LITMIR.BIZ

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raced around the SUV and opened her door. Gabriel held out his hand, and his dark eyes softened as he looked down at her. She placed her hand in his, and felt the same shiver of love and longing that she had the very first time she’d touched his hand, in the days when she was only his secretary.

      After helping her from the SUV—it wasn’t as easy as it used to be—he closed the door behind her. He followed her constantly, anxiously, always concerned about her safety and comfort. It might have been irritating, if it wasn’t so adorable.

      “I can close my own door, you know,” she observed.

      He stroked her cheek, looking down at her fiercely. “I have a lot to make up for. I want to take care of you.”

      Glancing at the sweeping steps that led to the front door, she lifted her eyebrow wickedly. “Want to carry me up the stairs?”

      Grabbing her lapel, he pulled her against his dark wool coat. “Absolutely,” he whispered, nuzzling her hair. He gave her a sensual smile. “Especially since the next flight of stairs leads straight to our bedroom.”

      Lowering his head to hers, he kissed her.

      His lips were hot and soft against her own, and a contented sigh came from the back of Laura’s throat. As he held her, a cold wind blew in from the north around them, scattering the fallen leaves and whispering of the deep frost that would soon come to the great north woods. But Laura felt warm down to her toes.

      “You’re a furnace,” Gabriel said with a laugh as he pulled away. Then he smiled. “I think the baby is glad to be home.”

      “So am I,” she said, then laughed. “For one thing, you won’t be trying to throw yourself in front of trucks, trying to protect me on the crosswalk.”

      “Fifth Avenue is insane,” he muttered.

      “Yeah, all those crazed tourists and limo drivers,” she teased. Turning, she started to walk toward the front steps. She was excited to see Robby, after his first overnight apart from them. He’d had two loving babysitters fighting over him, Grandma Ruth and nanny Maria. “Thanks for a lovely night. It was nice.”

      “Yeah.” Lifting a dark eyebrow, he grinned wickedly, clearly remembering their time alone together in front of the fire last night.

      She elbowed him in the ribs. “I meant with the girls.”

      “Right.” He cleared his throat. “Your sisters seem to be settling well. It’s the first time I’ve seen them since they started college.”

      “You’re not in New York very much these days,” she teased.

      “I have better things to do than work,” he growled. “Like make love to my beautiful wife.” Grabbing her again by the lapels of her warm camel-colored coat, he kissed her again, long and hard, before she pulled away.

      “You are insatiable!”

      He gave a dark, wicked grin. “I know.”

      A flash of heat went through her. After they’d married that blustery day in early March, he’d made love to her without protection for the first time. The sensation was so new to him that they hadn’t left the bed for a full week after their wedding. In some ways, Laura thought, she’d been his first, just as he’d been hers. And they’d gotten pregnant on their honeymoon.

      Laura put a hand on her jutting belly. Their baby, a little girl, was due in just a few weeks.

      “Thanks for moving up here,” she whispered. “I am so happy to be close to my family.”

      His eyes met hers. “So am I. And I have you to thank for that.”

      Maybe it was pregnancy hormones, but Laura still felt choked up every time she thought of the three girls now living in the same city, all going to college. Two of them were her sisters. Brainy Hattie had transferred to Columbia University, and eighteen-year-old Margaret had opted for NYU.

      But the greatest miracle of all—Gabriel’s young niece, Lola, was now at Barnard.

      Last spring, shortly after Laura had found out she was pregnant, she had tracked down Izadora, Lola’s mother, and invited their family to come up for a weekend visit to New Hampshire in the private jet. To Gabriel’s shock, they’d accepted.

      After twenty years, Gabriel had finally made peace with Izadora and met her American husband, a restaurant owner in Miami. Gabriel had hugged his young niece for the first time since she was a baby. And he’d convinced Izadora to allow him to create a trust fund for Lola. “It’s what Guilherme would have wanted,” he’d said gravely, and put like that, how could Izadora refuse? Lola was now at Barnard College studying art.

      “All this family around us.” Wiping away her tears with a laugh, Laura shook her head and teased, “And you paying for three students at college already. Robby will probably want med school. And now this little one. Are you sure you’re ready for more?”

      Gabriel put his hands on her swelling belly beneath her long T-shirt. At nearly nine months along, she could no longer button her wool coat. Half the time she was too hot to wear it, anyway. “Just a few weeks now,” he whispered. Dropping to one knee, he impulsively kissed her belly.

      “Gabriel!” she gasped with a laugh, glancing up at the big windows of the house.

      Her husband looked up at her. His eyes glowed with tenderness and love. “I’ll be here this time, querida,” he said in a low voice. “Every step of the way.”

      “I know,” she said, her throat choking with tears of joy. Tugging him to his feet, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. And as the cold wind blew, carrying dry leaves down their long driveway, she felt only warmth and love in the fire of their embrace.

      And Laura knew two things. The fire between them would always last. And second, that they had an excellent chance of filling all forty rooms.

To Love, Honour and Betray

      To my husband.

      Thanks for Europe.

      Thanks even more for home.

      Thanks for making all my dreams come true

      CHAPTER ONE

      CALLIE WOODVILLE had dreamed of her wedding day since she was a little girl.

      When she was seven, she placed a long white towel on her head and walked down an imaginary aisle in her father’s barn, surrounded by teddy bears as guests and with her baby sister toddling behind her, chewing on flower petals from a basket.

      At seventeen, as a plump, bookish wallflower with big glasses and clothes hand-sewn by her loving but sadly out-of-date mother, Callie was mocked and ignored by the boys at her rural high school. She told herself she didn’t care. She went to prom with her best friend instead, an equally nerdy boy from a neighboring farm. But Callie dreamed of the day she would finally meet the darkly handsome man she could love. She knew that somewhere out there in the wide world, he waited for her, this man who would wake her with the sensual power of his kiss.

      Then, when she was twenty-four, that man had come for her.

      Her ruthless billionaire boss had kissed her. Seduced her. He’d taken her virginity, as he’d already taken her heart, and for one perfect night she was lost in passion and magic. Waking up in his arms on Christmas morning, in the luxurious bedroom of his New York brownstone, Callie thought she might die of pure happiness. For that one perfect night, the world was a magical place where dreams came true, as long as your heart was pure and you truly believed.

      One magical, heartbreaking night.

      Now, eight and a half months later, Callie sat on the stoop outside her former apartment on a leafy, quiet street in the West Village. The sky was dark, threatening rain, and though it was early September it was hot and muggy. But her cleaned-out apartment felt almost ghostly in its emptiness, so she’d come outside to wait with the suitcases.

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