Jennie Lucas - To Love, Honour and Betray

“Stand up.”

Callie blinked. “What?”

His dark eyes glittered as raindrops splattered noisily into the trees above. “You heard me.”

She sucked in her breath as fury and fear raced through her. “Forget it! You have no power over me. I’m no longer your secretary, and I’m certainly not your lover. I’m your nothing! I don’t know why you came looking for me, but I want you to go away and leave me alone!”

Eduardo came very, very close, standing over her on the stoop, so close his pant legs brushed her knees. He leaned in to her, and she felt the warmth of his breath against her earlobe as he whispered, “Are you pregnant with my baby, Callie?”

JENNIE LUCASgrew up dreaming about faraway lands. At fifteen, hungry for experience beyond the borders of her small Idaho city, she went to a Connecticut boarding school on scholarship. She took her first solo trip to Europe at sixteen, then put off college and travelled around the US, supporting herself with jobs as diverse as gas station cashier and newspaper advertising assistant.

At twenty-two she met the man who would be her husband. After their marriage she graduated from Kent State with a degree in English. Seven years after she started writing she got the magical call from London that turned her into a published author.

Since then life has been hectic, with a new writing career, a sexy husband and two small children, but she’s having a wonderful (albeit sleepless) time. She loves immersing herself in dramatic, glamorous, passionate stories. Maybe she can’t physically travel to Morocco or Spain right now, but for a few hours a day, while her children are sleeping, she can be there in her books.

Jennie loves to hear from her readers. You can visit her website at www.jennielucas.com, or drop her a note at jennie@jennielucas.com

Recent titles by the same author:

A NIGHT OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY

RECKLESS NIGHT IN RIO

THE VIRGIN’S CHOICE

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Love, Honour and Betray

Jennie Lucas

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To my husband.

Thanks for Europe.

Thanks even more for home.

Thanks for making all my dreams come true.

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.

Today was her wedding day. The day she’d always dreamed of. But she’d never dreamed of this.

Callie looked down at her secondhand wedding dress and the wilting bouquet of wildflowers she’d picked from the nearby community garden. Instead of a veil, pearl-laced barrettes strained to hold back her long, light brown hair.

In a few minutes, she’d marry her best friend. A man she’d never kissed—or even wanted to kiss. A man who wasn’t the father of her baby.

As soon as Brandon came back with the rental car, they’d be wed at City Hall, and start the long drive from New York to his parents’ farm in North Dakota.

Callie closed her eyes. It’s best for the baby , she told herself desperately. Her baby needed a father, and her ex-boss was a selfish, coldhearted playboy, whose deepest relationship was with his bank account. After three years of devoted service as his secretary, Callie had known that. But she’d still been stupid enough to find out the hard way.

A car turned off Seventh Avenue onto her residential street in the West Village. She saw an expensive dark luxury sedan and watched it go by, then exhaled. It wasn’t Eduardo’s style of car, and yet, as clouds covered the noonday sun, Callie looked up at the sky and shivered. If her ex-boss ever found out their single night of passion had created a child …

“He won’t,” she whispered aloud. Last she’d heard, he was in Colombia, developing offshore oil fields for Cruz Oil. After Eduardo possessed a woman in bed, she was pretty much dead to him, never to be remembered again. And though Callie had witnessed this scores of times during her time as his secretary, she’d still thought that she might be different. That she would be the exception.

Get out of my bed, Callie . She’d still been naked and blissful and sleepy in the pink light of Christmas morning when he’d shaken her awake, his voice hard. Get out of my house. I’m through with you .

Eight and a half months later, his words were still an ice pick in her heart. Exhaling, Callie wrapped her arms around her baby bump. He would never know about the life he’d created inside her. He’d made his choice. So she’d made hers. There would be no custody battle, no chance for Eduardo to be as domineering and tyrannical a father as he’d been a boss. Her child would be born into a stable home, with a loving family. Brandon, her best friend since the first grade, would be her baby’s father in all the ways that counted, and Callie would be a devoted wife to him in return. In every way but one.

She’d been doubtful at first that a marriage based on friendship could work. But Brandon had assured her that they didn’t need romance or passion to have a solid partnership. “We’ll be happy, Callie,” he’d promised. “Really happy.” Over the months of her pregnancy, he’d worn her down with kindness.