name book and liked the sound! He set his jaw. “You are being irrational.”
“No, you are,” she retorted. “You’re already giving her a surname, and I chose her name months ago. I’m not changing it because of your whim.”
He lifted his eyebrows incredulously. “My whim?”
“Soleil is pretty!”
“Did it, too, come from your mother’s favorite telenovela?”
“Go to hell,” she said, turning to stare out the window as they drove through the city. Silence fell in the backseat. Eduardo to
ok a deep breath, clenching his hands into fists. His wife’s stubbornness exceeded common sense! Because of her, they’d had to leave the hospital without yet filing a birth certificate.
His jaw set grimly, he turned back to her. “Callie—”
But her eyes were closed, her cheek pressed against the car window. He heard the rhythm of her breathing, and realized to his shock that she’d fallen asleep in the middle of their argument.
He looked at her beautiful face, against the backdrop of Central Park, the vivid green trees and lawn reminding him of her eyes. Her light brown hair fell in soft waves against her roses-and-cream complexion. As usual, she wore no makeup, but no ingénue on Broadway could hold a candle to her natural beauty. She wore the baggy knit pants and long-sleeved T-shirt his staff had brought to the hospital, but he knew the hidden curves of her generous figure would put any scrawny swimsuit model to shame.
For months he’d tried not to remember her beauty, but being this close to her, the reality overwhelmed him. His wife was the most desirable woman on earth. Even with those dark hollows beneath her eyes.
A sharp edge rose in his throat. Turning, he looked out at the brilliant dappled early evening light glowing gold through the trees. Callie had given birth to their child without anesthesia. He still couldn’t comprehend that kind of bravery, that kind of strength. For the last two nights, as he’d slept in a chair beside her bed, Callie had barely slept at all. The baby had had some difficulty learning how to nurse, and Callie had been up almost every hour. He’d offered to help, and so had the nurses, but she’d insisted on doing everything herself. “She’s my baby,” Callie had whispered, her face pale with exhaustion. “She needs me.”
Looking at Callie now, asleep with her face pressed against the window, Eduardo was forced to acknowledge feelings he’d never thought he’d feel for her again.
Admiration. Appreciation. Respect.
Things she’d clearly never felt for him.
“I’ve heard all about you, Eduardo Cruz.” Walter Woodville had hissed over the phone two days ago. “Do you expect me to be grateful to you for doing the honorable thing and marrying my daughter?”
Eduardo knew Callie’s family meant everything to her, so he’d contained his temper. “Mr. Woodville, I understand your feelings, but surely you can see …”
“Understand? Understand? You seduced my daughter. You used her and tossed her aside.” Walter Woodville’s voice was sodden with anger and grief. “And when you found out she was pregnant, you weren’t even man enough to come and ask me for her hand. You just selfishly took her. You stole my daughter.”
Those particular words ripped through Eduardo like a blade. Then rage built through him in turn. “We never expected it to happen, but I have taken responsibility. I will provide for both Callie and the child—”
“Responsibility,” Walter spat out. “All you can offer is money. You might own half our town, but I know the kind of man you really are.” The old man’s voice caught, then hardened. “You’ll never be a decent husband or father, and you know it. If you’re even half a man, you’ll send her and the baby home to people who are capable of loving them.”
Then to Eduardo’s shock, the man had hung up, leaving him standing in the hospital room, staring at his phone, wide-eyed with rage. No one spoke to him like that—well, no one except Callie.
But the old man wasn’t afraid of him. He knew Eduardo’s faults and flaws. And there could be only one person who’d told him.
Funny to think how he’d once trusted her. He’d wanted her in his bed almost from the start, but he’d needed Callie Woodville so much in his office, in his life, that he’d forbidden himself to ever act on his desire.
Until last Christmas Eve.
In a lavish, gilded ballroom of a Midtown hotel, Eduardo had found himself stone-cold sober at his own Christmas party, surrounded by Cruz Oil’s vice presidents and board members and their trophy wives. The men in tuxedos, the women dripping diamonds and furs, had danced and drunk the spiked eggnog, alternatively boasting about the latest promising data in Colombia or gleefully discussing the expensive toys they planned to buy with their next stock bonuses.
Eduardo had watched them. He should have been in his element. Instead he’d felt lost. Disconnected.
He had everything he’d ever wanted. He controlled everything; he was vulnerable to no one. He’d thought being strong and powerful and rich would make him content, or at least, impervious to pain. Instead he just felt … alone.
Then he saw her on the other side of the ballroom.
Callie wore a simple, modest sheath dress. She stopped, her emerald eyes wide, and a flash went through him like fire.
