Reclaiming His Pregnant Widow (10 page)

Her hand lightly touched his arm. Brand stiffened as tingles of electric awareness skated over his skin, and he focused on her slender fingers with their short, perfectly manicured nails.

“Anyway, you asked me to marry you in Central Park, remember?” she said. “Before we rushed off to Vegas. So you must have sensed my tie to this place.”

Of course he'd felt it. Against his tanned forearm, the bare mark on her third finger where her ring—his ring—should've rested mocked him. Brand raised his gaze to meet hers. “The heat was stifling. I proposed to you under an oak—it was the deepest shade we could find.”

“I remember.” Her eyes grew unexpectedly misty and her hand tightened on his arm.

Brand sucked in a deep breath as heat shafted through him. After a pause that was filled by the chatter from the surrounding tables, he pointedly stroked his thumb over the lighter groove of skin. “Clea, I'd like you to wear your wedding ring again—after all, we are still married.”

The soft dreaminess vanished as Clea slowly shook her head. “I can't.”

Her refusal hit Brand like a blow in the gut.

Before he could respond, their meals arrived. Brand removed his hand and waited for Clea to tuck into her ravioli, then followed suit with his own burger. They ate in silence, the clink of cutlery and the hum of conversation from the surrounding tables filling the space between them.

As Brand pondered her refusal to wear her ring again, he realized that it shouldn't have come as a surprise. After he'd carefully chewed and swallowed the last mouthful of burger, he said, “We need to talk about Harry.”

“Harry?” Clea's eyebrows arched upward. She set her knife and fork down together on her empty plate. “What do you want to discuss?”

Brand narrowed his gaze. “You can hardly marry the man while you're still married to me.” Clea started to say something, and he cut her off. “I'm not dead, so our
marriage stands. You need to know I'm not going to agree to a neat, tidy divorce.”

“Brand—”

“So you need to reconsider this rash plan.”

“It wasn't rash at all. You were gone. And I've known Harry for most of my life.” She tipped her chin up in a gesture that was pure Clea and studied him with a frown, causing his chest to tighten with dread. “Much longer than I've known you, in fact.”

“Time means nothing. You can know someone for years and know nothing about him…marriage changes everything.”

A cloud passed over her face. “I married you within a month of meeting you, Brand. And even though we were married, and we spent most nights naked in each other's arms, I barely knew you.” Clea paused for a breath, then continued. “Even though you told me you loved me, there was a part of you that you always kept hidden. You kept secrets.”

It wasn't the first time she'd raised this issue, and it was starting to dawn on Brand that she might be right. But still he defended himself. “Some of those were very real secrets—military secrets I was not at liberty to reveal.”

“Not all of them.”

“No,” Brand admitted. “But there were things—terrible things—that I preferred not to discuss, not to dwell on.”

“Okay, I can accept that. But sometimes I sensed there was a distance between us that I would never cross. At first I put it down to the fact that you were older, and, as you say, that you had seen so much more than me. But that distance…your reserve formed an impenetrable wall…and made it difficult for me to truly understand you.”

Brand didn't like the flat way she said that. “And you feel that you understand Harry?”

She gave a small smile that he liked even less. It held amusement…fondness.

“Harry adores me. And Harry would never lie to me—not even by omission.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Clea blinked. “Absolutely!”

In an instant of turbulent clarity, Brand realized that their conversation had nothing to do with Harry. And everything to do with the unresolved, unspoken tension that writhed between them. The chasm of emotional distance that Clea was talking about. But still he dodged the issue. “That's why you want to marry Harry…because he says he loves you?”

Her response was immediate. “It's not the only reason. Harry's great father material.”

Did that mean she thought he wasn't? Brand knew they'd reached break point. What happened the next few minutes would determine their future. Holding her gaze, he said softly, “But your baby already has a father figure—me! I will be the best father for your child that I can be.” He gave her a narrow-eyed look. “Better than Hall-Lewis.”

Clea rolled her eyes. “It's not a competition, Brand.”

“Tell that to your friend, Harry,” he growled.

“Harry's not like that. He's laid-back and easygoing.” Clea didn't even blink as her eyes remained fixed on his.

