Reclaiming His Pregnant Widow (5 page)

“I'm astonished that you haven't guessed,” she said, flicking her hair back over her shoulders in the kind of go-to-hell gesture the Clea he'd married would never have used. It sorely tempted him to grab her and haul her into his arms. Kiss her into place. This new feistier Clea
had the power to provoke him in a way no other woman ever had.

“So surprise me,” he challenged instead of giving in to his baser impulses.

She glared at him, and he instantly itched to kiss her pursed lips. The memory of the sight that had met his eyes when he'd walked into the museum last night ignited him. As terrifying as any he'd witnessed in a war zone, it had kept him awake all last night in a dingy excuse for a hotel room with its peeling paint and water-stained ceiling.

Clea, his beautiful Clea, standing close to Hall-Lewis, her hand resting on his sleeve while he looked down at her. Bitterness, sharp and corrosive, burned at the back of Brand's throat.

“I don't need to guess.” Hell, he'd known from the moment he touched her swollen stomach whose baby lay inside. “Harry Hall-Lewis.”

Clea blinked twice. “You've never been dense, Brand. I should've known you'd work it out. Eventually.”

 

Brand's conclusion that Harry was the father of her baby caused the sick churning in Clea's stomach to speed up.

She examined him where he leaned against the door frame, arms folded, ice-faced, blocking her escape. He looked nothing like the man she'd married. The long, dark waves of hair had been ruthlessly cropped to expose his strong jaw and the shuttered ocean-eyes. His mouth, always full and passionate, had flattened into a hard line.

The tightening in her stomach was the last thing Clea needed.

She told herself fiercely that she was not attracted to this hard, uncompromising Brand.

She couldn't be.

It would be stupid.

She had to get out of here.

Before she could have second thoughts, Clea surged past him and stalked out of her office through reception, retreating to the ladies' room down the hall, where she locked the door behind her. For once she failed to appreciate the beautiful antique mirror above the dark granite basin or the handcrafted brass sconces mounted on the walls. Instead, she turned on the faucet and let the cool water rush over her wrists, wishing the smoldering pain within her could be washed away so easily.

The glint of gold through the water trickling over her fingers gave her pause.

Slowly, Clea turned off the faucet. A second later her wedding ring was off. Bending her head so her curls fell forward, she stared at the plaited band of red, white and yellow gold resting in the palm of her right hand.

On their wedding day, Brand had told her that the red represented his passion, the white was for her, his bride, while the yellow represented the children they would have together…the family she'd always craved.

Her free hand touched her stomach, comforted by the presence of the life growing there. She would have the child they'd planned, but there would be no family…

Yet Clea had no regrets.

Making the decision to have the baby had filled the dark void in the days after she'd been forced to accept that Brand really was dead…or go mad. The memory of that conversation on their wedding day had become a lifeline, giving her a glimpse of a future where she would not be alone. She gazed at the ring.
Yellow for the children they would have.
Pursuing that dream was what had kept her sane.

For the life of her, Clea couldn't remember the to-do
list that only minutes ago had rumbled about in her head. She was overwhelmed by the aching loss of regret.

So much for hoping that today would bring perspective. So much for her intention of talking to Brand about the baby. It was proving to be impossible…

He'd changed too much.

Setting her wedding ring down on the cold granite slab, Clea picked a white towel off the waiting pile and wiped her damp hands before tossing the towel in a basket. Then she paused and critically inspected her reflection in the mirror. Green eyes set in a face framed by a riot of dark curls stared back at her. Nothing about her had changed. She looked the same as she had yesterday…last month…even last year. Certainly she didn't look nineteen weeks' pregnant.

Maybe a little slimmer, she finally admitted, and the sadness in her eyes hadn't been there four years ago.

Yet Brand had changed. While he'd always been self-contained and more than a little enigmatic, she'd never doubted that he loved her. But now he wasn't a little distant—he was on another planet. Whatever he'd have her believe, finding her pregnant could not possibly have been responsible for such a metamorphosis.

He no longer trusted her. No longer loved her. He believed she'd betrayed him and slept with Harry. If she'd—

Clea pulled herself up short.

No. She wasn't going to fall into the trap of blaming herself. This was
not
about her…or her pregnancy.

