Callie looked up at him, blinking back tears. “You’re right,” she whispered. “I was so angry at her. But she didn’t do anything wrong.” She closed her eyes. “It was all me.”
Silence fell. When she opened her eyes, Eduardo’s forehead was furrowed, as if he couldn’t understand her. Their eyes met, and she felt that strange tugging at her heart. With an intake of breath, she turned away. “Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Her middle name can be Samantha.” Callie touched her baby’s plump, soft cheek. “Marisol Samantha Cruz.”
“I don’t believe it.” A ghost of a smile lifted the corners of Eduardo’s lips. “Are we in agreement? I can fill out the birth certificate?”
Looking up at him, she smiled back. “Yup.”
“Wonders never cease.” For a long moment, their eyes met in the soft light of the nursery, with their baby slumbering between them. Then clearing his throat, he glanced at his platinum watch. “It’s nearly ten. You must be starving.”
“Not really …” As if on cue, her stomach growled. “I guess I am.”
“I’ll make you something.”
“You? You’ll cook?” she said faintly.
She must have sounded dubious, because Eduardo smiled. “I am not completely helpless.”
“You must have changed a lot in the last nine months. The man I knew could barely find his own kitchen.” She shook her head with a snort. “I’m amazed you even survived without me.”
He looked at her.
“It wasn’t easy,” he said gruffly. Turning, he paused at the door. “Come down when you are ready.”
Callie stared at the empty doorway, bewildered at this friendlier mood between them. Looking down at her sleeping newborn, she rocked back and forth in the soft cushioned glider, cuddling her close. She gazed in wonder at her downy dark hair. Her daughter had Callie’s snub little nose and round face, with her father’s dark coloring and olive-colored skin. She would be a beauty. How could she not be, with such a father?
In all the years Callie worked for Eduardo, she’d never once seen him put someone else’s comfort above his own. But in the last two days, he’d asked her to marry him. He’d slept in a chair for two nights at the hospital. He’d brought her to his home. Turned his study into a nursery. He’d given Callie his bed while he himself was relegated to the guest room down the hall. He’d asked her to teach him how to swaddle their baby and change her tiny, doll-size diapers. Coldhearted billionaire tycoon Eduardo Cruz, changing a baby’s diaper? That was something she’d never imagined in a million years!
It won’t last, Callie told herself fiercely. When the novelty wore off, Eduardo would chafe at the responsibility and intimacy of family. He would crave the freedom of sixteen-hour workdays and endless one-night stands. He would return to the selfish, cold playboy he was at heart. Very soon—likely before the three months was even up—
he would divorce Callie, and be relieved to make his parental support of Marisol the distant, financial kind.
Once that happened, Callie and her baby would go back to North Dakota. To her family. To the people who loved her.
Or did they?
She swallowed. Her phone call to her family, just hours after the birth when she was still exhausted and in pain, had officially been a disaster. Callie tried to explain that she’d just had a baby and gotten married to a man they didn’t know except by reputation, and planned to live in New York for the foreseeable future. Her mother had just sobbed as if her heart was breaking. As for her father …
Her shoulders tightened. Her father never reacted well when his wife was crying. But he’d never spoken to Callie like that before—as if she were such a disappointment he didn’t even want to call her his daughter. As if he yearned to disown her.
An ache filled her throat. She’d never planned to get pregnant, but keeping her baby a secret had just made it a million times worse. And that phone call had changed something between them. She felt estranged from her family, and it was like half her heart was missing.
But she also felt angry. How could her family have turned on her like this? They were supposed to love her. Why couldn’t they see her side?
And her father had been so harsh to Eduardo. Callie still didn’t know exactly what he’d said. She just remembered how Eduardo’s expression had changed when they were talking on the phone, from conciliation to cold fury.
Walter Woodville had never liked the way Cruz Oil had swept into their town, bulldozing through the county with money and influence, luring young people from family farms with the promise of high-paying jobs. But Callie had made that initial dislike worse. Her cheeks burned as she recalled her bitter words about Eduardo after he’d fired her. Was it any wonder that stalwart, old-fashioned Walter, who’d married his high school sweetheart and still farmed land once owned by his grandfather, had been horrified by the idea of such a man knocking up his daughter, and worse—marrying her?
And as for Brandon …
Her cheeks reddened further with shame and regret. Brandon was certainly back in North Dakota by now, after driving across the country alone. She wondered what he’d told her parents. What he felt inside. Was he worried about her? Was he angry? Or worse—brokenhearted?
Amazing to think he was willing to marry you while you were pregnant by another man. He must be insanely in love with you.
Callie shook Eduardo’s words away. Brandon wasn’t in love with her. Friends just tried to help each other. But no—that was a cop-out. She swallowed. He’d been kind, and she’d taken advantage. She needed to call him and beg for forgiveness.