An alien panic filled him.
He'd barely found her, and now he was going to lose her.
She wanted to talk. Yet he was struggling to open up in the way he knew she wanted. Why did men and woman have to be so damn different? Maybe it was different with Hall-Lewis.
That
filled him with ire. She trusted Hall-Lewis; clearly, she no longer trusted her husband. To him, his fear of losing Clea far outweighed the betrayal that had so angered him the night they'd been reunited. He could understand why
she'd been drawn to Harry—he was her friend—and she thought Brand was dead. But he was back. And he had no intention of letting her go. Not in this lifetime.

“Clea, don't feel you have to marry Harry to give your baby a father. I will accept the baby.”

“It could be yours—if you wanted.”

Brand recoiled. Letting go of her hand, he stared across into turbulent green eyes. “You're talking adoption?”

For once he couldn't read her. Hell, he'd consider it, he'd do anything to keep her.

“We can discuss that later,” she said in an odd voice. “We have enough to talk about already.”

Brand nodded. “There's certainly plenty to discuss. Most importantly, I want you to tell Hall-Lewis there is no future for him. You're not going to marry him.”

Clea's tongue tip touched her bottom lip.

His body reacted instantly to the sight of that bit of pink. Oh, Lord. She didn't need him to lust all over her.
Been there, done that. It was time to cut to the chase.

Brand set his mouth in a hard line. “You know that Harry's bankrupt?”

The shock on Clea's face told him she hadn't.

“When did you have time to find that out?”

“I have my sources,” he said mysteriously. Settling back in his chair, Brand lifted his glass and took a sip. Over the smooth rim, his eyes never leaving hers, he hammered home whatever advantage surprise might already have gained him. “Do you know that he was given sixty days to come up with a million dollars to temporarily stave off his creditors?”

She looked uncomfortable. “What are you driving at, Brand?”

“You're easily worth a million dollars to him. Marrying
you would be a simple solution to all Harry's financial problems.”

Her fingers toyed with the stem of her glass. “‘A million dollars.' This is what you were getting at back at the shop?” It hadn't been, but Brand let it slide as Clea continued more heatedly, “And that's the only reason Harry would want to marry me, right?”

“Of course not!” Brand started to reach for her hand, but she lifted her glass and stared at the bubbles rising in streams to the surface. Leaving his hand on the table, he said, “You've got a lot to offer Harry—you're a treasure beyond price to any man.”

But he could see that Clea wasn't listening. She set the glass down and folded her linen napkin up, placing it with careful deliberation on the table.

When she looked up, her face was expressionless.

“I'm not going to marry Harry—I never was.”

Relief lifted a ton of weight from him.

Brand had been so certain that she would be demanding a divorce. Family was important to Clea; he'd known she wouldn't want to keep her baby from its father. He'd read her wrong. “So why tell me you were marrying him?”

“When I saw you again…” Clea's voice trailed away. “In my fantasies I'd lived out the moment for years. But the reality was nothing like what I'd expected. You were so different—so hard, so angry. I needed time to think.”

He'd caused his own downfall—but he'd been justified. Before he could defend himself, she started speaking again, so quietly he had to lean forward to catch her words. “Because if I really loved Harry it wouldn't matter that he was broke—because we'd have each other. That would give us all the riches I'd need.”

She didn't love Hall-Lewis, at least not in any way that mattered! “Your trust fund would've helped.”

Clea's green eyes started to spark. “Why does that always come up? And I'm not the one who keeps raising it.”

“No, in the past it was your father, your friend Harry and your other society friends.”

Her eyes widened as she registered the bitterness he could not hide. “I didn't think you'd noticed that they accused you of marrying me for my trust fund—”

“I noticed.”

“I never believed it.” She was examining him in a way Brand didn't like, as if she could see into his soul. Her eyes had gone all soft. “It hurt you!”

“Not hurt.” Brand shook his head. “Annoyed me, like the whine of mosquitoes in the heat of the desert night.”

Secretive. That's what she'd called him. Remote. Distant. He had been—but then she'd been so young. He hadn't wanted to worry her with his damnable suspicions. He would have to work on being more open…?.

