Sami, you don’t understand –
Shut up! Even if your old boss is a jerk, it’s his baby and he deserves to know! I won’t let you ruin so many lives with your selfishness!
Callie had been shocked, but she’d never once thought Sami would go through with her threat. Her baby sister adored her. She’d trailed after Callie and Brandon every day for years with hero worship in her eyes. She might be angry, but she’d certainly never betray her. Or so she’d thought.
She’d been wrong.
“Are you?” Eduardo demanded harshly.
Callie felt another hard contraction. She tried to breathe through it, but the childbirth classes she’d attended with Brandon seemed useless. The fake contractions, which were supposed to get her body ready for eventual labor weeks in the future, were getting stronger.
“Very well. Do not answer,” Eduardo said coldly. “I would not believe a word from your lying mouth, in any case. But your body …” He stroked her cheek, and an electric current coursed through her. Callie looked up with a gasp, her lips parted. “Your body won’t lie to me.”
He removed the bouquet of wildflowers from her unresisting hand and dropped it to the ground. Taking both her hands in his own, palm to palm, he gently lifted her to her feet.
Callie stood before him on the sidewalk, shaking and vulnerable and clearly pregnant in an ugly white wedding dress. Closing her eyes, she waited for the explosion.
But when he spoke, his voice was cool. “So it is true. You are pregnant.” He paused. “Who is the father?”
Her eyes flew open. “What?” she stammered.
“Is it me? Or McLinn?”
“How can you ask …?” She faltered, blushing. “You know I was a virgin when we … when we …”
“I thought you were, though I wondered later if I’d been deceived.” He set his jaw. “Perhaps you were saving yourself for your wedding night, and the day after we made love, you went home to your fiancé, and lured him into bed. Perhaps in a fit of remorse, or perhaps to hide what you’d done in case there was a child.”
“How can you even say that?” she gasped. “How can you think I’d do something so disgusting—so low?”
“Is the child is mine? Or is it McLinn’s?” His gaze was like ice. His sensual lips twisted. “Or do you not know?”
Her heart wrenched.
“Why are you trying to hurt me?” She shook her head. “Brandon is my friend. Just my friend.”
“You’ve been living with him for a year. Do you expect me to believe he slept on the couch for all that time?”
“We took turns!”
“You are lying! He is marrying you!”
“Out of kindness, nothing more!”
He gave a harsh laugh. “Por supuesto,” he mocked, folding his arms. “That is why men marry. To be kind.”
She stepped back from him. Her throat throbbed with anguish. “My parents don’t know I’m pregnant. They think I’ve just given up the job hunt and decided to move home.” Her eyes burned as she shook her head fiercely. “I can’t go back there as an unwed mother. My parents would never live it down. And Brandon is the best man on earth. He—”
“I don’t give a damn about him. Or you. I care about one question. Is. This. Baby. Mine?”
Callie took a deep breath. “Please don’t,” she whispered. She despised the pleading note in her voice but couldn’t stop herself. “Don’t make me give you an answer you don’t want. Let me give her a home. A family.”
“Her?”
She could have kicked herself. Reluctantly she looked at him. “I’m having a baby girl.”
He exhaled, setting his jaw. “A girl.”
“It doesn’t matter! You don’t want to be tied to me. You’ve made that clear! She’s nothing to you, any more than I am. You must forget you ever saw me—”