Rising Stars. Maisey Yates

my baby,” Callie had whispered, her face pale with exhaustion. “She needs me.”

      Looking at Callie now, asleep with her face pressed against the window, Eduardo was forced to acknowledge feelings he’d never thought he’d feel for her again.

      Admiration. Appreciation. Respect.

      Things she’d clearly never felt for him.

      “I’ve heard all about you, Eduardo Cruz.” Walter Woodville had hissed over the phone two days ago. “Do you expect me to be grateful to you for doing the honorable thing and marrying my daughter?”

      Eduardo knew Callie’s family meant everything to her, so he’d contained his temper. “Mr. Woodville, I understand your feelings, but surely you can see …”

      “Understand? Understand? You seduced my daughter. You used her and tossed her aside.” Walter Woodville’s voice was sodden with anger and grief. “And when you found out she was pregnant, you weren’t even man enough to come and ask me for her hand. You just selfishly took her. You stole my daughter.”

      Those particular words ripped through Eduardo like a blade. Then rage built through him in turn. “We never expected it to happen, but I have taken responsibility. I will provide for both Callie and the child—”

      “Responsibility,” Walter spat out. “All you can offer is money. You might own half our town, but I know the kind of man you really are.” The old man’s voice caught, then hardened. “You’ll never be a decent husband or father, and you know it. If you’re even half a man, you’ll send her and the baby home to people who are capable of loving them.”

      Then to Eduardo’s shock, the man had hung up, leaving him standing in the hospital room, staring at his phone, wide-eyed with rage. No one spoke to him like that—well, no one except Callie.

      But the old man wasn’t afraid of him. He knew Eduardo’s faults and flaws. And there could be only one person who’d told him.

      Funny to think how he’d once trusted her. He’d wanted her in his bed almost from the start, but he’d needed Callie Woodville so much in his office, in his life, that he’d forbidden himself to ever act on his desire.

      Until last Christmas Eve.

      In a lavish, gilded ballroom of a Midtown hotel, Eduardo had found himself stone-cold sober at his own Christmas party, surrounded by Cruz Oil’s vice presidents and board members and their trophy wives. The men in tuxedos, the women dripping diamonds and furs, had danced and drunk the spiked eggnog, alternatively boasting about the latest promising data in Colombia or gleefully discussing the expensive toys they planned to buy with their next stock bonuses.

      Eduardo had watched them. He should have been in his element. Instead he’d felt lost. Disconnected.

      He had everything he’d ever wanted. He controlled everything; he was vulnerable to no one. He’d thought being strong and powerful and rich would make him content, or at least, impervious to pain. Instead he just felt … alone.

      Then he saw her on the other side of the ballroom.

      Callie wore a simple, modest sheath dress. She stopped, her emerald eyes wide, and a flash went through him like fire.

      In this cavernous ballroom, filled with tinsel and champagne and silvery lights, nothing was warm. Nothing was real. Nothing mattered.

      Except her.

      “Excuse me.” Shoving his untasted glass of mulled wine into his CFO’s hands, he’d walked straight through the crowd. Without a word, he’d taken Callie’s hand. He’d pulled her out of the ballroom, and she didn’t resist as he led her out into the white, icy winter night. Not waiting for his limo, he’d hailed a taxi to Bank Street, where he’d carried her to his bed. There, amid the breathless hush of midnight, he’d made love to her. He’d taken her virginity. He’d held her tight, so tight, as if she were a life raft that might save him from a devouring black sea.

      He’d never felt anything like that night, before or since. Their passion had resulted in a baby.

      It had resulted in a wife.

      Eduardo’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Callie, still sleeping as the car exited Central Park into the city streets of the exclusive Upper West Side.

      You seduced my daughter, Walter Woodville had accused. The truth was that she had seduced Eduardo. With her innocence. With her warmth. With her fire.

      But she was a liar. She’d hidden so much from him. He could never trust her again.

      Only his baby mattered now. With her dark hair, she was his spitting image. Eduardo had known she was his child long before that morning’s paternity test confirmed it. But if Sami Woodville hadn’t called him two days ago out of the blue, his baby would be living in North Dakota right now. She’d be Brandon McLinn’s daughter.

      Eduardo’s jaw clenched. Even if Callie was in love with another man, he could hardly believe she’d betrayed him so deeply. But he didn’t have to trust her. He had a private investigator on staff who could tell him everything he needed to know about Callie. He’d never be fooled by her again.

      He would keep his friends close, his enemies closer and his wife the closest of all.

      The sedan arrived at his twenty-floor building on West End Avenue. As Sanchez opened the door, Eduardo carefully, breathlessly, lifted his sleeping baby out of the car seat. He walked slowly so he didn’t wake her, cradling her head against his chest as the doorman held open the door. The baby was so tiny, he thought. So helpless and fragile. And he loved her. Love swelled his heart until it ached inside his ribs. He let himself love her as he’d never loved anyone.

      His plump, gray-haired housekeeper, Mrs. McAuliffe, was waiting in the luxurious lobby. “The nursery is ready. Och, what a sweet babe!”

      “Do you know how to hold a baby?” he demanded.

      “Why, I’m insulted, Mr. Cruz! You know I raised four children of my own.”

      “Here.” Gently he thrust the sleeping baby into her arms, watching anxiously. As the older woman cooed softly in admiration, Eduardo turned and raced back outside.

      The September sun was still hot, pouring golden light through the white clouds. His driver was reaching for his wife’s door when Eduardo stopped him. “I’ll do it, Sanchez.”

      “Of course, sir.”

      Eduardo looked down at Callie through the car window. Her head had fallen back, her beautiful face now leaning against the leather seat. Dark, long eyelashes fluttered against her pale skin. She looked so young. So tired.

      As he lifted her into his arms, she stirred but did not wake. Her eyelashes fluttered and she murmured something in her sleep, nestling her cheek against his chest as her wavy light brown hair fell back on his shoulder.

      She weighed next to nothing, he thought. Looking down at his wife, his heart gave a strange thump. While Sanchez drove the car to the underground garage, Eduardo carried Callie inside. He took his private elevator to the top floor.

      He’d closed on this two-story penthouse a week ago as an investment. The penthouse had been languishing on the market for two years with a thirty-six-million-dollar price tag before he’d bought it for a steal, at the fire sale price of twenty-seven million. He hadn’t intended to live here for long. But now … his plans were rapidly changing.

      “I’ll take the baby to the nursery, sir,” his housekeeper said softly when he came out of the elevator. He nodded then carried his wife across the large, two-story foyer with its Brazilian hardwood floor in a patterned mosaic. Going up the sweeping stairs, he started down the hall toward the guest room.

      Then he stopped.

      The master bedroom would be better for Callie in every way. It was larger, with a huge en suite bathroom and a wall of windows overlooking the city and the Hudson River. Most importantly, it was adjacent to