He would have to start working on being a father, too. He'd learn to be the family man Clea wanted.

Her touch startled him. Clea had leaned forward, resting all five fingers of her left hand on his arm; she did it with a natural ease that Brand envied.
Hell, that's what he'd wanted to do.
It had become so hard to talk, to touch…

“You came from a large family. You went into the Special Air Services—became an expert at what you did. Then you discovered a passion for ancient artifacts and sought to learn everything you could about that. That's so much more admirable than being a trust-fund tycoon. It was your passion that drew me to you—you were different. That's why I fell in love with you.”

Her honesty humbled Brand. The time had come to stop hiding, whatever it cost him.

Looking down at her slender fingers resting on his arm,
he placed his hand over hers. Then he met her eyes and gave her the naked truth shorn of all embellishments. “All I ever wanted was you.”

“I
don't understand,” Clea said.

Brand didn't respond.

So she drew a shaky breath and, reluctant to reveal her inner insecurities to him, looked away across the lake to where a pair of swans paddled, leaving a trail of rippling water in their wake. “I thought there was someone else.”

“Who? Anita?”

Hearing him say the other woman's name caused a flurry of fear.
What had she started?

Once upon a time Clea had believed with all her heart—without a whisper of doubt—that Brand loved her.
Only her.
She'd loved him with an all-consuming passion that she'd never contemplated might be one-sided—even though he'd always been the most enigmatic and compelling man she'd ever met, and she hadn't always understood him.

But the Brand who'd returned no longer appeared
capable of loving her. There wasn't even a halfhearted pretense that he loved her. If another woman had taken her place, that would go a long way toward explaining the emotional changes in him.

“Come, let's walk.” Brand was on his feet, and in a matter of minutes he'd paid for the meal and led her from the restaurant to a pathway that wound along the banks of the lake.

Out on the water, Clea could still see the pair of swans she'd been watching earlier. One had slowed, and was peering into the water, its neck a graceful arch. Behind, its mate had stopped to look, too. Marital bliss. She'd read somewhere that swans mated for life. Which brought her back to the uneasy relationship that simmered between her and Brand…

“
Is
it Anita? Or is there someone else?” she demanded, and her heart started to knock against her ribs as she waited apprehensively for his response.

“Someone else!”

The mocking way he said it, the inflection in his voice, caused her to flick him a sideways glance. One side of his mouth had kicked up.

Clea's temper slipped. She came to a standstill. “Damn you, Brand. Are you trying to humiliate me?”

His mouth twisted into a grimace and there was a strange expression in his eyes. If she hadn't known better, she might even have thought it was uncertainty. But that would be wrong, because Brand was the most confident person she'd ever met. He knew who he was—what he wanted from life—even though he mystified her.

“There is no other woman,” he said. “Doesn't my desperate reaction to your touch tell you that much?”

Clea snorted in disbelief. “You can hardly bring yourself to touch me!”

“Not true. If I started, I'd never stop.”

Her heart climbed into her throat. What was he saying? Dare she take him seriously? Surely he was laughing at her. He must be. But she had to know for sure. “What about Anita?”

He shrugged. “What about her?”

Clea did her best to hide the frustration, the desolation—the budding hope—that warred inside her, to keep her voice level as she explained, “The detective I hired after you went missing initially suspected that you were having an affair—he told me all the signs of infidelity were there.” The only reaction Brand showed was the slightest narrowing of his eyes. It made him appear even more remote. But she'd started this—no point stopping now. So she plowed on, “He found evidence that you and Anita spent quite a bit of time together. In Greece. And, after the last time I spoke to you, you went to Iraq together.”

Brand watched her through narrowed eyes. “Anita was a colleague. She was helping me with…a project.”

“You never mentioned anything like that to me.” And she'd had plenty of time in the days after it had sunk in that Brand had vanished to comb through their last weeks together, to rehash every conversation, every telephone call.

“You'd always been sensitive about her—I was reluctant to bring up her name.”

“With good cause, apparently. You said you'd merely dated—when actually you'd lived together!”

