Reclaiming His Pregnant Widow (4 page)

Donald's hand tightened over hers and she could feel him studying her. “What was your mother doing at the museum?”

Clea's head whipped around. “She was there? I didn't see her.”

“You didn't invite her?”

“No! I'd never do that without clearing it with you first.”

The grim line of her father's mouth relaxed a little. “Good. I told her to leave.”

Clea fought to ignore the funny feeling in her stomach caused by the news of her mother's dismissal. Then she steeled herself. She was no longer the ten-year-old girl her mother had abandoned for someone else's family.

She'd had enough. She'd had a long day, her feet ached from shoes that were too tight and her head spun from the emotional maelstrom she'd been through—the tussle about marriage with Harry, the shock of Brand's reappearance and her own inexplicable anger at him. She couldn't face discussing her mother, too.

Tomorrow it would be different. Better. Brand would've had a chance to get over his own shock. They'd talk. She'd explain why the baby was so important to her.

And he'd understand. Wouldn't he? She stared blindly out into the brightly lit night. For the first time the thought flitted through her mind that he might not.

Despite the warm evening Clea shivered, feeling more alone than since the night her mother had left.

B
rand strode into the Museum of Ancient Antiquities the following morning seething with frustration. He took the stairs two at a time. The glass doors guarding the management wing opened to him. No one manned the reception desk. So Brand continued along the corridor until through the glass wall of Clea's office, he could see her talking on the phone, doodling on a pad, her berry-red lips mouthing words he couldn't hear.

Suspicion, painful and ugly, shafted him. Was she talking to her lover? The father of her unborn child?

He studied her oblivious profile. Despite the sexy red lip color, he noted the absence of preening gestures and flirtatious mannerisms. Brand relaxed a little.

Not the lover then.

He pushed open the door. It made no sound, yet instantly her eyes tracked to him and tension filled the airy space.

“I have to go,” she murmured into the handset. “Talk to you later, hon.”

A girlfriend. No woman called her lover
hon
. His distrust appeased, Brand took his time surveying his wife's new office. Last night he'd been too preoccupied by Clea to take in the wall of bookshelves. At the foot of the shelves, open books were strewn over the woven carpet, revealing that Clea had been after information in a hurry. It was comforting to know that the inquiring, impulsive side of her still existed.

He crossed the room, passing a sleek, modern Le Corbusier chair on his way to the picture window. He looked down at the courtyard full of statues below. Visitors spilled out from the coffee shop onto the square, some perching on stone benches set around the edges of the paved concourse among bronze gods and goddesses.

“Very nice,” he complimented her.

“Thank you. I've been here for three years, and I still appreciate it.”

Three years. Not such a new promotion then. It highlighted how much of her life he'd missed. It had been around three years ago that his captors had gotten antsy. Vehicles had arrived at the camp in the dead of night, followed by huddled meetings. He'd heard the arguments, Akam's voice ringing out above the rest. A few nights later he'd been awakened and bundled into a car, a guard on either side, with Akam, as ringleader of the group, seated beside the driver, an AK-47 slung across his lap. The journey had been tense, but there'd been no checkpoints. No roadblocks. No glimpse of Coalition troops. The location of the new camp had been farther into the desert, the closest settlement an hour's drive away. In the days that followed, Akam's temper had been increasingly volatile, and Brand had known that any hope of escape, or rescue,
had just grown slimmer. They'd moved camp regularly after that…but there had been one advantage—he'd only been locked up at night while the others slept. During the day he was allowed the freedom of the desert camps. It had saved his sanity.

“But I'm sure you didn't come to admire the view. What are you doing here, Brand?” Clea's voice interrupted the unpleasant memories of heat and dust and squalor.

Swiveling on his heel, Brand shoved his hands into the pockets of his denims. Clea had gotten to her feet and he watched through narrowed eyes as she advanced around the end of her desk.

“I stopped by my offices—or what were once my offices—this morning.” Brand flexed his hands deep in his pockets. “There's a floor of accountants in the office space that used to be mine. Where is my PA? My staff?” He kept his tone even, determined not to show the wave of impotence that had swamped him after visiting the former site of his lucrative high-end antiquities dealership.

Clea stood still. “I'm sorry, Brand. I had to let your staff go. The business couldn't operate without your expertise.”

His treacherous wife had been determined to eradicate all trace of him, Brand surmised.

