Reclaiming His Pregnant Widow

His mother-in-law tapped his jacket sleeve. “Brand, you know I’ve never been in her confidence, but I do know she missed you terribly after you … disappeared. The weight that fell off her was evidence enough.”

Her eyes were full of questions. Questions that he couldn’t—wouldn’t—answer. Not yet.

He gestured to where Clea was talking and smiling. “So much that she’s pregnant?”

“Pregnant?” Caroline examined her daughter’s figure. “Cleopatra?”

Brand scanned the crowd. The cameraman had disappeared, but two others were hunched together talking furtively. “Uh-huh.”

“She can’t be!”

He turned his attention back to Clea’s mother and bent forward. “Trust me, she is.”

Caroline had paled. “I didn’t even know she was seeing anyone. But why would Cleopatra tell me? We don’t talk.”

Brand heard the movement beside him, and then a light flashed. He ducked his head and retreated farther behind the pillar. Someone swore softly.

Another movement. Brand tensed. He had no compunction about breaking a lens if a camera was aimed directly at him. Clea, however, might take a dim view of such behavior. It was time for him to leave.

But instead of a cameraman, Caroline peered around the pillar at him, her eyes the same intense green as her daughter’s.

Wondering if she had any idea how close she’d come to triggering the violence and rage that simmered within him, Brand flexed his fists and forced a smile. “I seem to be causing something of a stir—I have to go. The last thing I want is to cause an incident. This is Clea’s evening—it should be a wild success, not a brawl.”

She nodded, and then whispered conspiratorially, “There are two journalists on the other side of the pillar—I’ll stall them. Civility can be very hard to get away from. But, believe me, you and Clea always had something special. Whatever the problems, I’m sure you can get through them.”

As Brand headed out, he wished he shared Caroline’s confidence—and wondered if she’d noticed she’d finally called her daughter Clea.

Of course her bravado didn’t last.

The sight of Brand leaving caused Clea’s hard-won composure to flag. Faced by a flock of beaded and feathered designer ball gowns, ever-circulating trays of champagne and endless curious stares due to Brand’s unexpected return, the last thing Clea wanted to do was party—even if it was to celebrate her success.

She wanted Brand back—the Brand she’d married, the husband she’d adored. To be held in his arms. To curl up against his body. Most of all, she wanted his assurance that he loved her, and that everything was going to be okay …

And she wanted to know where he’d gone … when she would see him again.

But duty called. So she plowed on, talking, laughing, saying all the right things. Refusing to reveal how shaken she’d been by the Brand she’d faced in her office: a dangerous, hard-eyed stranger. Or how her rock-solid confidence in what they’d once shared had been eroded.

An hour later, her father found her, his expression pugnaciously set in what she privately called his bulldog face, causing her inner tension to escalate. Helping herself to a glass of soda from a waiter’s passing tray, Clea glanced surreptitiously over the rim of sparkling bubbles to her father’s barreling approach. What she wouldn’t give to be able to go home and crawl into the bed she’d once shared with the old Brand and examine every moment of the painful reunion with his frigid doppelg?nger.

“That bastard’s got gall showing up here after deserting you.”

“Hush, Dad, let’s not make a scene.”

Donald tempered his voice. “The evening is over—people are leaving.”

Clea glanced around. Plenty of onlookers still filled the museum. “So we can leave, too?” She tried to keep her voice light as she linked her arm through her father’s.

In the foyer downstairs, the doorman saw them coming and picked up the handset to call her driver, Smythe, to bring the car around, while the cloak attendant retrieved her wrap. Clea smiled her thanks.

“Did he say where he’s been?” her father asked as they exited through the glass doors.

There was no need to ask who he was referring to. Clea averted her face, not wanting her father—anyone—to read her confusion. She shook her head. “He wouldn’t talk. He’s angry about the baby.”

“You told him about the baby?”

Clea picked her words with care. “I didn’t have to. He guessed that I was pregnant.”

“And he’s far from pleased, I take it. What did you expect?”

Her father had tried to persuade her against having the baby, but Clea’s mind had been made up.

“I told you it was a rash decision, that you shouldn’t do it. But you wouldn’t listen. Now it turns out your obduracy might just save the day.”

“Dad …” Clea’s voice trailed away. Please, please don’t let him say Brand shouldn’t have come back. She wouldn’t be able to bear it. As much as the confrontation with Brand had shaken—shocked—her, the heady euphoria that he was actually alive still flickered under all the pain.

But her father was already saying, “You should not have married the man. It was a mistake. You should’ve married Harry—he’s one of us.”

One of us.

The thing her father had held against Brand all those years ago. He’s not like us.

But from the moment Clea had encountered Brand at an auction, where he was inspecting the coins she’d been sent to bid on, she’d been fascinated. Still a student, her father had arranged a vacation job for her at the museum. She’d been briefed to bid on two Roman coins, and her enthusiasm had bubbled over. Until Brand told her that the coins were fakes—which was why there wasn’t more interest in them.

Tall, handsome and with the kind of raw physical command she’d never encountered, Brand had intrigued Clea. His reasoning had been persuasive, his expertise obvious. In a quandary, Clea had first tried to call the assistant curator, then Alan Daley, and finally her father without any success.

So she’d made the decision not to bid.

Afterward, Brand had offered to buy her lunch but, knowing she had to get back to work and explain her decision, she’d declined. When he’d invited her to dinner instead, Clea had been overjoyed. By the end of the evening she’d been lost. She’d fallen in love with all the desperation of her nineteen-year-old heart.

Donald gave a deep sigh that broke into her reverie. “That man was trouble from the start.”

“How can you say that?” The Lincoln was purring at the curb, but Clea made no move toward it. “Brand saved the museum from buying overpriced fakes the first day I met him.”

“And had you in his bed within a week.” Donald headed for the car.

It wouldn’t be politic to admit that it had taken Brand far less time than that. Instead, Clea followed her father to the car and clambered into the backseat. Once inside, she said instead, “He married me a month later.”

“A hasty affair that wasn’t what you deserved.”

“Dad, it was what I wanted.” She wasn’t in the right frame of mind to hear her father’s favorite, much expounded opinion that Brand had only married her because she’d inherited a sizable sum of money from her maternal grandmother. “I can’t cope with another lecture.” Not tonight.

Tears pricked her eyes as Clea stared out the window, watching the city lights pass in a blur of color.

“Surely you’re not going to cry over him?” Donald snapped. “The man deserted you, had an affair and got himself tangled up in God only knows what kind of mess in Iraq. You need to get rid of him.”

His insensitivity caused her shoulders to stiffen. “I don’t know that for sure.”

“You saw photographs of a young beautiful woman who couldn’t keep her hands off him.” Her father gave a snort of disgust. “What more do you need? Fool yourself all you want, but at some stage you’re going to have to face the truth.”