Reclaiming His Pregnant Widow by Tessa Radley

control…and won.
    Brand smiled at her, an easy, dismissive smile that nearly killed him. “And who is the lucky man?”
    â€œYou mean you haven’t guessed?”
    She studied him in a way that made him shift restlessly. He shrugged, and then lied through his teeth. “Frankly, I hadn’t given it much thought.”
    â€œOh.” She glanced down at where his hand encircled her arm. “Let me go!”
    At once Brand dropped her arm, walked away and leaned against the doorjamb, folding his arms across his chest with an insouciance he was far from feeling. The tension between them ratcheted up another notch.
    When she looked up, the force of emotion in her expression rocked him back on his heels. So there was still… something under that composed exterior. It gave Brand the first surge of hope he’d experienced since walking into her office.
    â€œI’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 Cleahad the power to provoke him in a way no other woman ever had.
    â€œSo 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.
    â€œI 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.”
    Â 
    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