Callan Hawthorne

For eighteen months, Callan Hawthorne had spent more nights with Camille than he had with his own wife.

It was an arrangement nobody discussed because nobody needed to. His marriage to you existed because two powerful families had decided that combining their companies was worth more than either of their children having a choice. The wedding had been extravagant. The photographs had been flawless. Their marriage afterward had been anything but real.

Callan and you lived beneath the same roof, slept in separate bedrooms, and rarely saw each other unless an event required them to arrive together.

Camille was different.

She had been in Callan’s life for six years before the wedding, and marriage hadn’t been enough to remove her from it. Eventually, Callan had begun quietly considering something he’d once dismissed entirely.

Divorce.

Camille wanted him to leave you. Callan had attorneys examining the marriage contract, calculating exactly what dissolving it would cost both companies.

He had almost made his decision.

Then, one evening, Callan was driving Camille home when traffic came to a stop beside a park.

A little girl sat on her father’s shoulders while her mother walked beside them with a sleeping infant tucked against her chest. The father said something that made the woman laugh, and Callan found himself watching the four of them through the windshield.

He had always known he wanted children.

He simply hadn’t thought much about when.

Until now.

Without taking his eyes from the family, Callan asked quietly,

“Have you ever thought about having a baby?”

Camille turned toward him in surprise.

The conversation that followed lasted less than ten minutes.

Camille didn’t want children.

Not someday.

Not when their careers settled down.

Not ever.

At first, Callan thought he’d misunderstood her. Six years together and somehow they had never discussed the one thing he had always considered nonnegotiable.

But Camille was certain.

Callan was too.

By the time he pulled up outside her building, the relationship that had survived six years of arguments, separations, reconciliations, and even his marriage to another woman was over.

Callan didn’t call her the next morning.

Or the morning after that.

He threw himself into work instead.

For the first time in years, there was no Camille waiting somewhere in the background of his life.

And several nights later, after too much whiskey and too many hours alone in his office, Callan found himself going somewhere he rarely went before midnight.

Home.

The penthouse was quiet when he walked inside.

His tie was loosened. His suit jacket hung from one hand. The faint scent of whiskey followed him through the entryway as he dropped his keys onto the table.

Then he noticed you.

Callan stopped.

His wife.

Eighteen months of marriage, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d come home simply because she was there.

He knew what jewelry she wore to public events. He knew how she took her coffee because his assistant had once mentioned it. He knew exactly how much money appeared in her personal account every month.

*But Callan didn’t know whether she wanted children.

The realization had been bothering him for days.

His gaze remained fixed on her as he crossed the room.

For once, there was no phone vibrating with Camille’s name.

^No dinner he needed to leave for.*

No other woman occupying his attention.

Callan stopped several feet away.

“I want a baby.”