Anger flared deep in his gut, masking the fear that had taken hold last night. At least anger he could control.

What he couldn't afford was to let her see his vulnerability…how raw and exposed he felt. He'd had years of practice in donning a mask of impenetrable reserve and showing no emotion, not even pain. Summoning that formidable control, Brand drew a slow breath and took his time to examine her. The fitted dress hugged her full breasts, the black linen rising and falling with every breath she took. He could've sworn her breathing quickened as he watched.

Sheer willpower stopped his eyes from sliding lower to the barely perceptible swell of her belly. The very thought of the pregnancy still left him reeling. Instead, Brand let his eyes linger on her red mouth, before lifting his gaze to meet hers.

Clea was frowning. “What do you want, Brand?”

He resisted the mad impulse that flouted fear and ached to say
you
—and settled instead for, “I also visited the bank.”

The clerk hadn't even wanted to talk to Brand. To his shock, he'd been escorted to the door by security. In the past, bankers had fallen all over themselves to secure his business. Today's experience had been a rude awakening.

He faced Clea with the little information he'd gleaned from the clerk, his frustration bubbling over. “My accounts have been frozen. All of them. Apparently,
you
ordered it. So I assume the bank needs your authorization to activate them again.” It burned Brand that he needed Clea to vouch for him.

She bent across the desk and flipped through a box holding business cards. Her black linen dress pulled tight across the shapely cheeks of her bottom.

The hot, heady rush of desire was unwanted. Brand swore silently, disconcerted to discover just how much his pregnant wife still turned him on.

“Ah, got it.” Clea's fingers stilled as she found the card she was seeking. Pulling her diary across the desk, she flipped over the page and reached for the phone.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“Calling to make an appointment for us to go in to the bank tomorrow.”

“Not tomorrow. Today,” he insisted.

“I can't—”

Brand took a deliberate step forward, bringing him up
right behind her. “I want this resolved today. So clear your schedule.”

Clea set the phone down. “Looming over me like this is not going to help. My to-do list is off the page. I simply can't do it today.” She jabbed her finger at the diary on the desk. “The Museum Mile Festival is just over three weeks away.”

The phone chose that moment to ring. With a mutter, Clea reached for it. Brand's hand closed over hers, preventing her from answering.

The ringing stopped abruptly. Her eyes darted to the caller-ID screen, then over her shoulder, to his face. “Brand, that's my boss!”

“Too bad.”

She gave an impatient sigh. “Don't screw this up for me.”

Clea had changed.

And he was only just beginning to realize how much. Despite the fact that she clearly hadn't spent the past few years waiting for him, Brand had still expected her to put him first. He'd been gone over four years. Secretly, he'd fantasized about not finding her at work today—and discovering her waiting for him at their home wearing nothing more than an inviting smile. It was rapidly becoming evident that he was no longer the center of her universe. But the ball of burning bitterness in the pit of his stomach wasn't going to bring back the Clea he'd spent every minute of four hellish years living for.

But crowding her, forcing her to acknowledge him, wasn't helping his cause.

So Brand rocked back on his heels and raised a mocking eyebrow, pushing harder, searching to find some sign that she still cared. “Since when has asking you for help become synonymous with screwing up?”

Strain showed in her eyes. “I'm more than happy to help you—I'll make the calls and take time out tomorrow. But if you're only here to play power games, then I'm afraid you'll have to leave. I've got stuff I need to check out for a brochure that's got to be at the printer's in a few hours.” She gestured to the pile of books on the floor. “It can't wait.”

There was an aching dignity about her, but Brand resisted the urge to pull her backward into his arms. Her refusal to instantly respond to his needs had placed him on the defensive. The old Clea would've put him first. “I'm checking out stuff, too. All the ways you've changed.”

He took his time inspecting the length of her body available to his stare—the sweep of her back, the graceful curves of her hips, that gorgeous sexy bottom—and bit back a groan.

“Suit yourself.” She glanced away, back down at the diary on her desk, so that—frustratingly—he couldn't see her face. “But it's not going to change the fact that I've got a job to do.”

Brand followed her gaze down to the page she'd been doodling on when he'd entered her office. Hearts. She'd been drawing hearts. Perhaps she
had
been talking to her lover. He swallowed the bile at the back of his throat and inched forward until his jeans-clad thighs brushed her bottom. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind he knew he was being a jerk, but he couldn't help himself. Couldn't stop pushing to provoke a reaction, a burst of spontaneous emotion. The softness of her against his hip and thighs as he crowded closer caused his breath to catch.