“I was dumb. I admit that.” Brand raised his shoulders and spread his hands. “You were unreasonably paranoid about the woman so I lied to stop you from fussing about her. I still worked with her…and I needed you to settle down and accept that. Later, it was too late to tell you the truth without creating a much bigger issue. I was sunk.”

Clea had to admit that Brand had a point. He'd been her first love…and some sixth sense had alerted her to how attuned to each other Brand and Anita were. Much more so than a couple with a history of only a few dates. As an archaeologist, an expert on Middle Eastern antiquities, Anita had shared Brand's passion—making her more dangerous in Clea's eyes. In the early days, Brand had invited Anita to a dinner party at their home. Clea had felt threatened, barely responding to the woman's friendly overtures. Brand had known. Afterward he'd made love to her, reassured her, told her that he loved her. Only her. That Anita would never be more than a valued work consultant. And Clea had believed him.

After he'd gone missing—even after Clea had discovered that they'd been photographed together—she'd clung to that reassurance. Her father and Harry had clearly thought she was delusional. But to suspect Brand of betraying their marriage vows at that point would have plunged her into a chasm of despair that she'd been too frightened to contemplate.

“What was the project she was helping you with?” she finally asked.

Brand loosened the second button of his polo shirt and ran his finger around the collar, and Clea found her gaze drawn to the hollow below his throat. She watched him swallow and felt again the powerful tug of attraction.

“It no longer matters.”

Pulling herself together, Clea said, “I think it does.”

From his startled glance, she knew her dormant anger was showing. But Clea didn't care. In the past she'd been too besotted to question Brand when he'd brushed her off. He'd been older; she hadn't seen the danger of his secrecy.

“The project was confidential—it was jettisoned.” He thrust his hands into the pockets of his suit pants and
started to walk, his long strides eating up ground. “I never got a chance to see it through.”

This was typical of the Brand she'd lived with. He'd never been big on explanations. In those days, it hadn't bothered her. But now it did. She'd changed…grown up. She wanted an equal partner. Not a husband who treated her like a child to be indulged at best or lived his life separately.

This time she was not going to be left on the other side of the divide.

Clea trotted after him. “Okay, so you can't give me details. But you
can
tell me where you were.”

He shook his head. “You don't want to know.”

“I do.”
When he remained silent, the tears that had been threatening finally overflowed. “
Damn you
. Do you have any idea what I've been through?”

Clea slowed, blinking furiously, and turned away, leaving the path, heading for the lake. A breeze ruffled the water's surface, breaking the mirror calm, and wafted across to the shore, but Clea barely noticed.

She sensed, rather than heard, Brand's approach.

Years of pent-up grief and simmering resentment got the better of her. “Not one word from you. In nearly four years couldn't you at least have let me know you were okay? That you were alive?” A sob broke from her tight throat. “Do you know how lonely I've been without you? How much uncertainty I've endured? How scared I've been?”

“Clea, I'm sorry.” He caught her by the shoulders and she tensed. “I understand,” he said with unexpected gentleness, turning her around to face him. “You don't have to justify yourself to me. I might not like it, but I can accept that you thought I was dead and you were lonely for comfort.”

He still believed she'd slept with Harry.

Clea wanted to shake the weight of his hands off her shoulders, slap sense into him. Was it so hard for him to think outside the box and consider that she might not have needed a lover to get pregnant?

Her shoulders tense under his touch, she said, “Do you have any idea what it was like to live day after day trying to figure out why you'd left? Trying to understand what it was about me that made you decide to walk out and stay away for four years?” The lump in her throat was too thick to swallow past.

A shaft of sunlight caught the flex of a muscle high on his cheek. But, for once, Brand didn't retreat into that closed-off place where she couldn't follow.

“It was never like that.”

“And since you've been back I've been growing more convinced that the investigators' initial assessment was correct—you deserted me for Anita.” All her aching hurt was out in the open for him to see. “It's what everyone else thought from the beginning.”

His hands smoothed along the rise of her shoulders and he cupped her face. “I haven't been holed up in a love nest. I was taken prisoner—for the first year I barely saw light.”

