I'm pregnant."
Caleb Callaghan's heart rocked to a standstill. "What?"
"I said I'm pregnant. Three months along — the doctor just
confirmed it." Shoving her fingers through her shoulder-
length blond hair, Vicki sat down in the chair across from
his desk.
His entire mind restarted with a kick — this was the
chance he'd been waiting for, for two long months. He
would not let it slip away. Rising, he moved around the
desk to kneel beside her chair. "You're carrying our
child." Wonder held him in its grip. Within the space of a
few seconds, the hell of his life had turned into heaven.
Vicki can't divorce me if she's pregnant.
As if she'd heard him, she shook her head. "It doesn't
change anything." But her voice held the tiniest hint of
uncertainty.
He seized the moment. No way was he going to fight fair,
not when this was the most important battle of his
life. "Of course it does." He took her fine-boned hand,
delighting in once again being able to touch her.
"No."
"Yes." In the months since their separation, he'd tried
everything he could think of to win his wife back. And
failed. But this, this would not allow Vicki to so easily
justify a divorce. "How can it not change everything?
That's my baby you're carrying."
Her hand tensed in his. "Don't bully me, Caleb." Warned by
her tone, he rapidly recalculated his approach. Though he
had no intention of letting her shut him out any longer,
he knew that if he pushed too hard, he might lose her. But
his Victoria had always had a soft heart. "I have a right
to experience this with you. This is my first baby, too.
Maybe my last."
Emotions he had no hope of understanding flickered across
her face at the speed of light. "You want to move back
in," she said, referring to their restored villa above St.
Marys Bay, not far from Auckland's city center.
"I am moving back in." That was non-negotiable. "I'm not
letting you divorce me while our child is in your womb."
That gave him six months in which to convince her that
their marriage was worth saving, that five years of
commitment shouldn't be thrown away so quickly.
She'd asked him for space when they'd separated and he'd
given her that as far as he was able — limiting himself to
a phone call a day and a couple of visits a week to ensure
that she was okay. But that was all ending as of this
moment. He wanted his wife back. "This baby is a gift,
Vicki — our chance to make it. Don't throw that away."
Her eyes seemed to soften.
Standing, he tugged her up and into his embrace, her
slender body a perfect fit against his larger frame. "I'll
get my stuff delivered from the hotel this afternoon." He
hated the damn place because it wasn't home, would never
be home. "We'll be all right." He'd ensure it. No matter
what, he wasn't going to lose her.
She was his everything.
Vicki let Caleb hold her and knew she was making a
terrible mistake. But God, she'd missed being in her
husband's arms. For two months she'd missed him every
single day. Each time he'd invited her to lunch, each time
he'd dropped by for coffee, she'd known she should back
away but instead had always agreed. Now that dangerous
pattern threatened to continue. "You don't need to be at
home to share this with me."
He loosened his hold enough that she could look up into
those hazel eyes, shades lighter than his dark brown
hair. "Hell yes, I do. You want to raise our kid like you
were raised? Barely knowing his — or her — father?"
She sucked in a breath. "You know exactly where to aim,
don't you?" If there was one thing she didn't want, it was
for their child to grow up feeling unloved by either
parent.
Letting her go, he put his hands on his hips under his
suit jacket. "I'm not going to sugarcoat the truth — if
you insist on this separation, it's going to lead to
divorce and eventually to a child shuttled from home to
home."
"You think it's better for our baby to grow up in the
middle of a battlefield?" She would not bring an innocent
soul into the wreckage that was their marriage right now.
"Of course not." His voice rose. "But, Vicki, you can't
have it both ways. Either you let me in and we start
working on things, or you accept the alternative."
"This is moving too fast — I need time."
"You've had two months." His jaw was set. "More than
enough time."
It was nowhere near enough, she thought. They'd seen each
other several times a week during the separation but had
yet to talk, really talk. "Caleb, look at it from my point
of view. I just found out I'm pregnant. Having you back on
top of that is going to be too much to cope with."
"And the longer you keep me away, the less time we'll have
to fix things before the baby arrives," he responded.
"I'm not backing down on this, so you might as well say
yes."
If she hadn't already made her decision before walking
into this firm that he'd built with sheer determination,
his statement might have rubbed her raw. But though so
much of him was a mystery to her, this she'd predicted.
From the second she'd discovered her pregnancy — though
she'd had every intention of trying to convince him
otherwise — she'd known that Caleb would refuse to keep
his distance.
With that in mind, she'd thought long and hard about the
conditions under which she'd allow him to move back into
the house. "All right." Even as she said those words, she
was regretting them — give Caleb an inch and he'd take a
mile. But this was no longer just about the two of them.
"That's the right decision, honey," he said. "You'll see.
We'll be okay."
Frowning at his tone, she started to point out that things
were going to be a little different this time
around. "Look, you can move in, but —"
"Sh." He smiled and put his hand on her abdomen, startling
her with the gesture. It made her pregnancy feel real in a
way that even the doctor's announcement hadn't. "Don't
want the kid to hear us arguing, do you?"
Her stomach twisted. Already, it was starting — she spoke
and he didn't listen. "Caleb, I want to tell you —"
"Later." He raised his hand to push her hair off her
face. "We have all the time in the world."
