Rising Stars. Maisey Yates

Handing out the ice creams, the man had whispered something in his wife’s ear as he wrapped his arm around her waist. Eduardo had watched as they left, getting back in their luxury car and disappearing down the road to their fairy-tale lives.

      “Who was that?” Eduardo had breathed.

      “The Duke and Duchess of Quixota. I recognize them from the papers,” the elderly shopkeeper had replied, looking equally awed. Then he turned to Eduardo with a frown. “But what are you doing here? I told your parents they’d get no more credit. What’s this?” Grabbing the neck of Eduardo’s threadbare, too-short jacket, he pulled out the three ice cream bars melting in his pocket. “You’re stealing?” he cried, his face harsh. “But I should have expected it, from a family like yours!”

      Humiliated and ashamed, Eduardo’s heart felt like it would burst, but his face was blank. At ten years old, he’d learned not to show his feelings from a mother who raged at him if he laughed, and a father who beat him if he cried.

      Scowling, the shopkeeper held up the ice cream bars. “Why?”

      Eduardo’s stomach growled. There was no food at home, but that wasn’t the reason. He’d been sent home from school early today for getting into a fight, but his father hadn’t cared about what had caused the fight. He’d just hit Eduardo across the face and kicked him from the house. He was too disabled—and too drunk—to do anything but lie on the couch and rage against his faithless wife. Eduardo’s mother, who worked as a barmaid in the next village, had been coming home less and less, and three days ago, she’d disappeared completely. The boys at school had taunted Eduardo. Not even your mother thinks you’re worth staying for.

      When he’d seen the Madrileños eating ice creams, Eduardo had had the confused thought that if he took some home, his family might love each other, too. ¡Idiota! Crushing, miserable fury filled him. He suddenly hated them—all of them.

      “Well?” the grocer demanded.

      “Keep it, then!” Reaching out a grubby hand, Eduardo knocked the ice cream bars to the floor. He’d turned and run out of the shop, running as fast as his legs could carry him, gasping as he ran for home.

      And it was then he’d found his father …

      Eduardo blinked. He looked around the comfort and luxury of his chauffeured, three-hundred-thousand-dollar car. His eyes were strangely wet as he looked down at his two-day-old baby, sleeping peacefully in her car seat as Sanchez drove them home from the hospital.

      Her childhood would be different.

      Different.

      Better.

      He’d never let the selfishness of adults destroy her innocent happiness. He would protect her at all costs. He would kill for her. Die for her. Do anything.

      Even be married to her mother.

      As the car drove north on Madison Avenue, Eduardo’s eyes looked past the baby to Callie on the other side. He’d once thought she was the only person he could really trust, but the joke was on him.

      She’d lied to his face for years.

      And not just to him. A few hours after the birth, Callie had called her family to tell them about her new marriage and new baby. White-faced and trembling, she’d refused to speak to her sister then started crying as she spoke to her mother. When Eduardo had heard her father yelling on the other line, leaving Callie in tearful, pitiful sobs, he’d finally snatched the phone away. He’d intended to calm the man down. But it hadn’t exactly turned out that way.

      He scowled, remembering Walter Woodville’s angry words. Setting his jaw, Eduardo pushed the memory aside. The man was clearly a tyrant. No wonder Callie had learned to keep things to herself. His eyes narrowed.

      Then he looked back at his sleeping daughter, and his heartbeat calmed. For the past two days he hadn’t been able to stop staring at her tiny fingers. Her plump cheeks. Her long eyelashes. The way she unconsciously pursed her tiny mouth to suckle, even while she slept.

      Eduardo took a deep breath.

      He had a child. A family of his own.

      He had a wife.

      He’d married Callie to give their baby a name, he reminded himself, then he scowled. And yet she was still nameless.

      He glared at his wife and bit out, “María.”

      Callie looked back sharply, her vivid green eyes glinting like emeralds sparkling in the sun. “I told you no. My baby will not be named after your Spanish dream wife. No way.”

      He exhaled, regretting he’d ever told his trusted secretary that he wished to marry María de Leondros, the young, beautiful Duchess of Alda. They’d only met socially once or twice, but marrying her would have been a satisfying way to prove how far he’d come since the days he’d stolen ice creams. “María is a common name,” he said evenly. “It was my great-aunt’s name.”

      “Bite me.”

      “You’re being jealous for no reason. I never even slept with María de Leondros!”

      “Lucky her.” She folded her arms, glaring at him. “My daughter’s name is Soleil.”

      Irritated, Eduardo set his jaw. Was it so strange that he wished to name his child after his Tía María, who’d brought him to New York, who’d worked three jobs to support him? María Cruz had encouraged him to see his high-school job pumping gas in Brooklyn not as a dead-end, but a place to begin. After she’d died, he’d gone from driving a gas truck, to owning a small gasoline distribution business, which he’d sold at twenty-four to become a wildcatter. His first big find had been in Alaska, followed by Oklahoma. Now Cruz Oil had drilling operations all over the world.

      Yet Callie stubbornly refused to be reasonable. Instead she pushed for the name Soleil, which meant nothing personal to anyone—she’d just found it in a baby name book and liked the sound! He set his jaw. “You are being irrational.”

      “No, you are,” she retorted. “You’re already giving her a surname, and I chose her name months ago. I’m not changing it because of your whim.”

      He lifted his eyebrows incredulously. “My whim?”

      “Soleil is pretty!”

      “Did it, too, come from your mother’s favorite telenovela?”

      “Go to hell,” she said, turning to stare out the window as they drove through the city. Silence fell in the backseat. Eduardo took a deep breath, clenching his hands into fists. His wife’s stubbornness exceeded common sense! Because of her, they’d had to leave the hospital without yet filing a birth certificate.

      His jaw set grimly, he turned back to her. “Callie—”

      But her eyes were closed, her cheek pressed against the car window. He heard the rhythm of her breathing, and realized to his shock that she’d fallen asleep in the middle of their argument.

      He looked at her beautiful face, against the backdrop of Central Park, the vivid green trees and lawn reminding him of her eyes. Her light brown hair fell in soft waves against her roses-and-cream complexion. As usual, she wore no makeup, but no ingénue on Broadway could hold a candle to her natural beauty. She wore the baggy knit pants and long-sleeved T-shirt his staff had brought to the hospital, but he knew the hidden curves of her generous figure would put any scrawny swimsuit model to shame.

      For months he’d tried not to remember her beauty, but being this close to her, the reality overwhelmed him. His wife was the most desirable woman on earth. Even with those dark hollows beneath her eyes.

      A sharp edge rose in his throat. Turning, he looked out at the brilliant dappled early evening light glowing gold through the trees. Callie had given birth to their child without anesthesia. He still couldn’t comprehend that kind of bravery, that kind of strength. For the last two nights, as he’d slept in a chair beside her bed, Callie had barely slept at