Reclaiming His Pregnant Widow (7 page)

Fiercely determined not to reveal her vulnerability to him, she tossed her head back and countered, “Didn't you consider that by coming here tonight you might've bumped into him?”

“I considered it.” Brand's eyes flared to a shade of pure,
bright turquoise. “To be honest, I was looking forward to the encounter.”

Clea did a double take at the dangerous glint in his eyes. This was the dark side of Brand she'd known must exist, but had never seen. It frightened her. Brand had served in the SAS; he possessed skills—knowledge—she'd never wanted to know about. He could take Harry apart.

Had she made a terrible tactical mistake telling Brand she was going to marry Harry? Had she put Harry in danger? Clea gulped down a breath of air, and told herself that she was overreacting. Brand's self-control was phenomenal—he would never hurt Harry. Already the glint in his eyes had changed to a more familiar gleam that had her exhaling in a rush of relief.

This Brand she could deal with.

He lifted the edge of the covers invitingly. “But your fiancé is not here, and you're already halfway to naked. Drop that dress. Come, get in.”

Her heart skipped a beat. Her crushing inability to resist him was the whole reason for the lie she'd told. “Not a chance.”

His lips curved into a lethal smile. “Am I supposed to come get you?”

Clea shivered at the blatant promise in his eyes. He would do it. And he was naked under that sheet…

Get out now.

“You're utterly impossible!” Yanking the dress higher over her breasts, she flounced across the room before temptation could undo her. “This has gone far enough. I'm going to take a shower, and when I come out I want you out of here. You can choose any of the guest bedrooms, but this is my room.”

As she slammed the door to the master bathroom
she heard him growl, “And this is
my
bed. You are
my
wife—even though that's something else you appear to have forgotten.”

N
ot even the sting of the shower jets could banish the outrage that gripped Clea. Yet beneath her fury lurked the knowledge that she'd escaped into the bathroom to avoid the sight of Brand climbing out of her bed in all his naked glory. Much easier to focus on her angry confusion.

How dare Brand walk into
her
home, climb into
her
bed, lean up against
her
pillows, taking over her most intimate sanctuary as if it had been only yesterday that he'd vacated it? And then have the brazen
gall
to remind her that she was still his wife?

She wasn't the one who had left!

Clea turned her face up to the battering spray. The man propped up on her pillows in the room next door was a world away from the man she'd married, the man who'd pledged to love her until death did them part.

This man despised her.

This man had walked away from the vows they'd taken.

Turning off the water, she squeezed gel into her trembling hand and spread it along her arms. The action soothed her. Clea stroked the creamy lather over the ripe curves of her breasts that had become increasingly tender as her pregnancy had progressed, and, drifting down, she gently rubbed the newly discernible swell filling the hollow that had, until recently, stretched between her hips.

A secret fluttering—like the whisper of invisible butterfly wings—caused her hands to still. The thrilling sensation had started two weeks ago.

Her baby was moving.

A baby who had been created to seed the family she and Brand had once dreamed of growing together in another lifetime. A time in which she'd been certain of his love.

They'd been married four weeks after meeting—and he'd vanished ten months later. A stranger who had intimately shared her life—her love—for less than a year. One she'd prayed for and believed in for all the years he'd been gone. But had she really known Brand at all? Had he ever loved her in the way she'd believed?

The confusion shifted again—like a kaleidoscope—offering a different vision.
Was
Brand's leaving her fault? Had she loved him too much, stifled him with her desperation for a family? Clea shut her eyes. Water beat against her face, her breasts, her belly. Clea shivered. Opening her eyes, she attacked the faucets, turning up the heat. A welcome blast of hot water sluiced over her, drowning out her unspoken terror.

She couldn't bear to consider the possibility that she'd driven him away, as she'd once driven her mother away…into the arms of another man's family.

Had she done the same thing to Brand? Or had his bond to Anita been too strong to break? And, if that was the case, why had he finally come home?

Too many questions whirled through Clea's head. But, one thing was certain: She wasn't sharing a bed with Brand. Not tonight. Not until she had answers.

Maybe never.

 

The water in the bathroom had stopped running.

Brand watched the door, every muscle tense, waiting for it to open.

At last Clea emerged, a shadowy wraith draped in an all-covering bath sheet. The pale skin of her shoulders glistened with moisture. He quickly shut his eyes. The soft press of her bare feet against the carpet told him she was approaching the bed.

Brand waited, giving her time.

