Reclaiming His Pregnant Widow (2 page)

Brand moved forward slowly.

A rush of pride filled him. His wife had clearly accomplished what she'd once only dreamed of. The museum was no longer a somewhat dowdy haunt of scholars and art aficionados. It was thriving…alive…exactly as she'd envisaged.

At the foot of the stairs a flock of women in high heels and designer frocks were being served oversize cosmopolitans by a white-jacketed waiter.

There was a buzz of excitement in the air.

Brand's gaze searched the group.

No Clea. Beyond the fashionistas lurked more clusters of people. His gaze sharpened. Men. All of them. Formally clad in black-and-white and scattered beneath the bronze of Inanna.

Where was his wife?

His heart hammering, Brand advanced, passing under a gilded chandelier, its iridescent crystals dispersing flecks of light across the domed arch of the ceiling far above. He made for the spectacular staircase he knew must lead to the second floor and the upper galleries. He couldn't wait to watch Clea's incredible green eyes light up with unrestrained joy when she saw him, couldn't wait to touch her, feel her soft warmth, her femininity within his arms. How he'd dreamed of that.

His wife. His lover. His lodestar. Every minute away from her had almost killed him.

Reaching the top of the stairs, Brand paused. The long gallery was crowded. The sparkle of jewels and riot of color was blinding. He fought an unexpected wave of claustrophobia as the crowd enveloped him.

Perhaps he should've called ahead, let her know he was coming home…?.

But with the worst of the long and dangerous trek through the mountains bordering northern Iraq behind
him, he'd wanted to get the less risky journey back to the United States done. Sure, there'd still been the chance that he could be arrested for carrying a fake passport. And, beneath reason, there'd lurked the blind terror that calling Clea might jinx everything.

Too late for second thoughts now.

Brand scanned the throng crammed between glass display cases holding priceless ancient treasures and tables loaded with canapés. Still no sight of the woman he sought. He edged past a trio of gossiping older women, their hungry eyes incessantly sweeping the packed room for fresh fodder before they turned to each other and cackled. His lips started to curl…then relaxed into a rusty smile. In the past he would've dismissed them as social hyenas; but now, after his months of deprivation, any laughter was a welcome sound.

He met the heavily mascaraed eyes of one of the group. Saw the disbelief as recognition dawned. Marcia Mercer. Brand remembered that she used to pen an influential society column. Perhaps she still did. “Brand…Brand Noble?”

He gave her a nod in brief acknowledgment before advancing with ruthless determination, ignoring the turning heads, the growing babble that followed in his wake.

And then he saw her.

Brand's mouth went dry. The cacophony of rising voices faded. There was only Clea…

She was smiling.

Her mouth curved up, and her eyes sparkled. A shimmering ball gown clung to her curves, her arms bare except for a gold cuff that glowed in the light from the opulent chandeliers…and on her left hand the wedding band he'd chosen for her glinted.

Brand sucked in his breath.

For an instant he thought she'd cut off the riot of curls he loved. But as she turned her head he caught a glimpse of curls escaping down behind her back from where the dark tresses had been pulled away from her face. He let out the breath he hadn't been aware of holding in a jagged groan. She looked so vital, so alive and so stunningly beautiful.

Longing surged through him and his chest expanded into an ache too complex to identify.

Clea's hand reached out and touched a jacketed arm. Brand's gaze followed. The sight of the bronze-haired man she was touching caused Brand's eyes to narrow dangerously. So Harry Hall-Lewis was still around. When she tipped her face up and directed the full blast of her smile at the man, Brand wanted to yank Clea away. To pull her to him, hold her, never let her go.

Mine.

The response roared through him. Basic, primal…and very, very male.

“Champagne, sir?”

The waiter's interruption broke his concentration on Clea. Brand helped himself to a glass from the tray with hands that shook, and he gulped the golden liquid down to moisten his tight, parched throat.

Then he set the empty glass down and drew a steadying breath.

He had his life back…and he had no intention of spending another moment away from the woman who had lured him back from beyond the darkness with the memory of her smile.

There was no time to waste.

Yet, when he looked across the room again, Clea and her companion had vanished.

