Rising Stars. Maisey Yates

screaming at each other? That wouldn’t help anyone, least of all my baby.”

      “Our baby,” he corrected, then bared his teeth in a smile. “Our prenuptial agreement will outline our divorce. We will agree from the beginning how it will end.”

      “Plan our divorce before we’re even wed? That seems so sad….”

      “Not sad. Civilized.” He lifted a dark eyebrow, rubbing the rough, dark edge of his jawline. He gave her a tight smile. “Since we are not in love, there will be no hard feelings when we part.”

      Three months. Callie swallowed. She tried to imagine what it would be like to live in Eduardo’s house. Even as his secretary, she’d never lived with him on such intimate terms. And though she was no longer the naive, trusting girl who’d fallen in love with him so stupidly, he still had such frightening power over her. Callie’s foolish, traitorous body yearned for him like a sugary, buttery cake that was impossibly bad for her but she couldn’t stop craving just the same.

      “And if I refuse?” she whispered. “If I get out of this car and flag a taxi back to Brandon?”

      His expression cooled.

      “If you are truly so selfish that you’d put your desire for love ahead of the best interests of our child, I will have no choice but to question your fitness as a mother, and challenge you for full custody.” She started to protest, but he cut her off calmly. “I have limitless funds and the best law firm in the city at my disposal. You will lose.”

      She felt another contraction and this time, the pain was so deep and sustained that she closed her eyes, bracing her body against it as she panted, “You’re threatening me?”

      “I’m telling you how it will be.”

      “We’re here, sir,” Sanchez, the driver, said from the front seat, as he pulled the sedan to the curb.

      Looking out her window, Callie saw the same courthouse where she’d gotten a marriage license yesterday with Brandon. The thought of deserting her best friend to marry Eduardo was insane. But she could either become Mrs. Eduardo Cruz for three months, living in the same household and sharing custody of their newborn, or she could possibly lose her child forever.

      “And … afterward …” she said haltingly, “how would we arrange custody?”

      Eduardo gave her a smile that didn’t meet his eyes. “Once you show that our child means more to you than some lover, and that you are a reasonable and concerned parent, I am sure we can work something out.” As Sanchez got out of the front seat and walked around to open the door, Eduardo’s voice turned hard. “You have thirty seconds to decide.”

      Shivering, she stared at him with her hands wrapped over her belly. She felt her baby moving inside her, and she was desperate to protect her. She glared at him, feeling trapped and frightened and furious all at once. “You’ve left me no choice.”

      The door opened behind Eduardo.

      “I knew you’d see reason,” he said sardonically. Climbing out, he turned back, holding out his hand. “Come, my bride.”

      For an instant, Callie was afraid to touch him—afraid of what it did to her. But as he waited, she reluctantly put her hand in his own. His hard, hot palm pressed against her skin, his larger fingers intertwined around hers. As he pulled her from the car to the sidewalk, she looked up at his face, remembering the first time she’d touched his hand.

      Callie Woodville? The powerful CEO of Cruz Oil had been visiting his outpost in the Bakken fields of North Dakota. Callie was the local office liaison, sent from the nearby town of Fern. He’d held out his hand, looking sleek and urbane in a black suit, with his helicopter still noisily winding down behind him. I’ve heard you run the entire office here, and do the work of four people. His sudden, gorgeous smile lit up his darkly handsome face. I could use an assistant like you in New York.

      She’d looked into the warmth of his dark eyes. Dazzled, she’d taken his outstretched hand. And that had been it. The thunderbolt she’d always prayed for. She’d loved him from that first moment. How she’d loved him …

      Now, with Eduardo’s hand still wrapped around hers, Callie was barely aware of people rushing by them on the busy New York sidewalk. The two of them were connected like the moon and the sun, as stars and comets streaked around them in the vastness of space. The two of them. Just like always.

      But his handsome face had changed over the last year. It was subtle. Perhaps no one else would have even noticed. But she saw the tighter set of his jaw. The deeper crinkle around his hard eyes. His high, angled cheekbones seemed chiseled out of stone, and so did his jawline, already dark with five o’clock shadow. At thirty-six, he was even more ruthless and powerful than she remembered. His masculine beauty was breathtaking. Looking up into his deep black eyes, Callie trembled. It would be too easy to fall under his spell again, and forget the way he demanded total devotion from others, while offering none in return.

      Eduardo’s expression darkened. Reaching down, he tucked a tendril of her wavy brown hair behind her ear. “You will be mine, Callie. Only mine.”

      A shudder went through her. She was helpless, lost in his gaze. Lost in his touch. Lost in her traitorous heart’s memory of how, for years, she’d lived for him, only for him.

      A cough behind her broke the spell, causing her to jump away. An unsmiling bald man in a plain blue suit stood behind her. She recognized John Bleekman, Eduardo’s chief attorney.

      “Hello, Miss Woodville,” he said expressionlessly.

      “Um. Hello,” she said, wondering why he was there.

      He turned to Eduardo, holding out a file. “I have it, sir.”

      Taking the file, Eduardo opened it and glanced over the papers for several minutes. “Good.” He handed it to Callie. “Sign.”

      “What is it?”

      “Our prenuptial agreement.”

      “What? So fast?”

      “I had Bleekman start drawing up the draft after I spoke with your sister this morning.”

      “But you didn’t even know if it was true about the baby–much less that you wanted to marry me!”

      “I always like to be prepared for every possibility.”

      “Yes.” She scowled. “To make sure you get your way.”

      “To mitigate risk.” He pushed a fountain pen into her hand. “Sign it. And we’ll go get our marriage license.”

      Callie looked through the thick stack of papers of the prenuptial agreement. She started to read the first paragraph. It would probably take an hour to read it all. Frowning, she thumbed through the pages uncertainly. She saw the amount of money he intended to give her as alimony and child support and looked up with a gasp. “Are you crazy? I don’t want your money!”

      “My child will grow up in a safe, secure, comfortable home. That means she must never worry about money. And neither can you.” He set his jaw, watching her with visible annoyance as she turned back to page two and continued reading through the document. “Do you intend to read every single word?”

      “Of course I do.” Lifting her head, she glared at him, even as pedestrians jostled them on the sidewalk. “I know you, Eduardo. I know how you operate—”

      Her voice choked off as another sharp pain hit her body, so intense her spine straightened as she nearly gasped aloud. The contractions were getting worse. Surely this wasn’t Braxton-Hicks. She was in labor. Real labor. The baby was on her way. Callie put one hand over her belly and exhaled through her teeth.

      “What’s wrong?”

      Eduardo’s voice had changed. Trying to hide the pain rolling through her in waves, she looked up.

      His handsome face was looking down at her with