For reasons of his own, Brand had chosen to leave, to go to Athens without her four years ago, and then traveled on to Baghdad without letting her know, in the company of a woman with whom he'd once shared an intimate relationship.

His was not the behavior of a man committed to his marriage. It was time to face the fact that their marriage had been crumbling before he'd vanished—it was not the temple of strength built on the bedrock of love and trust that she'd believed.

“You did not drive Brand away,” she told the Clea in the mirror. “So don't you dare blame yourself.”

If she had to tell herself that ten times a day, a hundred times a day, she would do it. As long as it took for her to believe it. It had been Brand's choice to abandon her…and their marriage.

She glanced down to where the ring lay, the strands of gold warming the chill of the black granite. Already she missed the comfort of it on her finger.

Clea straightened her spine. Until Brand told her what had gone wrong, what had caused him to walk away from what they'd shared, she was not wearing his ring again.

T
o Clea's immense relief, by the time she'd regained her composure sufficiently to emerge from the ladies' room, Brand had vacated her office. It took only a few minutes to call the bank and make an appointment for them with the manager the following day. But how to contact Brand to let him know?

Clea set the phone down and rose quickly to her feet. If she could catch him before he left the building…

She found him in the high-vaulted, airy west gallery, where he was examining the most valuable acquisition the museum had made since he'd vanished.

Summer sun spilled in through large, arched windows, illuminating Brand where he stood with his back to her, feet planted hip-width apart. It was impossible not to admire the way his jeans hugged his narrow hips or notice how the black T-shirt stretched across his powerful
shoulders, and the sight caused a forbidden flutter beneath Clea's rib cage.

Brand's attention was focused on the two-foot-tall alabaster vase housed in a glass display cabinet equipped with state-of-the-art security sensors. Clea knew his features would reflect the same buzz of excitement that had gripped her the first time she'd seen the artifact. And still did even now, after six months of admiring the scenes carved in its two panels.

Yet he stood unmoving, not thrumming with excitement as she would have expected.

Clea hesitated.

Did Brand not know what he was looking at?

She dismissed the moment's doubt.
Of course he did.
This was Brand Noble, one of the world's up-and-coming experts on ancient artifacts…or at least he had been before he'd taken off without a word. She doubted his interest, or the sharp acumen he'd once possessed, had been dulled.

“What do you think?” Clea halted beside him. “Uruk period. Almost 3,500 years old. It's like having our very own Vase of Warka. Isn't it fabulous?”

“The Vase of Warka bore three panels of scenes of worship.”

Clea rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“There was a vessel very much like this in the Iraq Museum—I saw it once.”

“I've heard that, too. The Vessel of Inanna,” Clea said with a note of reverence in her voice. “But, unlike our treasure, that vase is in pristine condition, I believe. This piece has been substantially damaged—although it's been expertly repaired. Cost a king's ransom, let me tell you. Worth it, don't you think?”

His attention still on the vase, Brand said, “When I look at this vase I can't help but think of the theft of the Vase
of Warka—completely different vase, nothing like this one, but stolen from the Iraq Museum during the sack of Baghdad.”

“I know,” Clea said with a touch of impatience.

“Of course, the story of the Vase of Warka had a sobering ending. Coincidentally enough, I was actually in Baghdad, part of a legion of troops stationed there, when it was returned two months later.”

“You never told me that.”

“It was surrendered under the watch of a group of surprised soldiers.” Brand's voice was flat. Factual. “Thousands of years old, the Vase of Warka had been damaged, broken into fourteen pieces at some stage during the theft. An unnecessary price to pay for someone's greed.”

Clea found herself bristling. “So why does our vase—” she pointed to the display case “—remind you of that incident?” She couldn't believe this conversation was heading where she suspected.

“You want me to spell it out?”

She wasn't going to let him draw her out like this. In the sunny voice she usually reserved for visitors to the museum and deep-pocketed moguls she was hitting up for funding, Clea said, “While it's true that the base of this vessel has been broken like the Vase of Warka's, I resent the implication that it was as a result of theft from the Iraq Museum. This is
not
the Vessel of Inanna that you saw there. This vase has sound provenance. I believe it was damaged a few years ago when the artifact was inspected for insurance purposes.”