She paused for a long, simmering moment beside the bed. Then she said, “Brand? Are you asleep?”

He didn't answer, and concentrated on keeping his breathing slow and regular. He'd had plenty of practice over the past few years—perfecting the technique to fool even the most sharp-eyed guards.

Clea sighed sharply. “You can't sleep here.”

Despite her annoyance, Brand had no intention of sleeping anywhere else. This was
his
bed…and she was
his
wife. She'd eventually come to terms with the fact that he wasn't moving out. The sooner she got over her fit of pique, the better for both of them.

“Wake up.”

She touched his shoulder, her fingers surprisingly gentle and slightly damp from her shower. Brand forced himself not to react and kept his breathing shallow.

“You're too heavy for me to move. I suppose you banked on that.” The bed shifted as she sank down on the edge. “I should call Curtis to help me move you. It would serve
you right if the whole household knew I'd kicked you out of my bedroom.”

His eyes opened a tiny crack.

She sat with her back to him, her hair spilling over her shoulders, tempting him to touch it. Clea couldn't be serious about calling the staff to kick him out. It would provide fodder for the kind of scurrilous gossip she'd always scrupulously avoided. Nor could he imagine the old Clea rousing the chauffeur who'd already gone to bed for the night.

In the dim glow of the bedside lamp he could see that her head was bent, and her shoulders sagged. She looked weary, and curiously defeated.

Brand ached to lift the covers, strip the damp towel away from her body, and sweep her into the warm comfort of the space beside him. But then she'd know he was awake—and they'd be trapped back in the spiraling turbulence between them. So he resisted the impulse and continued to squint through almost-closed lids.

He was going to win this round. Clea had no choice but to get into bed beside him—she would realize that soon enough. Anticipation seeped through him.

“What are you doing here? Why are you back, Brand?”

God help him, he no longer knew. For years his only goal had been to get back to Clea. He'd never given up on his determination to come home. Since the episode last year when a messenger had arrived with news that made Akam rage with fear, and had led to Brand being severely beaten, Brand had known his kidnappers were at the breaking point. By feeding Akam's growing paranoia, Brand had secured his own release. His kidnapper had provided transport to the north. Armed with a crudely drawn map, Brand had headed into the mountains in search of a network of Kurdish smugglers Akam had told him
about. Three days' backbreaking walk under the scorching sun had gotten him to the village they inhabited. From there he'd had help—and setbacks that had wasted more months—before making it through the smugglers' pass in the mountains. Once in Turkey, he'd been provided with two fake passports—one in his own name and another identity to travel on—before starting the long haul home to America.

Akam's Turkish cousin Ahmet had warned him not to use the passport in his own name in case it set off alarms in some government agency. Yet even though it was a fake, having a passport in his own name reassured him that Brand Noble still existed.

He'd expected—

Brand shut his eyes tighter. What the hell did it matter what he'd expected? He'd arrived home ready to embrace his old life…only to find Clea denying his existence. He'd gotten back to a wife who was pregnant…and planning to marry another man.

Unless he convinced her otherwise.

Clea bent toward him. For a heart-jolting second he thought she was going to hug him—kiss him even. That moment earlier when she'd realized he was naked beneath the covers—when her eyes had stretched wide with shock…awakening want—still tantalized him. For an instant he forgot to keep his breathing even; it came in jagged bursts.

But Clea didn't notice. Her hands were too busy searching beneath the pillow.

Brand lost patience. He wanted his wife back. Giving a groan, he rolled toward her. Still pretending to be deep in a stupor, he flung an arm across her back and pulled.

She leaped back and his arm fell away. Through almost-
shut eyes he caught a glimpse of a length of jade silk and lace crumpled between her hands. Brand rolled away.

Behind him Clea muttered, “That's it. I'm going to sleep in the nursery, and you can go to hell!”

With a decisive click of the bedside lamp switch, Clea plunged the room into darkness. Brand listened to her feet padding softly across the carpet, then the bedroom door banged shut.

Brand winced and opened his eyes wide against the overpowering dark.

Damn.

This wasn't the outcome he'd planned when he'd moved back into the house today.

Rolling onto his back, he stared into the darkness. It was going to be a long night.

Clea didn't know it, but he didn't need to be sent to hell—he'd already been there. It had turned out to be a hot, lonely place where sleep dried up and dreams died.

Even the hardiest hope struggled to survive.

It was only the strength of his desire to come home to Clea that kept him fighting. Against all odds, he was free; he'd succeeded.

Only to find himself in a hell worse than the one he'd left behind.

