To Love, Honor and Betray(6)

It was just Callie he would sweep aside and discard.

And that was what frightened her. With Eduardo Cruz’s wealth and power, if he took her to court to battle for full custody, there was no question who would win.

His dark eyes cut her to the bone. “You should have told me the day you realized you were pregnant.”

She looked up at him, her heart twisting beneath the weight of guilt and regret and the grief of broken love. “How could I,” she whispered, “after you abandoned me?”

His eyes widened. Then he glowered at her, his expression merciless. “You are clever and resourceful. You could have found a way to contact me. But you did not. You tried to hide her, as you hide everything.”

She felt another sharp pain as her belly tightened. “And now I’ve told you the truth, will you try to take her from me?”

His jaw tightened. Then a smile curled his lips. Reaching out his hand, he stroked her cheek. A sizzle of electricity spun across her skin, vibrating down her spine, and she was filled with longing and desire, irrepressible need like fire. All her traitorous body wanted to do, even now, was turn toward him like a flower toward the sun.

“You will be punished, querida,” he said softly. “Oh, yes.”

Callie stared up at him, breathless beneath his touch, trapped beneath the dark force of his gaze. Then she exhaled when she saw a cheap two-door hatchback driving up her street. The cavalry had come to save her. She nearly sobbed with relief. “Brandon!”

Eduardo whipped around. A low, guttural word came from his lips, a word in Spanish she’d only heard him use when he’d just lost a huge deal, or the time a brokenhearted starlet had tried to break into his bedroom. Turning back, he grabbed Callie’s handbag, then her arm. “Come with me.”

Before she even knew what was happening, he’d pulled her across the sidewalk and opened the back door to his black sedan. “Start the engine,” he ordered his driver.

Realizing his intent, she desperately tried to rip her arm away. “Let me go!”

But Eduardo’s grip was like steel. He shoved her into the backseat and climbed in beside her, crowding her with his massive body that seemed far too big for the space.

Eduardo leaned over her, his eyes black with fury as he gripped her wrists. “I’m not giving you another chance to hide my baby.”

Callie breathed in the woodsy, exotic scent of his cologne, overwhelmed by his closeness, by the sensation of his thigh pressed against hers. It was just as she’d dreamed about in the years she’d worked for him, and unwillingly dreamed every night in all the months since he’d fired her. Their faces were inches apart. Callie’s heart thumped in her chest. She felt lost in a dream.#p#分页标题#e#

Then Eduardo closed the door with a bang behind him.

“Drive,” he told his chauffeur tersely.

“No!” With an intake of breath, she whirled around in the backseat. Her last vision through the back window was of Brandon standing by the rental car with his door ajar, staring after her with his black-framed glasses askew, his expression anguished. Beside him, their two old suitcases still sat forlornly on the curb.

Their car turned the corner, and Brandon was gone. Callie’s body felt tight with pain that seemed to emanate white-hot from her heart as she turned back to Eduardo with a choked sob. “Take me back. Please.”

His eyes were merciless. “No.”

“You’ve kidnapped me!”

“Call it what you want.”

“You can’t keep me against my will!”

“Can’t I?” he said softly.

She shivered at the look in his eyes. He turned away as if bored, but she saw the hard set of his jaw, heard the clipped tension of his voice as he said coldly, “You will remain with me until the matter of the baby is resolved.”

“So I’m your prisoner?”

“Until my paternal rights are formalized—yes.”

“So you don’t believe I’m a liar after all,” Callie said bitterly.

“Not about the baby. But there are all kinds of lying. You lie with silence. I wonder,” he said blandly, “if there’s anything else you’ve been hiding from me? My perfect, loyal secretary.”

She wrapped her arms over her belly, which felt hard and tight beneath the polyester blend of her wedding dress. “What do you know about loyalty? You’ve never been loyal to anyone but yourself!”

“I was loyal to you, Callie,” he said in a low voice. “Once.”

Staring into his fathomless dark eyes, she was suddenly lost in memories of their days together, in the office, sharing sushi at midnight, traveling the world on his private jet.