She stared at him then her shoulders sagged. “I was afraid to tell you.” She swallowed. “You’re so unreasonable in your demand for absolute loyalty.”
His mouth was a grim line. “So you lied.”
“I never invited him to move in! He … he surprised me.” After Callie had called Brandon in North Dakota to tell him about the apartment her generous boss had just leased for her, he’d shown up on her doorstep the next day, telling her he was worried about her in the big city. “He missed me. He was going to get his own place, but then he couldn’t find a job….”
“Right,” Eduardo said sardonically. “A real man finds a job to support his woman. He doesn’t live off her severance package.”
She gasped at the insult. “He’s not like that!” Throughout her pregnancy, Brandon had cooked, cleaned, rubbed her swollen feet, held her hand at the doctor’s office. All the things that she’d have wanted her baby’s real father to do, if he’d been anyone besides Eduardo. She scowled. “In case you haven’t noticed, there aren’t many jobs in New York for farmers!”
“So why stay in New York?”
Soft, lazy raindrops fell around them, pattering against the hot sidewalk. “I wanted to stay. I hoped I would find a job.”
“And so you have. As a farmer’s wife.”
“What do you want from me? Why did you come—just to insult me?”
“Oh, didn’t I mention why?” His eyes were cold and black. “Your sister called me this morning.”
A chill went through her.
“Sami—called you?” Callie’s conversation with her sister last night had ended badly. But Sami wouldn’t betray her. She wouldn’t … would she? She licked her suddenly dry lips. “Um. What did she say?”#p#分页标题#e#
“Two very interesting things that I could hardly believe.” Eduardo took a step closer to her on the stoop and said softly, “But clearly one of them is true. You’re getting married today.”
Her body started to shake. “So?”
“You admit it?”
“I’m wearing a wedding gown. I can’t exactly deny it. But how does that affect you?” Her lips trembled as she tried to shape them into a mocking smile. “Mad because you weren’t invited?”
“You sound nervous.” He slowly walked a semicircle around the end of the stoop. “Is there something you are keeping from me, Callie? Some secret?” He moved closer. “Some lie?”
She felt a contraction across her body, her belly tightening. Braxton-Hicks contractions, caused by stress, she told herself. Fake labor, the same that had sent her racing to the hospital last week, only to have the nurses sigh and send her home. But it hurt. One hand went over her belly; the other went to her lower back as she panted, “What could I possibly have to hide?”
“I already know you’re a liar.” A beam of golden light escaped the gray clouds and caressed his handsome face, leaving dark shadows beneath his cheekbones and jawline as he said softly, “But how deep do your lies go?”
The wilted bouquet of wildflowers nearly fell from her numb fingers. She gripped them more tightly in her shaking hands. “Please,” she whispered. “Don’t ruin it.”
“Ruin—what—exactly?”
Her teeth chattered. “My … my …” My life. And my baby’s life. “My wedding day.”
“Ah, yes. Your wedding day. I know how you used to dream about it.” He looked down at her. “So tell me. Is it everything you hoped it would be?”
She felt painfully conscious of the used wedding dress, several sizes too large, with a lace and polyester bodice that kept sliding off one shoulder. She looked down at the wilting flowers, at the two shabby suitcases behind her.
“Yes,” she said in a small voice.
“Where is your family? Where are your friends?”
“We’re getting married at City Hall.” She lifted her chin defiantly, pushing aside the sudden desire to cry. “We’re eloping. It’s romantic.”
“Ah. Of course.” He showed his teeth in a smile. “The wedding would not matter to you and McLinn, would it, as long as you have your honeymoon.”
Honeymoon? She and Brandon planned to break up their drive on a pull-out sofa at his cousin’s house in Wisconsin. Passion was nonexistent between them—she thought of Brandon like a brother. But she could hardly admit to Eduardo that there was only one man on earth she’d ever wanted to kiss, only one man she’d ever dreamed about: the man glaring cold daggers at her right now. “My honeymoon is none of your business.”