 

After a terse exchange with her father near the Egyptian room, Clea then sneaked behind a tall pillar while Harry ventured into the crowd to fetch her a drink. Leaning against the cool column, she shut her eyes. If her father saw her he'd lecture her about duty, about the importance of networking and getting out in front of all the television cameras in attendance. Clea pursed her mouth in a moue of resignation. Of course he was right. But she needed a little time alone. She wasn't in the mood for small talk, and the growing whispers were causing the latent tension within her to spiral out of control.

“Clea.”

That voice.
She jerked around like a puppet on a string, eyes stretched wide, shock punching the air out of her lungs.

Breathless, she whispered, “Brand…?”

It couldn't be.
Disbelief made her blink.
Brand was dead.

The man coming toward her was tall, dark and very much alive.

A ghost from the past.

Heat seared her, instantly followed by an icy chill. He was a dead ringer for her very dead husband—the man she'd officially had declared dead eight months ago, a month after being given his ring back.

This was cruel. Brand was gone. Forever. Hadn't she spent the past nine months trying to come to terms with the final proof of his death after nearly four years of terrible, traumatic uncertainty?

Blood rushed to her head. The sudden airlessness of the room pressed in on her.

Clea couldn't breathe, and she felt horribly ill. Her father would never forgive her if she was sick all over the marble
floor…with press cameras everywhere to immortalize the moment.

“Clea!”

The hands that came down on her shoulders were so intimately familiar…yet so painfully strange. She shook her head, resisting the cold mist closing in on her.
He was dead.
Yet the fingers cupping her shoulders were warm, strong and very much alive.

This was no ghost.

This was a human being. A man she knew too well.

“Don't faint on me,” he warned in that deep, slightly hoarse voice.

“I won't.” She'd never fainted in her life. Yet she had to admit that she felt weak, dizzy…dazed. “You're supposed to be dead!” She sucked in a ragged breath, and then added inanely, “But you're back.”

 

Clea!

A raw, burning hunger he hadn't experienced for more than a thousand nights overpowered Brand. He pulled the woman he'd dreamed of every day—every night—toward him, drinking in the scent of her, a heady mix of honey and jasmine. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Her warmth and fragrance flooded him.

Beneath the exploring pads of his fingers her shoulders were more slender than he remembered, the bones fragile, but her skin was as soft as ever. “You've lost weight.”

She stiffened under his touch. “Maybe.”

Brand buried his face in the side of her neck, iron bands of emotion constricting his chest.

“I've missed you,” he breathed, “so much.” Without her, a void had replaced the man he'd been. His arms tightened around her slender frame, words pouring from him, rough guttural sounds against her smooth skin.

“Brand, I can't hear you.” Clea drew away a little. “It's too loud in here—let's find somewhere quieter.”

She slipped out of his hold and a sense of loss swamped Brand.

Clea held out a hand. “Come.”

He took the fingers she offered, the delicate link frighteningly fragile.

She pulled him along with her, threading between the press of staring people until they broke clear, escaping through open double doors into a carpeted corridor beyond. Clea halted outside a set of glass doors in the clear floor-to-ceiling glass wall. Letting go of his hand, she fished in her evening purse looped over her shoulder by a delicate chain and extracted a keycard, which she swiped in the security slot. The doors sprang open and Brand followed her into a reception area and the corridor beyond. “My office is through here.”

Brand paused. “You used to be down in the basement.”

Her chin tilted up in a gesture that was pure Clea, and his heart clenched.

“I've moved up in the world,” she told him, her eyes hungrily searching his face. “I'm more important now.”

Clea pressed a wall switch and light flooded the room, catching forgotten glints of precious copper in her long, dark curls, hinting at the fire that lay beneath.

Lust caught him by the throat.

He'd missed her so damn much. Missed talking to her. Missed touching her.

Most of all he'd missed loving her.

Clea.

In a flash, Brand closed the space between them and took her in his arms again. He couldn't get enough of touching her, reassuring himself that she was here, in his hold. Not a wraith that would vanish with his dreams as
dawn cracked over the endless, empty horizon. Bending his head, he slanted his lips across hers. She gave a surprised gasp, and a beat later melted into his embrace.

She tasted so sweet, and his hunger soared.