And, God, her sweet scent—!

All at once adrenaline forked through him like lightning. Lowering his head, he murmured hoarsely against her nape, “Too busy for this?”

She twisted around and their eyes locked. Despite the sizzle in the air, hers were cool and distant. “Last night you said it was over.”

The staccato words hit him in the solar plexus, knocking back his breath. Yes, he had said that. Stupid pride. Of course, he hadn't meant it. He'd been off balance. Hurting. Humiliated.

And betrayed…

How could he forget that? He was laying himself open for his heart to be ripped out again, for her to watch him bleed. To see his pain.
No way.

Just in time, he slammed the mental door shut.

Clea shrugged out of his grasp. Penning a note in her diary, she said without looking at him, “If you don't mind, I'll make an appointment with the bank and confirm the time with you later.”

He did mind.

And he was being dismissed. Disbelief shook Brand…and finally the fear surfaced. Fear that he'd irretrievably lost her. Fear that he would never find his way back into that laughter-filled, warm and comfortable world they'd shared together.

Fear that the past really was gone forever.

Then he took mental stock. Hell, what was he doing, yearning after a wife who'd found another lover? A lover by whom she was now pregnant.

Yet, before he could stop himself, Brand snagged her arm. Instantly, Clea spun around, her eyes wide with surprise. “What?”

Clea had accused him in the past of being too self-contained, never sharing his thoughts. Hell, how to explain that the thought of letting someone into the private space of his soul was terrifying? But this time he didn't spare
himself—or her—as he pointedly studied her abdomen. “Was it an accident?”

Her breathing came in great rasps. Brand was conscious of the soft skin of her upper arm in his hold. Finally she croaked, “It wasn't an accident—I wanted this baby!”

The admission cut into his heart like a bayonet, causing every muscle to tighten until his whole body vibrated. “Why?”

“Not now, Brand.”

“Yes,
now
.”

The sound of voices drifted down the corridor outside Clea's office. She uttered a tense laugh. “This is ridiculous. You want to talk? You know, four years ago I thought the only thing wrong with our marriage was that you always kept your distance—you never talked to me about what you were thinking. Well, I was ready to talk last night…you weren't.” Clea must have read something of his inner turmoil and tension in his face because she sighed. “We do need to talk, Brand. But not now. I've got work to do. Alan just called, he might come looking for me. Anyone could walk in on us.”

“I don't care who walks in on us!”

“I do.”

I do.
She'd said those words to him during their wedding in the Chapel of Love—she'd vowed to love him, only him, forever. Brand brought his face close to hers. “I don't need the touchy-feely talk you consider so important. But I do want to know why you betrayed me, betrayed our vows.”

Clea's chin came up. “
Betrayed
is a very strong word.”

“That's what you did. Tell me why.”

“It's not enough that you and I had dreamed of starting a family together?”

He snorted. “That's romantic hogwash.”

“Hogwash?” Something flickered in her eyes. “Well,
then, this is going to sound like more touchy-feely romantic hogwash—I did it for the man I love.”

“For your baby's father.” It wasn't a question.

She nodded, her wide eyes suddenly wary. “Of course.”

Even though he'd been expecting it, he was shaken by the confirmation that she'd betrayed him in the worst way possible—by falling in love with another man despite vowing to be his for the rest of their lives. The anger that had subsided when the fear arose spread like wildfire through his veins, heat leaping through him until Brand thought he might explode. He fought for cold control…and won.

Brand smiled at her, an easy, dismissive smile that nearly killed him. “And who is the lucky man?”

“You mean you haven't guessed?”

She studied him in a way that made him shift restlessly. He shrugged, and then lied through his teeth. “Frankly, I hadn't given it much thought.”

“Oh.” She glanced down at where his hand encircled her arm. “Let me go!”

At once Brand dropped her arm, walked away and leaned against the doorjamb, folding his arms across his chest with an insouciance he was far from feeling. The tension between them ratcheted up another notch.

When she looked up, the force of emotion in her expression rocked him back on his heels. So there was still…
something
under that composed exterior. It gave Brand the first surge of hope he'd experienced since walking into her office.