Reclaiming His Pregnant Widow by Tessa Radley Page B

front door access code bleeped.
    Clea came through the door laughing, her hair thick and glossy, her mouth curved up in a smile. Emotion stabbed Brand. He’d missed her sparkle. Her joy. Behind her followed…Hall-Lewis.
    Brand glared daggers at Clea, every male instinct on red-hot alert. So much for dinner with a friend. This wasn’t the girlfriend he’d anticipated. His own fault! He’d allowed himself to be lulled into a false sense of security.
    â€œOh.” Her mouth formed a perfect circle. “You’re still up.”
    â€œI was waiting for you,” he growled.
    â€œClea, is there a problem?” Hall-Lewis came up behind Clea and placed his hands on her shoulders.
    â€œNo problem,” Brand said through gritted teeth. “Not now that you’re leaving.”
    He heard Clea’s gasp and there was an instant’s utter silence.
    Then Clea rushed to speak. “Brand, there’s no need to be rude to—”
    â€œClea, that was a wonderful evening.” Hall-Lewis smoothly overrode her protests. “I’ll call you tomorrow and we can arrange a time for you to choose a ring.”
    â€œHarry, don’t worry—”
    â€œOr if you’re too busy, I can choose a diamond to match the stars in your eyes.”
    Hall-Lewis chuckled. Brand fisted his hands at his sides. The man couldn’t have made it clearer that he was much more considerate of Clea’s workload than Brand had been yesterday.
    When the other man’s hands stroked along the curve of Clea’s shoulders, down her slender arms, before turning her deftly and bending forward to kiss her, Brand shut his eyes so tightly stars danced on the backs of his eyelids. He and Clea needed to talk.
    Brand opened his eyes to find Hall-Lewis watching him over Clea’s glossy head, his face alight with triumph. Brand’s hands hurt with the force of clenching them as he fought to keep his fists at his sides. But there was no reason not to glare straight back.
    War had been declared.
    Â 
    The silence that followed in the wake of Harry Hall-Lewis’s departure wrapped Brand in a viselike hold. “I need a drink,” he muttered.
    With a hollow sensation filling his chest, Brand headed down the high-ceilinged corridor and pushed open the door to the study that had once been his domain. The desk light was on, as well as a tall lamp beside the comfortable brown chesterfield couch where he’d sat earlier, reading, while he waited for Clea to return. The room bore evidence of Clea’s occupation in his absence—a slim gold pen on the desk, a needlepoint cushion on his chesterfield, a shelf of novels that hadn’t been there when he’d left—but essentially the room had remained the same, right down to the liquor cabinet in the far corner.
    Clea was right on his heels as he opened the leaded-glass door of the cabinet. She ignored the mugs of hotchocolate he’d painstakingly prepared—they were still steaming on the butler’s tray beside the sofa.
    â€œDo you really think that’s wise?” Clea asked. “Don’t you think we should discuss what just happened back in the hallway without alcohol clouding the issue?”
    There was no way in hell he was discussing the primal instincts that had risen within him when he’d seen her with her lover. And he certainly wasn’t admitting the deathly animosity that had passed between him and Hall-Lewis.
    Or the bone-deep certainty that had settled in his gut.
    Clea was his. And he was not about to let her go, even though she carried Hall-Lewis’s baby. Brand intended to reclaim his wife. His wife. She was not Hall-Lewis’s fiancée—and would never be his bride.
    He and Clea still had a marriage—and that negated whatever unholy deal she’d struck with Hall-Lewis. Besides she wasn’t even wearing the man’s ring yet. Of course, she wasn’t wearing Brand’s