Tracing the indent of her spine with shaking fingers, Brand's hands moved up…up…until his fingers speared into the soft, glossy mass of constrained curls. Her head fell back and he deepened the kiss.

Her breasts pressed against his chest, and despite her weight loss they seemed fuller than he remembered. Clea had always bemoaned her lack of curves, but now she was positively lush.

Another change.

But this one he would savor…

He brought his hands forward to shape her ripe flesh and his fingers skimmed her belly. Fuller there, too. A curious anomaly given the slenderness of her shoulders, the sharp definition of her high cheekbones. His hands rested on the rise, his fingers exploring…and he felt her still.

Blood roared in Brand's ears. He couldn't absorb what his fingertips were telling him.

No!

His first reaction was denial. But his hands had developed a life—a reasoning power—all their own, even as his mind sputtered then stalled. His palms stroked over Clea's curves, sending bursts of unwelcome information back to his struggling brain until he could no longer deny the truth of what lay beneath his hands.

Raising his head, he glared accusingly down into her startled green eyes. “You're pregnant!”

C
lea knew at once how it must appear.

“It's not what you think,” she said quickly, reaching up to cradle Brand's beloved face between her cupped hands. “Remember how we—”

“It certainly didn't take you long to find someone else.”

The blaze of accusation rocked her. Brand had gone all tense, his jaw clenching and unclenching against her hollowed palms as he glowered at her from between slitted lids.

In the stillness of her office, Clea stared up at him in absolute shock, the awfulness of what he was saying—what he believed—finally sinking in.

There was no one else.

“I didn't—”

“Shut up,” he snarled.

“Wait a minute…”

Clea's voiced trailed away as his hands manacled her
wrists. He forced her fingers away from his skin and dropped them with palpable distaste, and all the while the beautiful ocean-hued eyes bored unblinkingly into hers. “It didn't take you long to accept that I was dead—or was it a case of out of sight, out of mind?”

The injustice of that caused her to reel away, almost tripping over the visitor's chair in front of her desk. Clea sank onto the padded black leather, her legs weak. How
could
Brand believe that?

Especially when she'd never stopped believing in him!

Five days after her last telephone conversation with Brand, unable to contact him, Clea had sounded the alarm. It had taken another thirteen days—the longest stretch of Clea's life—for the official channels to relay back to her that Brand was no longer in Greece. He'd entered Iraq over two weeks earlier through the Kuwait border and had checked into a battle-scarred hotel once favored by foreign businessmen in Baghdad. No one knew where he'd gone after checking out a few days later.

There had been nothing left to do but wait. She'd made every excuse in the book for him. But time passed and still he hadn't gotten in touch.

To the men in black suits who materialized like spooks at her workplace Clea had insisted there had been nothing suspicious about her husband's visit to Iraq; after all, Brand made his living from dealing in antiquities, a love he'd developed while stationed with the Australian Special Air Services elite forces in Iraq. But it had been galling to admit that he hadn't told her about his intention to enter Iraq, and she decided not to tell her visitors about the argument she'd had with Brand the second to last time she'd spoken to him.

Once the shadowy men in black suits departed, on her
father's advice and using his extensive contacts, Clea had hired a firm of investigators to locate her missing husband. It had
never
been a case of out of sight, out of mind.

She hadn't stopped thinking about him, not for one minute. Even the two identical clocks on her office wall bore testimony to that—one set to Eastern Time, the other to Baghdad time. She'd never stopped thinking what he might be doing at any moment of her day. She'd wanted her husband back. She'd wanted answers about his disappearance. Real answers. Not speculation that he'd deserted her for another woman, which had been the first theory the investigators had come up with. The news of the grisly discovery of the burned-out SUV in the desert had terrified her. But she'd stubbornly clung to her belief that she would've known in her heart if Brand was dead. She'd demanded incontrovertible proof.

When they'd brought her his wedding ring nine months ago, Clea had been shattered, her dreams pulverized to dust, her hopes charred to ashes.

The idea of a baby had become a lifeline to sanity.

Getting pregnant had given her back her life. Not the life she'd hoped to share with Brand, but something better than the hopelessness that had overtaken her.