All his things were in the guest bedroom. "What the hell
is this?" Caleb turned to find his wife standing in the
bedroom doorway, arms folded and eyes narrowed. No trace
remained of the woman who'd let him hold her only a few
hours ago.
Straightening her spine, she met his challenge head-
on. "This is you not listening — you steamrolling over my
objections to your moving back in just as you steamroll
over everything." There was steel in that soft voice he
was used to hearing murmur in agreement.
"Later, you said. Well, this is 'later.'You can stay in
the house but don't expect to move back into my life like
nothing ever happened. As far as I'm concerned, we're
still separated."
He froze, shock acting like a narcotic in his blood. In
the five years they'd been married, Vicki had never spoken
to him like that. "Sweetheart —"
"No. No, Caleb. I'm not letting you push me into something
I'm not ready for."
"This isn't giving us a chance," he argued. "We can hardly
work on our problems if I'm banished to this room with you
holding the threat of divorce over my head." Throwing his
suit jacket on the bed, he began to tear off his tie, his
eyes on Vicki.
"Neither is your way." Her cheeks flushed with temper.
"You want everything to go back to what it was — as if you
haven't been living in a hotel for the past two months...
I was miserable in our marriage. Is that the wife you want
back?"
Her words hurt. "You never said anything and then one day,
you tell me you want a divorce. How the hell was I
supposed to know you weren't happy? I'm not a mind
reader." Giving up on the blasted tie, he shoved a hand
through his hair.
Vicki clenched her fists, creamy skin taut over delicate
bones. "No," she said. "You're not. But you wouldn't have
to be if you occasionally took the time to listen to me
instead of insisting on your way or no way."
Caleb was getting good and mad. "You never wanted to make
any decisions so I made them." Since the day he'd married
her, he'd done his best to take care of her, protect her,
and this was his thanks?
"Did you ever stop to think I might want more from life
than to call you lord and master? People grow and change,
Caleb. Didn't you ever consider that I might have?"
Her sharp question brought his growing temper to a
screeching halt, because the truth was, in his mind Vicki
had remained the poised but still young bride of nineteen
he'd carried into his home five years ago. Given the gap
in their ages and life experiences, his taking charge of
their marriage had been inevitable.
That wasn't to say she'd been lacking her own strengths.
In fact, she'd been unnaturally mature for her age,
completely willing and able to take over her role as the
wife of an ambitious young litigator determined to become
better than the best.
He wouldn't have been drawn to her if he hadn't glimpsed
the resilient will behind her shy smiles. But while he'd
already walked a hard road by the age of twenty-nine,
she'd been untested by the world, cocooned in an
environment where everyone behaved according to accepted
rules. Used to making decisions, it hadn't occurred to him
to act any other way with his wife.
For the first time in a long while, he looked at her
without being blinded by memories of the girl she'd been.
She was still slender, still beautiful in that graceful
way with her blue eyes and that silky hair he loved to
have brush over his skin. But her eyes no longer said what
they had in the past.
When they'd wed, she'd looked to him for everything.
Now...now there was distance in those blue depths, a world
of secrets he was shut out of. To his shock, he found he
had no idea who she was behind her elegant shell.
"No, I guess I didn't." He'd built his life around his
self-confidence, trusting his instincts when there'd been
nothing and no one else to trust. To admit he'd been wrong
about something this important was a blow.
Vicki's lips parted, her eyes going wide. "But don't blame
me for everything," he continued. They'd both been in that
broken marriage and if they were going to survive the
rebuilding, they had to be honest. "You know what I'm
like. If you'd said something, I would have tried to fix
it. I don't like to see you hurting."
Which was why he'd never berated her for the one thing she
couldn't give him — her passion, her desire. That absence
in their marriage had stung like hell, and still did, but
he was incapable of harming her, even to assuage his own
pain. From the moment he'd met her, all he'd wanted to do
was make her happy...make her smile.
Shoulders taut beneath the white linen of her simple shift
dress, she shook her head. "That's the point, Caleb. I
don't want you to fix things for me. I need..."
"What, Vicki? Tell me what you need." It was something
he'd never asked. The realization stunned him, made him
question exactly how good a job he'd done of loving her.
Even in bed, he'd taken the lead, confident in his ability
to ensure her physical pleasure though he couldn't make
her want him with the fury that he wanted her. But what if
she'd needed something else, something he hadn't known how
to give? What if that was the reason she'd never responded
to him with the intensity he needed from her?
Her whole face softened. "I just need you to see and love
me, not the idea of the perfect wife you have in your
head, or the woman Grandmother tried to mold me into. Just
me. Just Victoria."
It felt as if she'd struck him. "I never tried to change
you."
"No, Caleb. You never even saw me at all." And that had
hurt more than anything. Because no matter what she said
and did, she loved Caleb Callaghan with every breath in
her body. Loved his laugh, his intelligence, his
stubbornness and even his temper.
But it wasn't enough. Love like that could slowly destroy
a person from the inside out if it wasn't returned. And
despite what Caleb believed, she knew it wasn't. To her
husband she was as fragile as an exotic bloom, someone who
always had to be protected, even if that meant she had to
be shielded from the full power of his own feelings.
Like now. His fists were clenched, his jaw taut but he
kept himself under control. "If I didn't see you, then who
the hell did I spend five years with? A ghost?"
The sarcastic comment fell too close to the mark. "Maybe
you did."
"What's that supposed to mean?"