“And it wasn't mended then?” Brand's voice held disbelief.

“I found that strange, too,” Clea admitted. “But the collector is aging, he found the maintenance taxing. We
had it repaired shortly after acquiring it. You'll see that it wasn't the first damage. Eons ago it must've fallen because it has been mended by ancient craftsmen. See?”

Clea pointed to the giveaway restoration marks and slanted him a sideways glance, gauging his reaction. Not a flicker.

He turned his attention from the alabaster vessel and gave her a long look. “I do see, and I suspect it's highly likely it was stolen—and sold on the lucrative black market to a collector who would keep it behind heavily guarded doors.”

Resenting the implication that she—or Alan Daley, the museum's aging head curator—would countenance black-market artifacts without provenance, Clea named their seller, a very well-regarded private collector. “And he acquired it in the 1960s—so it can't be the same vase that you saw.”

One dark eyebrow shot up. “He willingly parted with what must be a crown jewel in his collection?”

Did Brand really have to make it sound as if there'd been foul play involved? Or was he just trying to wind her up? Keeping her tone dulcet, she responded, “He's an old friend of Dad's. He has no children…and his heirs have no interest in antiquities. And, as I said, the piece had been damaged. I think the poor man was thrilled that it would be repaired and displayed in the museum for countless people to see. We were very fortunate to be able to acquire some of his collection.”

Brand's surprise was clear. “There are more pieces?”

“Oh, yes.” Pride made Clea smile. “But they are still being catalogued—Alan checks out the provenance of every piece. But it helped that our collector is elderly and made most of his purchases before the 1970s. They won't be put on display for a while—the cleaning and
restoration is taking vast amounts of time—although we will be unveiling one of the more spectacular pieces to coincide with the Museum Mile Festival.”

The play of sunlight across his face did nothing to soften Brand's taut features.

Could he seriously be doubting the museum's professional integrity? Despite her efforts at calm, real annoyance finally started to stir. “And just to convince you of the care we took, Alan contacted the museum in Baghdad and confirmed that the Vessel of Inanna had not been looted. It's not on their inventory of missing artifacts.”

Brand turned his head and their eyes locked. “I would've done exactly the same thing. But that doesn't guarantee it hasn't been looted, only that its disappearance hasn't yet been recorded.”

The impact of those aqua eyes caused her next words to die unspoken on her lips. The connection between them was both fierce and primal. Her stomach bottoming out, Clea forgot about his suspicious reaction to the vase, his distrust of her. The color of his eyes became her whole world.

This was what it had been like from the very first moment they'd met.

No.
Clea blinked, breaking the spell, and drew a shivery breath. Pushing a hand through her hair, she brushed it away from her overheated face.

She didn't want this…this…

Brand's gaze sharpened and he caught her hand. As his thumb brushed the pale indent where her wedding ring had sat, sensation bolted through her.

“You're not wearing your wedding band.”

“I took it off.”

Something flashed behind those marvelous eyes, an emotion that made her heart tighten.

“Why?”

From outside the gallery, Clea heard the rising chatter of voices and her eyes flicked to the open double doors on the far side of the room. One of the volunteer tour guides was shepherding a group of tourists into the gallery. Clea caught a word or two of Japanese.

Grateful for the respite, she said, “Look, this isn't the place for this discussion.”

Brand didn't move, he only repeated, more insistently,
“Why?”

Clea shot a harried glance to the doorway. Several of the tourists were staring curiously. Clea could just imagine the picture she and Brand presented. A man and a woman, standing so close together, his hand holding hers, the charged air between them…electric.

Her cheeks grew hotter. “We're making a spectacle of ourselves.”

Without waiting for Brand's agreement, she tugged her hand free of his grasp and rushed out of the gallery as though the devil himself was on her heels.

 

Brand filled the doorway of her office, a dark and brooding presence.

Perhaps the devil himself had indeed arrived…

Clea shook off the image and drew a deep breath. Her reaction to Brand's stare, the touch of his hand on her ring finger, had shaken her. The attraction he'd always held for her appeared to be as strong as ever…even though he hated her.

