To Love, Honor and Betray(35)

We have eight bedrooms. I want to fill them.

What would it be like, Callie thought, to have a whole houseful of babies like this? To have a large family? An adoring husband?

Slowly her eyes looked around the cheerful nursery. It was warm and luxurious, but she would have liked to create her baby’s nursery herself, even with just a bucket of paint, a sewing machine and her own two hands—not paying someone else to do it, but doing it herself as a labor of love. Next time, she promised herself. Then stopped.

Next time.

Could she really stay married to Eduardo, knowing he would never love her? He knew how to make love … oh, yes. She shivered, closing her eyes as she remembered how he’d caressed her last night. Remembered the feel of his body against hers. The husky sound of his voice as he’d said, You belong to me.

He knew how to make love.

But she’d never seen him truly care for anyone. Except their baby.

Was their lust, and mutual care for their child, enough to sustain a marriage when their values were so different?

After her baby nursed back to sleep, Callie left her on her back in the oval-shaped crib, careful not to wake her. She’d likely sleep another four hours now, or maybe more. Every night, she slept a little longer. Her baby had become an excellent sleeper.

And maybe she would be now, too. Closing the nursery door softly behind her, Callie smiled. The last few hours, after falling asleep in Eduardo’s arms, had been the best sleep she’d had all year.

He wanted her to be his wife forever. He wanted them to be a family. And she’d loved him for years. Even when she’d hated him, it had been the hurt of a woman who’d been rejected from the person she loved most.

Maybe it could work. Maybe it could be enough.

Or maybe, somehow, he would grow to love her, as she loved him. She closed her eyes, hugging herself at the thought. If there was even the slightest chance of him loving her someday, she would have married him at once. Remembering, she bleakly opened her eyes. No wonder Eduardo had called her naive and ridiculously sentimental.

Where was he, anyway? She looked around her dark, empty bedroom. Where could he be at this time of the night?

Maybe he’d gone to the kitchen for a snack.

Pulling on a soft blue chenille robe, she went downstairs, but the kitchen was dark and empty. Walking past the wall of windows with its magnificent view of the city, she went down the hall to his home office, then to the theater room, then even past Mrs. McAuliffe’s suite. She could hear the older woman’s soft snoring muffled through the door. Puzzled, Callie finally went back upstairs.

Glancing in the empty guest rooms, she had just decided to phone their bodyguard in his separate apartment downstairs when she heard Eduardo’s voice in the guest room.#p#分页标题#e#

“Nothing has changed.” His voice was the smooth, arrogant tone she remembered. “Nothing.”

With an intake of breath, she pulled back from the doorway, leaning against the wall of the dark hallway with one hand over her mouth and the other over her heart.

“Don’t call here again,” he growled, and hung up.

A little squeak escaped her lips. Who was Eduardo talking to? An old lover? Was that why he’d snuck out of bed to talk to someone in private, so his wife couldn’t hear? Even as Callie tried to tell herself that she was overreacting, that he could be talking to anyone, her heart was gripped with fear.

There has been no other woman since the night you were in my bed. Do you understand what I am telling you? No other woman.

She exhaled as the vise grip on her heart loosened. Eduardo was not a liar. If anything, he was cruelly honest. As his secretary, she’d seen him callously dispose of one lover after another, plainly telling them to their faces that he was bored with them, or that he had absolutely no intention of being faithful. He was not a liar.

But then, he’d never had to lie. He’d never been married before.

“What are you doing awake?”

With an intake of breath, she saw him in the doorway, looking down at her with dark eyes. “Um …” Her fingers fidgeted with the belt of her blue chenille robe. “I got up to feed Marisol and you were gone.”

“I didn’t want to wake you.” His handsome face was impassive. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” She bit her lip, feeling guilty that she’d slept so well. “Is something wrong? Was I snoring, or …”

He gave a low laugh then shook his head soberly. “I just don’t sleep well with other people in my bed. I have never managed it.”

She frowned. “Never?”

“Have you ever heard of me letting a woman sleep over?”