Tessa Radley - Reclaiming His Pregnant Widow

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.”

A pang that could only be jealousy pierced her, adding to the turmoil of her emotions. “Dad, the same investigators also said that Brand had been killed in a crash and that locals had confirmed his body was thrown into a grave. They were clearly wrong about that, too.” But now Brand himself had caused her doubts …

“Girl—” her father placed a hand awkwardly on hers “—I’m so sorry you have to face this, have to relive all the misery.”

She brushed the tears from the corners of her eyes and sniffed. “These are happy tears—Brand’s alive.”

She tried to convince herself that was the truth. After the scene with Brand earlier, she suspected that a rocky road lay ahead.

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.

Brand 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.

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