What was wrong with her?

He'd deserted her for another woman. How could she even be tempted by a man whose contempt for her was
palpable?
Insanity.
But there was a way out. A way that would put him forever out of her reach.

Could she do it? Could she burn her bridges forever? Clea drew a shuddering breath. Then she reminded herself that he hadn't been prepared to listen when
she
had wanted to talk. Nor had he been prepared to offer explanations when she'd all but begged for them.

Brand no longer loved her. Suspicion. Distrust.
Hatred.
That was what he felt for her.

Now she had to think about self-preservation.

The time for damage control was long past. Now she had to look out for herself…for her baby. What did his opinion of her matter? It could hardly get any worse. She'd use every means at her disposal to build a wall around her susceptible heart, to construct a citadel Brand couldn't breach.

Clea refused to let her vulnerability to Brand sabotage her life. Not when she'd struggled to rebuild something from the wasteland his disappearance had created…

“I took the ring off because—” She broke off and swallowed. Something nagged at the back of her mind. She pushed the uneasy sensation away, and focused on Brand. Their marvelous marriage had been nothing more than a mirage. She was entitled to salvage her pride—to save face. “Last night was more than the exhibition opening.”

Brand had gone still and narrow-eyed. Sun rays caught his cheekbones, highlighting the hard angles but failing to disperse the shadows that occupied the deep grooves bracketing his mouth. He certainly looked as frightening as the devil. Clea shivered. No love there. Only darkness.

“Harry asked me to marry him and—”

“No!” The sound exploded from him.

She warded him off with outstretched hands—even
though he hadn't moved from where he appeared to have taken root in the woven carpet. In a rush, she added, “And I said yes.” Clea raised her chin and her eyes clashed with Brand's. “A child needs a father.”

Silently, she apologized to Harry for her cowardice. But it would be easier this way. Brand had already concluded that the baby was Harry's. And she didn't want him back…not this cold-eyed, suspicious stranger who didn't love her enough to trust her. She certainly wasn't going to allow him to seduce her traitorous body.

“You can't marry Hall-Lewis…you're married to me.”

“No, I'm not. You're dead.”

“Excuse me?” Brand padded closer, big and suddenly looking extremely dangerous. “I'm very much alive.”

Clea edged toward the door as his bulk blocked out the sun. “Not legally—I had you declared dead.”

“What?”

“You're dead, Brand. As far as everyone else is concerned, I'm a widow.”

Brand's mouth twisted. “That's a load of bull. I'm here…alive…and you're still my wife.”

He paused, and Clea saw him make the connection.

“Declared dead,” he said softly. “So that's why my accounts were frozen.”

The look in his eyes made her feel sick. “Yes, until your estate is finalized. Then your assets will be distributed.” She'd forgotten to tell him about the appointment she'd made for the bank in the morning. “Brand—”

“And you, of course, inherit it all.”

Clea didn't like the bleak expression that dulled his eyes.

“Now I understand your motivation for having me declared dead.”

“Brand, I don't need your money. I have my inheritance, I have a job—”

“That Daddy arranged for you,” he sneered.

Clea felt the blood drain from her face. His jibe was unforgivable. “I've never cared about money. My father's connections might have gotten me an introduction to the museum, but I got my job—and every promotion after that—based on merit. I'm responsible for my own success. You can't take that away from me.” Clea brushed back her corkscrew bangs with her hand, and then dropped the ringless hand out of sight when Brand's jaw locked. “I've made an appointment with the bank for tomorrow morning.”

“Better call the lawyers and have that court order declaring me dead rescinded, too,” he growled.

Clea nodded, then swallowed as the tension that had been simmering between them took on a pulsing life of its own. The sudden silence only heightened her consciousness of every move Brand made, of the way his chest expanded under the black T-shirt so that he seemed to loom closer with every breath.

She took a small step toward the door.

But Brand got there first.

He closed in until she came up against the smooth glass of the door.
Trapped.
Clea froze as he bent forward.

His familiar scent surrounded her; she inhaled the essence of him, and her knees went weak.

From this close she could see the smooth line of his jaw where he'd shaved. His lips parted, the full bottom one reminding her of the pleasure that mouth had given her in the past.