Tessa Radley - Reclaiming His Pregnant Widow

Once the shadowy men in black suits departed, on her father’s advice and using his extensive contacts, Clea had hired a firm of investigators to locate her missing husband.

It had never been a case of out of sight, out of mind.

She hadn’t stopped thinking about him, not for one minute. Even the two identical clocks on her office wall bore testimony to that—one set to Eastern Time, the other to Baghdad time. She’d never stopped thinking what he might be doing at any moment of her day. She’d wanted her husband back. She’d wanted answers about his disappearance. Real answers. Not speculation that he’d deserted her for another woman, which had been the first theory the investigators had come up with. The news of the grisly discovery of the burned-out SUV in the desert had terrified her. But she’d stubbornly clung to her belief that she would’ve known in her heart if Brand was dead. She’d demanded incontrovertible proof.

When they’d brought her his wedding ring nine months ago, Clea had been shattered, her dreams pulverized to dust, her hopes charred to ashes.

The idea of a baby had become a lifeline to sanity.

Getting pregnant had given her back her life. Not the life she’d hoped to share with Brand, but something better than the hopelessness that had overtaken her.

Yet now Brand stood over her accusing her of forgetting him. Instead of taking her in his arms, he was behaving like the world’s biggest bastard. And he showed no signs of listening anytime soon. Clea shook her head to clear it and pressed her hands protectively over her stomach.

Brand laughed—a harsh, grating sound she’d never heard before. “Nothing further to say? How unfortunate for you I didn’t remain dead.” The sea-green gaze had turned arctic.

Slumped in the chair, Clea’s whole body ached. Her feet. Her head. Her heart. Was it possible Brand was hurting every bit as much as she was? “I can explain …”

Brand recoiled.

“I don’t need your explanations!” He looked down on her from the full height of his six-foot-two-inch frame. His eyes froze her out. “It’s easy enough to see what happened.” One side of his mouth kicked up. “So who’s the lucky man?”

“Will you stop interrupting me?” Her voice rose. Hauling in a shaky breath, she tempered her tone. “We always talked about having a family—”

“ Our family,” he said, pointedly inspecting her belly, covered by the silk of her designer dress and sheltered by her clasped hands. “Not some other man’s bastard.”

“Brand, wait!”

Clea rose to her feet and reached for him, then dropped her hands to her sides at the icy look he bestowed on her.

“Please listen—”

“What’s the point of listening?” There was contempt in the frigid gaze that met hers, and something else …

Disappointment?

His lack of faith stung. She deserved a chance to explain, and she didn’t doubt that he’d listen once he’d calmed down. Brand might have a dangerous reputation, but he loved her.

Or did he?

The first shadow of doubt stole over her. Clea stilled. She’d always imagined that something terrible must’ve happened to keep him away for so long. A horrific accident. Memory loss. Trauma so terrible he hadn’t wanted her to see him in such a state.

Instead he stood before her looking breathtakingly hunky in the tuxedo and black shirt, his body even better conditioned than four years earlier—some feat because Brand had always honed his body to perfection. His face was burnished bronze by the sun, contrasting with the color of his sea-green eyes to devastating effect. An aura of reckless danger now clung to him, causing her heart to beat faster.

He might not be the Brand she’d kissed goodbye at the airport—but he wasn’t damaged or scarred.

Yet she had to admit, dressed all in black, he looked like the devil incarnate.

Without taking her eyes from him, she toed off her shoes, adding another two inches to the height advantage he already possessed. “So why didn’t you tell me you were going to Baghdad?” she challenged.

Brand stared back at her.

Did he cause Anita Freeman’s heart to beat faster, too? “Answer me!”

Nothing. Not even a blink. He simply kept watching her with that basilisk stare she was starting to loathe.

“I’ve waited—”

A brow lifted ironically at that. “Waited?”

“Yes! Waited. ” Clea pushed a tendril back off her face. “The last decent conversation we shared, you were in London—about to go to Greece. We argued about that. Remember?” She’d wanted to rearrange her schedule and had asked Brand to wait until she could join him. He’d refused—and ordered her to stay home. Clea hadn’t taken kindly to being so summarily dismissed. It wasn’t the first time that Brand had made decisions for her. She’d sulked. He’d called her once more from Athens—and their conversation had been stilted and brief. Just before he’d cut the connection, he’d told her he loved her.

Then there’d been no more contact.

When he didn’t respond, she said, “You never told me you planned to go to Iraq.”

His gaze didn’t waver. “I didn’t want to worry you.”

Could the explanation really be that simple? Or had the business trip to Greece been a cover for an affair with another woman? Had the investigators’ first theory—supported by her father and Harry—been correct after all?

The ticking of the two wall clocks was the only sound in the room.

Clea broke the silence. “That’s all? That’s the reason you never mentioned it?” If she hadn’t been watching him so closely, Clea might have missed the sideways flicker of his eyes.

Brand wasn’t telling her the truth.

Or at least not the whole truth.

The silence stretched until Clea broke it. “Don’t you think concern that you might be maimed or kidnapped or even killed would be a reasonable reaction to being told that you were going to Baghdad?”

He shrugged, his broad shoulders flexing under the tuxedo, causing her gaze to stray for a brief moment before returning to his face. “I served there with the SAS,” he said. “I know the territory—and the risks.”

Frustration and a feeling of letdown drove her to sarcasm. “Okay, so those risks might not worry super-humans like you … but they sure do worry me.”

“Which is exactly why I didn’t tell you—I didn’t have time to soothe you.”

Like some clingy child. But this was getting interesting. Brand was lying to her. Clea was certain of it. His face wore a set expression, and his eyes had flicked away again. “So what was so important that you simply went without consulting me? And why no contact since? Surely you can’t have been in Baghdad all this time?”

He resumed staring at her, tight-lipped.

Clea tried again. “Were you on some covert mission?”

He laughed at that, making her feel ridiculously melodramatic. Yet she couldn’t help thinking of the dark-suited men who had surfaced after his disappearance and asked her why he’d gone to Baghdad—and seemed to know all about his special forces background.

“At least tell me it’s classified, if that’s the reason.”

“I wasn’t part of a military operation.”

She deserved more than being stonewalled. Drawing a deep breath, Clea eased back against her glass-topped desk and said, “Tell me where you’ve been, and I’ll consider explaining about the baby … on condition that you don’t interrupt me until I’ve told you everything.”

“I don’t need your conditions—or your explanations,” he said. A look followed that slashed her from head to toe—with significant focus on her almost-flat stomach. “I can see exactly what you’ve been up to.”