In this cavernous ballroom, filled with tinsel and champagne and silvery lights, nothing was warm. Nothing was real. Nothing mattered.
Except her.
“Excuse me.” Shoving his untasted glass of mulled wine into his CFO’s hands, he’d walked straight through the crowd. Without a word, he’d taken Callie’s hand. He’d pulled her out of the ballroom, and she didn’t resist as he led her out into the white, icy winter night. Not waiting for his limo, he’d hailed a taxi to Bank Street, where he’d carried her to his bed. There, amid the breathless hush of midnight, he’d made love to her. He’d taken her virginity. He’d held her tight, so tight, as if she were a life raft that might save him from a devouring black sea.
He’d never felt anything like that night, before or since. Their passion had resulted in a baby.
It had resulted in a wife.
Eduardo’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Callie, still sleeping as the car exited Central Park into the city streets of the exclusive Upper West Side.
You seduced my daughter, Walter Woodville had accused. The truth was that she had seduced Eduardo. With her innocence. With her warmth. With her fire.
But she was a liar. She’d hidden so much from him. He could never trust her again.
Only his baby mattered now. With her dark hair, she was his spitting image. Eduardo had known she was his child long before that morning’s paternity test confirmed it. But if Sami Woodville hadn’t called him two days ago out of the blue, his baby would be living in North Dakota right now. She’d be Brandon McLinn’s daughter.
Eduardo’s jaw clenched. Even if Callie was in love with another man, he could hardly believe she’d betrayed him so deeply. But he didn’t have to trust her. He had a private investigator on staff who could tell him everything he needed to know about Callie. He’d never be fooled by her again.
He would keep his friends close, his enemies closer and his wife the closest of all.
The sedan arrived at his twenty-floor building on West End Avenue. As Sanchez opened the door, Eduardo carefully, breathlessly, lifted his sleeping baby out of the car seat. He walked slowly so he didn’t wake her, cradling her head against his chest as the doorman held open the door. The baby was so tiny, he thought. So helpless and fragile. And he loved her. Love swelled his heart until it ached inside his ribs. He let himself love her as he’d never loved anyone.
His plump, gray-haired housekeeper, Mrs. McAuliffe, was waiting in the luxurious lobby. “The nursery is ready. Och, what a sweet babe!”
“Do you know how to hold a baby?” he demanded.
“Why, I’m insulted, Mr. Cruz! You know I raised four children of my own.”
“Here.” Gently he thrust the sleeping baby into her arms, watching anxiously. As the older woman cooed softly in admiration, Eduardo turned and raced back outside.
The September sun was still hot, pouring golden light through the white clouds. His driver was reaching for his wife’s door when Eduardo stopped him. “I’ll do it, Sanchez.”
“Of course, sir.”
Eduardo looked down at Callie through the car window. Her head had fallen back, her beautiful face now leaning against the leather seat. Dark, long eyelashes fluttered against her pale skin. She looked so young. So tired.
As he lifted her into his arms, she s
tirred but did not wake. Her eyelashes fluttered and she murmured something in her sleep, nestling her cheek against his chest as her wavy light brown hair fell back on his shoulder.
She weighed next to nothing, he thought. Looking down at his wife, his heart gave a strange thump. While Sanchez drove the car to the underground garage, Eduardo carried Callie inside. He took his private elevator to the top floor.
He’d closed on this two-story penthouse a week ago as an investment. The penthouse had been languishing on the market for two years with a thirty-six-million-dollar price tag before he’d bought it for a steal, at the fire sale price of twenty-seven million. He hadn’t intended to live here for long. But now … his plans were rapidly changing.
“I’ll take the baby to the nursery, sir,” his housekeeper said softly when he came out of the elevator. He nodded then carried his wife across the large, two-story foyer with its Brazilian hardwood floor in a patterned mosaic. Going up the sweeping stairs, he started down the hall toward the guest room.
Then he stopped.
The master bedroom would be better for Callie in every way. It was larger, with a huge en suite bathroom and a wall of windows overlooking the city and the Hudson River. Most importantly, it was adjacent to the study, which had been turned into the nursery. Shifting Callie’s weight in his arms, Eduardo turned back. Carrying her into his bedroom, he put her down on his king-size bed. Sí. It was better.
Callie shifted, murmuring in her sleep as she turned on his soft feather pillow with its thousand-thread-count Egyptian cotton pillowcase. Eduardo closed the heavy curtains around the windows, darkening the room. He covered her sleeping form with a blanket, then for a long moment, he looked down at her, listening to her steady, even breath.
He’d only meant their marriage to last three months. He hadn’t thought he could endure it for longer.
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