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her words with care. “I didn’t have to. He guessed that I was pregnant.”
    â€œAnd he’s far from pleased, I take it. What did you expect?”
    Her father had tried to persuade her against having the baby, but Clea’s mind had been made up.
    â€œI told you it was a rash decision, that you shouldn’t do it. But you wouldn’t listen. Now it turns out your obduracy might just save the day.”
    â€œDad…” Clea’s voice trailed away. Please, please don’t let him say Brand shouldn’t have come back. She wouldn’t be able to bear it. As much as the confrontation with Brand had shaken—shocked—her, the heady euphoria that he was actually alive still flickered under all the pain.
    But her father was already saying, “You should not have married the man. It was a mistake. You should’ve married Harry—he’s one of us.”
    One of us.
    The thing her father had held against Brand all those years ago. He’s not like us.
    But from the moment Clea had encountered Brand at an auction, where he was inspecting the coins she’d been sent to bid on, she’d been fascinated. Still a student, her father had arranged a vacation job for her at the museum. She’d been briefed to bid on two Roman coins, and herenthusiasm had bubbled over. Until Brand told her that the coins were fakes—which was why there wasn’t more interest in them.
    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.”
    â€œHow 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.”
    â€œAnd 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.”
    â€œA hasty affair that wasn’t what you deserved.”
    â€œDad, 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 maternalgrandmother. “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.
    â€œSurely 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.”
    â€œYou 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