 

Despite his lack of sleep, it didn't take Brand long to work out why Clea had changed banks for her own accounts.

Ted Walters, the banker who had refused to take his calls, wore a black suit, frameless glasses and an air of arrogance that caused Brand to grit his teeth. Degrees in gilt-edged frames hung on the wall behind where Walters posed in a black-leather executive chair. Sliding a glance to where Clea sat beside him, Brand tried to gauge whether
she was experiencing the same irritation with the banker's self-importance. In a jade silk dress, with her hands folded in her lap, she looked cool and utterly composed.

Brand transferred his attention back to Walters.

“Your accounts were frozen on Mrs. Noble's instruction,” Walters told him in a smug voice from behind the relative safety of four feet of polished wood. “Until your estate is finalized we can't pay anything out. So I'm sorry—we are not in a position to advance you any funds.” He didn't sound apologetic at all.

Brand allowed his mouth to curl. “You appear to have missed the crux of the matter—my estate will not be finalized. I'm very much alive.”

Walters started to frown, then drew a sheet of paper from the file in front of him. “This is a copy of the court order having you pronounced dead. I'm afraid we can't do anything until that is overruled.”

The situation was absurd. Brand might have laughed, if he wasn't so sure the banker was gaining some kind of perverse pleasure from this.

Clea leaned forward. “But Brand is here. Surely if he provides you with proof of identity—”

Brand shook his head. His driver's license had long since disappeared, and the passport he carried was a forgery. He certainly had no intention of producing it for the banker's inspection. Until those documents were replaced, all he possessed was the birth certificate that Clea had retrieved from the document safe in their bedroom. “That won't be necessary. My lawyers will have that order set aside by noon.” Brand glanced at his watch to underscore the point he was making—it was almost noon now.

Refocusing his attention on Walters, he gestured to the copy of the presumption of death order, and said softly, “Since that obstacle will be removed very shortly, you may
as well begin unfreezing my accounts. I have considerable assets—some of my investments should have matured very nicely while I've been gone—and I will be taking charge of them.”

“Well, we certainly look forward to doing business with you in the future.” Walters extracted a business card from a brass holder beside an ornate pen stand and offered it to Brand. “We would, of course, hope you will persuade Mrs. Noble to reconsider the decision she made while you were…away…to move her accounts.”

He made Clea sound like some malleable little airhead who did precisely as her husband ordered. Brand shot his wife a quick glance. Her green eyes had turned stormy. For the first time in a long while, Brand fought the urge to smile with genuine amusement. Walters did not know his wife.

Ignoring the banker's card, he said, “I certainly wouldn't consider telling Dr. Noble what to do.” Brand made sure the emphasis on Clea's qualification would not been missed. “My wife is intelligent—and informed—enough to make her own decisions. Keeping my own business here would, of course, require that you were no longer handling my account—the level of service has been sadly lacking.”

The banker started to look concerned. “But—”

Brand cut him off. “The service will have to improve substantially. I would expect whoever takes over to accept my calls—and to be available to see me.”

The other man got the point at once. “Of course, Mr. Noble,” he said faintly. “I will tell reception to put all calls through at once. There will be no more…delays.”

“Good.” Brand rose to his feet. Clea stood, too, and placed her fingertips on his arm. Pleasure surged through Brand, along with a very male desire at the contact
against his bare skin. He felt ten feet tall and invincible. Reclaiming his assets and regaining his financial standing were secondary to the touch of her fingers. This was the first move she'd made in public to align herself with him, and the small gesture was a significant victory. He placed his hand over hers, holding it in place.

Once outside the bank, he couldn't contain his triumph. He grinned down at her. “What a self-satisfied ass.”

She squeezed the arm she still held. “That's why I changed banks. He always made me feel…inadequate.”

Brand slowed and turned to face her. She came to an abrupt halt, tilting her head back, her rosy lips slightly parted.

Lust surged through Brand. She'd never looked more desirable.

“Never feel inadequate. He's not worthy of your time. Forget about him, Dr. Noble—the man clearly has no brains.” Gently he brushed a wayward curl out of her eyes. “Have dinner with me tonight,” he said abruptly. “Let's go somewhere—”

“I can't,” she interrupted, her eyes darkening. “I'm sorry, Brand, but I'm having dinner with…with a friend. It was arranged last week—before you came back. I can't cancel this late.”

“No,” he said tonelessly, determined not to show his disappointment. As her hand fell away from his arm, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Of course you can't.”