Horror darkened Clea's eyes. “Brand!
Why?
”

“At first, I thought it was an opportunistic snatching and that Akam—the ring leader—assumed I was a wealthy foreigner and hoped to make a quick buck. When he kept uprooting the camp and moving deeper into the desert, I decided he'd gotten cold feet and feared reprisal.”

“Yet you escaped?”

Brand shook his head. “In the first few months I planned to but there was no opportunity—I was guarded too closely. After that period we moved around. Later, I had more freedom—but by that stage I knew I would
need resources to get out of Iraq. Akam and I had started to forge a relationship. He was being threatened. Keeping me became a danger to him. He had two choices—to kill me or to let me go.”

Clea shuddered in his hold. “He let you go?”

“He helped me in the end. He was a Kurd, and came from a long line of smugglers. He arranged a ride for me to a spot north of Al Sulaymaniyah, where I was left with directions to reach a village in the mountains and a letter of introduction to a ring of smugglers who operated there. The plan was to accompany them over an ancient smugglers' route through the mountains into Turkey where he had a distant cousin who would provide me with a passport. The journey took a lot longer than it should have. The smugglers' route comes close to Iran and the border is unmarked. Our group was arrested for straying into Iran—and the horses and supplies were confiscated.”

“Oh, Brand.”

“We were held for several months before being released.” Brand couldn't tell her about his relief that the Iranian border guards had considered him nothing more than a nuisance smuggler. He'd dared not speak or react, and so the border guards had considered him deaf and dumb. “I had sewn some money that Akam gave me into the waistband of my jeans—thankfully the guards didn't discover it. It was money I—and Akam—could ill afford to lose.” Brand smiled. “I'd already promised to pay him back—with generous interest and a substantial bonus—he'd taken enough of a risk.”

Her eyes were wide with shock. “That's terrible! I don't know how you can be so calm about it all.”

“I had no choice—and I'm back now.”

“I want to know it all—every detail.”

Brand winced inwardly. He'd known this moment
would come. Next she'd be insisting on full details about why he'd been in Iraq in the first place. “Clea, here's my promise to you—I will tell you everything I know. But there are some things I need to straighten out for myself first. I need you to give me time.”

“Of course I'll give you time. My God. I can't even begin to contemplate how traumatic the entire experience must have been.” Clea dipped her chin against his fingers. “Take as much time as you need—I can wait. I'll be here.”

Clea couldn't bear to think of what Brand must've been through. She wished she'd never begun to doubt him. She'd
known
he was alive. She'd known something had kept him from coming home…but this was horrible.

“Thank you.”

His hands cradling her face were gentle, and she kissed the tips of his fingers. Brand gave a little groan.

“How could you think there was someone else? From the day we met there has been no one else. No one. There is only you.” His eyes glittered and he leaned forward and covered her lips with his.

Clea half expected the kiss to be dominated by passion. It wasn't. It started off with gentle slowness, with a brush of his lips on hers. Another brush, lingering a little longer. It was only when her lips parted that he seized the moment, his tongue sinking past the soft barrier of her lips and his arms coming around her.

For a few seconds she stood still. Then her senses came to life.

Raising herself on tiptoe to meet his kiss, she let her hands uncurl and her arms creep up, her fingertips skittering across his nape. She closed her eyes, savoring the taste and feel of him. Her body melted against his as Brand plundered her mouth, his tongue moving back and
forth, sparking the latent heat in the pit of her belly into a roar of flame.

Under her fingertips, his short hair felt like rough velvet. In the past he'd worn his hair long, and when she'd stroked it she'd been reminded of raw silk. She touched the soft stubble again. There was a lot of time to make up for, a lot of bad days to wipe out of Brand's life.

With a hoarse sound he drew her to him. Clea was conscious of his physical arousal, of the hardness against her stomach. She pressed herself closer, glorying in his heat, his strength.

It was Brand who drew away first. “Trust me, there will never be anyone but you.”

Air winnowed against the front of her top where a moment before his body had been plastered. The piercing brightness of Brand's eyes filled her vision. Intent. Honest. Direct. There was no darkness…no distance.

She nodded.

In the back of her mind, echoed the sound of his voice.
All I ever wanted was you.