LITMIR.BIZ

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your way, doesn’t it?” she grumbled.

      Leaning over the hospital bed, he kissed her sweaty forehead. “No,” he said in a low voice. “But this time it will.” He turned back to the judge. “We are ready.”

      “The doctor will be here any second,” the nurse warned.

      “I’ll do the express version, then.” The judge stood in front of the beeping, flashing displays that monitored both Callie’s heart rate and the baby’s, and gave the plump nurse a wink. “Will you be my witness?”

      “All right,” the nurse said with a girlish blush. “But make it quick.”

      “Quicker ‘n quick. So. We’re gathered here in this hospital room to marry this man and this woman.” The judge peered down at Callie’s huge belly. “And none too soon, I’d say …”

      “Just get on with it, Leland,” Eduardo snapped.

      “Do you, Eduardo Jorge Cruz, take this woman—what’s your name, my dear?”

      “It’s Calliope,” Eduardo answered for her through clenched teeth. “Calliope Marlena Woodville.”

      “Is it really?” The judge looked at her sympathetically through wire-rimmed glasses. “How very unfortunate for you.”

      “From my mother’s—favorite soap opera,” she panted.

      “Right. So do you, Eduardo, take this woman, Calliope Marlena Woodville, to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

      “I do.”

      Callie felt the pain starting to build again, and grabbed Eduardo’s shirt. Looking at her, he put his hand over hers, then said angrily to the judge, “Hurry, damn you!”

      “And do you, Calliope Woodville, promise to love Eduardo Jorge Cruz, forsaking all others, till death do you part?”

      Eduardo looked down at her with his dark eyes. Once, this had been all Callie ever wanted, to promise her love and fidelity to him forever. And now it was happening. She was promising to love him forever, though she knew it was a lie.

      It was a lie, wasn’t it?

      “Callie?” Eduardo said in a low voice.

      “I do,” she choked out.

      Eduardo exhaled. Had he wondered, for a brief instant, if she might refuse? No, impossible. He was too arrogant, too sure of his control over women, to ever doubt….

      “I see you already have the ring,” the judge said, then blinked in surprise at the tiny diamond on Callie’s hand. “I must say, Eduardo,” he murmured, “that’s unusually restrained for you.”

      She was still wearing Brandon’s engagement ring! Horrified, Callie tried to pull it off her swollen finger, but it was stuck. “I’m sorry—I … forgot …”

      Without a word, Eduardo eased the ring from her finger and tossed it in the trash. “I will buy you a ring,” he said flatly. “One worthy of my wife.”

      “Don’t worry.” She gave him a weak smile as she felt the pain start to build again. She panted, “Our marriage will be so short it really doesn’t matter …”

      “That’s the spirit,” the judge said jovially. “Ring can come later. Or not. Well, kids, we’ll just skip through and assume the part about forsaking all others and staying together for better or worse. And since with Eduardo I already know it’ll be for richer, not poorer, I reckon that’s about it.”

      Callie stared at the judge, then Eduardo. The wedding ceremony had passed by in a flash. Just a few words spoken, and two lives—soon, three—forever changed. How could something so life-changing be so fast?

      The judge gave them a big grin. “You may now kiss the bride.”

      She nearly gasped. Kiss? She’d forgotten that part! He was going to kiss her?

      Eduardo turned to her. Their eyes met. He slowly leaned over the bed, and for an instant, all the pain fled Callie’s body in a breathless flash.

      When his mouth was an inch from hers, he hesitated. She could feel the warmth of his breath against her skin, causing prickles up and down the length of her body.

      Then he lowered his lips to hers.

      Eduardo kissed her, and prickles turned to spiraling electricity, sizzling her nerves like a current sparking up and down her body. His lips were hot and soft, in pledge of their promise, inflaming her senses from within. It lasted only a brief moment, but when he pulled away, Callie’s hands were shaking, and not from pain.

      “Congratulations, you crazy kids,” the justice said, beaming at them. “You’re married.”

      Married. Callie’s body flashed cold over the magnitude of what she’d just done. She’d married Eduardo. She was his wife.

      Just for three months, she reminded herself desperately. The prenuptial agreement had been clear about the timetable. At least in the paragraphs she’d skimmed before the contraction had hit her … She tensed as another contraction hit, burning through her like wildfire. She gasped, biting back a cry as her doctor came in, a brown-haired man in his late fifties. Glancing at the monitors, he checked her. Then he smiled. “Seems you’re good at this, especially for a first-time mother. All right, Callie. Time to push.”

      Her eyes went wide as fear ripped through her. Instinctively she reached for Eduardo’s hand, looking up at him with pleading eyes.

      Eduardo took both her hands in his. “Callie, I’m here.” His voice was deep and calm as his dark eyes looked straight into hers. “I’m right here.”

      Panting, she focused only on his black eyes, letting herself be drawn into them. As she started to push, bringing her baby into the world, she’d never felt any pain so deep. She gripped her new husband’s hands so tightly she thought she’d break his bones, but Eduardo never flinched, not once. He never left her. As she held on to him for dear life, nurses moving around them at lightning speed, monitors beeping, she focused through her tears on his single, blurry image. Eduardo was her one solid, immovable focal point.

      He never looked away.

      He never backed down.

      He never left her.

      And in the end, the pain was worth it.

      A healthy seven-pound-eight-ounce baby girl was finally placed in Callie’s arms. She looked down at her daughter in amazement, at the sweetest weight she’d ever known. Cuddled against her chest, the baby blinked up at her sleepily.

      Leaning over them, Eduardo kissed Callie’s sweaty forehead, then their baby’s. For a long, perfect moment, as medical personnel bustled around them, the newly married couple sat together on the bed with their brand-new baby.

      “Thank you, Callie, for the greatest gift of my life,” Eduardo said softly, stroking the baby’s cheek. He looked up, and his dark, luminous eyes pierced her soul. “A family.”

      CHAPTER THREE

      EDUARDO CRUZ had always known he’d have a family different from the one he’d grown up in. Different.

      Better.

      His home would have the joyous chaos of many children, instead of a lonely, solitary existence. His children would have comfort and security, with plenty of food and money. And most of all: his children would have two parents, neither of whom would be selfish enough to abandon their children.

      The first time Eduardo had seen a truly happy family, he’d been ten, hungrily trolling the aisles of a tiny grocer’s shop in his poor village in southern Spain. A gleaming black sedan had pulled up on the dusty road, and a wealthy, distinguished-looking man had entered the shop, followed by his wife and children. As the man asked the shopkeeper for directions to Madrid, Eduardo watched the beautifully dressed woman

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