Yet now Brand stood over her accusing
her
of forgetting
him
. Instead of taking her in his arms, he was behaving like the world's biggest bastard. And he showed no signs of listening anytime soon. Clea shook her head to clear it and pressed her hands protectively over her stomach.

Brand laughed—a harsh, grating sound she'd never heard before. “Nothing further to say? How unfortunate for you I didn't remain dead.” The sea-green gaze had turned arctic.

Slumped in the chair, Clea's whole body ached. Her feet.
Her head. Her heart. Was it possible Brand was hurting every bit as much as she was? “I can explain…”

Brand recoiled.

“I don't need your explanations!” He looked down on her from the full height of his six-foot-two-inch frame. His eyes froze her out. “It's easy enough to see what happened.” One side of his mouth kicked up. “So who's the lucky man?”

“Will you stop interrupting me?” Her voice rose. Hauling in a shaky breath, she tempered her tone. “We always talked about having a family—”

“
Our
family,” he said, pointedly inspecting her belly, covered by the silk of her designer dress and sheltered by her clasped hands. “Not some other man's bastard.”

“Brand, wait!”

Clea rose to her feet and reached for him, then dropped her hands to her sides at the icy look he bestowed on her.

“Please listen—”

“What's the point of listening?” There was contempt in the frigid gaze that met hers, and something else…

Disappointment?

His lack of faith stung. She deserved a chance to explain, and she didn't doubt that he'd listen once he'd calmed down. Brand might have a dangerous reputation, but he loved her.

Or did he?

The first shadow of doubt stole over her. Clea stilled. She'd always imagined that something terrible must've happened to keep him away for so long. A horrific accident. Memory loss. Trauma so terrible he hadn't wanted her to see him in such a state.

Instead he stood before her looking breathtakingly hunky in the tuxedo and black shirt, his body even better conditioned than four years earlier—some feat because
Brand had always honed his body to perfection. His face was burnished bronze by the sun, contrasting with the color of his sea-green eyes to devastating effect. An aura of reckless danger now clung to him, causing her heart to beat faster.

He might not be the Brand she'd kissed goodbye at the airport—but he wasn't damaged or scarred.

Yet she had to admit, dressed all in black, he looked like the devil incarnate.

Without taking her eyes from him, she toed off her shoes, adding another two inches to the height advantage he already possessed. “So why didn't you tell me you were going to Baghdad?” she challenged.

Brand stared back at her.

Did he cause Anita Freeman's heart to beat faster, too? “Answer me!”

Nothing. Not even a blink. He simply kept watching her with that basilisk stare she was starting to loathe.

“I've waited—”

A brow lifted ironically at that. “Waited?”

“Yes!
Waited
.” Clea pushed a tendril back off her face. “The last decent conversation we shared, you were in London—about to go to Greece. We argued about that. Remember?” She'd wanted to rearrange her schedule and had asked Brand to wait until she could join him. He'd refused—and ordered her to stay home. Clea hadn't taken kindly to being so summarily dismissed. It wasn't the first time that Brand had made decisions for her. She'd sulked. He'd called her once more from Athens—and their conversation had been stilted and brief. Just before he'd cut the connection, he'd told her he loved her.

Then there'd been no more contact.

When he didn't respond, she said, “You never told me you planned to go to Iraq.”

His gaze didn't waver. “I didn't want to worry you.”

Could the explanation really be that simple? Or had the business trip to Greece been a cover for an affair with another woman? Had the investigators' first theory—supported by her father and Harry—been correct after all?

The ticking of the two wall clocks was the only sound in the room.

Clea broke the silence. “That's all? That's the reason you never mentioned it?” If she hadn't been watching him so closely, Clea might have missed the sideways flicker of his eyes.

Brand wasn't telling her the truth.

Or at least not the whole truth.

The silence stretched until Clea broke it. “Don't you think concern that you might be maimed or kidnapped or even killed would be a reasonable reaction to being told that you were going to Baghdad?”

He shrugged, his broad shoulders flexing under the tuxedo, causing her gaze to stray for a brief moment before returning to his face. “I served there with the SAS,” he said. “I know the territory—and the risks.”

Frustration and a feeling of letdown drove her to sarcasm. “Okay, so those risks might not worry super-humans like you…but they sure do worry me.”

“Which is exactly why I didn't tell you—I didn't have time to soothe you.”

Like some clingy child. But this was getting interesting. Brand was lying to her. Clea was certain of it. His face wore a set expression, and his eyes had flicked away again. “So what was so important that you simply went without consulting me? And why no contact since? Surely you can't have been in Baghdad all this time?”

He resumed staring at her, tight-lipped.

Clea tried again. “Were you on some covert mission?”

He laughed at that, making her feel ridiculously melodramatic. Yet she couldn't help thinking of the dark-suited men who had surfaced after his disappearance and asked her why he'd gone to Baghdad—and seemed to know all about his special forces background.

“At least tell me it's classified, if that's the reason.”

“I wasn't part of a military operation.”

She deserved more than being stonewalled. Drawing a deep breath, Clea eased back against her glass-topped desk and said, “Tell me where you've been, and I'll consider explaining about the baby…on condition that you don't interrupt me until I've told you everything.”

“I don't need your conditions—or your explanations,” he said. A look followed that slashed her from head to toe—with significant focus on her almost-flat stomach. “I can see exactly what you've been up to.”

Brand might not need explanations, but she sure as hell did.

Yet Clea wasn't about to let him see how much she cared. Not while he treated her like a leper. Instead she gave him a reciprocal once-over, taking in every inch of tanned skin and the trim body beneath the tuxedo, and then she pursed her lips. “Let me guess where you've been. Sunning yourself on the Mediterranean? Socializing with the Aga Khan?”

Sleeping with another woman?
Clea was too terrified of his response to voice the last suspicion. But was it possible that her father and the investigators had been correct? That Brand had been having an affair? Was it possible that Brand had been living with his lover for the four years he'd gone missing without a trace? He certainly possessed the skills to remain undetected for as long as he wanted—if he wanted.

Brand's face had tightened. “You've developed a sharp tongue.”

“Now it's my fault?”

What was she doing?

Clea shut her eyes. Why was she fighting with Brand? This wasn't what she wanted. Remorse washed over her and she shook her head to clear it of the turmoil and confusion, searching for calm. How had it all gone so wrong so quickly? This was Brand. She
loved
him. She'd always believed in him. She'd waited for him to return every day. Every night. Yet now that he was here she was hurting so much she could spit…and doubts were setting in.

They had to stop this.

She fisted her hands at her sides and drew in a ragged breath. When she was certain she had herself under control—that she wouldn't yell, or blubber like an idiot—she opened her eyes and said evenly, “Sorry, I didn't mean to sound like a shrew.”

His closed expression didn't thaw. Her body strung tight, Clea wished desperately he would confess he'd been injured, hospitalized, that he'd temporarily lost his memory. Anything.

The silence wore thin.

Still she waited, her hands balled tight and her pulse pounding loudly in her ears. Waiting for an explanation of where he'd been, why he'd stayed away so long. Clea even convinced herself that she'd accept it without question, without revealing a hint of resentment for what he'd
dared
to put her through. Brand was back, and that would be enough. Wouldn't it? She
loved
him. She'd only been half-alive without him. She couldn't allow his return to break her, when she'd already survived his disappearance…and his death.

But as the minute hands on the wall clocks pressed forward in tandem, Clea gave up.

Brand wasn't going to explain.

Why not?

Because he no longer cared?

Only one way to find out.

“Brand…” Clea unfurled her fists and stepped away from the safety of her desk. Standing on tiptoes, she reached up and placed her hands on his shoulders, searching for a connection. Under the black silk of his dress shirt she could feel the warmth of his skin. She flexed her fingertips. His muscles bunched in reaction.

Need—hot and unexpected—hollowed out the bottom of her stomach.
God, she'd missed him.
His remembered scent—a mix of musk and something sharp and tangy—filled her senses.

Shutting her eyes, she leaned into him, her body quivering as it came into contact with the taut length of his. The warmth of his big body seeped gradually into hers, reviving her after the heart-numbing chill. For a long moment she half dared to hope that their bodies might communicate even while their brains seemed estranged.

The baby moved.

And even as her lips brushed his chin, Brand tore out of her embrace.

Putting two yards between them, he came to a stop near the doorway, breathing heavily, his eyes glittering, the golden skin stretched taut across his cheekbones.