on me?”
But he kept his hands by his side. “Dalrymple isn’t known for his truthfulness.”
“I know.” She put her hand on her belly. “But if he wasn’t lying—I couldn’t take the chance. There was too much at stake. Not just me.”
His gaze fell to where her hand cupped her round belly, despite his determination to remain unaffected. “You mean the baby?”
“I didn’t know I was pregnant when I agreed to play dead.” Her voice was soft, her tone sincere. “I found out almost a month later. But you’d already held the memorial service. You’d left the Marine Corps.”
“So, what? You decided that what I didn’t know wouldn’t hurt me?”
“No, of course not—”
“Because it did.” His grasp on his emotions broke, and a flood of anger and old grief poured into his throat, threatening to choke him. “It hurt like all hell. It still does. Every damn day.”
Her face crumpled. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry you let me believe you were dead?” He closed the distance between them in one furious step. “Or sorry that I found out you weren’t?”
She put her hand on his chest. His brain told him to shake off the touch, but the feel of her palm warm against his sternum, so damn familiar and longed for, nearly unmoored him.
He closed his hand over hers, holding it against his chest. “Do you have any idea what it was like, hearing you’d died on that plane?”
“I’m sorry.” Tears spilled down her cheeks, unchecked. “I wanted to let you know, but Dal said you were in danger—”
“Dal said.” He spat the man’s name with contempt, his anger finding an easier target. “I don’t give a damn what Dal said. You told me you were quitting, Risa. We agreed. We were done. It’s why you were on your way home from Kaziristan in the first place.”
“I know, but—”
“We had a life planned, Risa! You and me and a house of our own in a place we both loved instead of living out of suitcases and passing in the airport, remember?”
She wiped her eyes with her knuckles. “I remember.”
He raked his fingers through his hair, trying not to let his emotions get the best of him. Focus, Marine. “Who were the men you were following?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. She sounded as if she was telling the truth, but he realized he just couldn’t be certain. Not anymore.
“So why were you following them?” he asked.
She moved toward the window, standing just a little short of it, as if she worried she might be seen from the street. “I shouldn’t have come here. People will notice if I don’t go home. In some ways, living in an immigrant community can be like living in a small town. Everybody keeps an eye out for everybody else.”
He noticed that she had formed a habit of rubbing her belly when she spoke, as if she was soothing the child inside. He didn’t want to ask the next question, but he had to.
“Am I the father, Risa?”
* * *
RISA HAD BEEN expecting the question. Dreading it, because of what it would mean. But she hadn’t realized how much his show of distrust would hurt, even as she understood why he harbored it.
“You’re the father,” she said simply, because anything else would only exacerbate his doubts.
“And you weren’t ever going to tell me I had a child?”
“Honestly, Connor, I hadn’t thought that far ahead.” She turned back to the window. “I was supposed to be on the plane. But Dal had heard chatter that al Adar had put a target on my back. We knew they had people placed in the airports and other means of transportation.”
“So he took you off the plane and sent two hundred and twelve other people to their deaths to fake yours?”
“God, no!” She turned to look at him. “I would never have allowed that. You know that.”
“But it’s what happened, isn’t it?”
He looked so angry, she thought, her own chest tightening in response. Was anger the only feeling he had left for her now?
“He seemed genuinely shocked by the bomb on the plane. Connor, he sent another agent on that plane to take my place so al Adar would think I was going to be landing in San Diego as we planned.”
Pain flashed across his expression. “I was waiting there. For hours. They didn’t tell us right away that something had gone wrong. I got a call from Jason Ridgeway. He’d seen it on the news. A Russian airliner had disappeared somewhere over the Pacific.”
“I’m sorry. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way.”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, raking his hand through his already-tousled hair. “Okay. You didn’t expect the crash. But what about after that? You couldn’t let me know you were alive?”
“Dal said—”
“I don’t care what Dal said!” His voice came out in a pained roar. He turned his back to her, visibly trying to regain control. She waited silently, giving him time and space to do so.
Finally, he faced her. “I’m sorry. What did Dal say?”
“It doesn’t matter. I should have contacted you. I was just—it was one thing to think I was being targeted. But to know that they’d kill over two hundred people just to kill me—”
“Pretty shattering, huh?” For the first time, Connor sounded sympathetic.
“Very shattering.” She pressed her palm against the curve of her belly, taking comfort in the gentle wriggling of the baby inside her. He—or she—could probably sense her tension. Not for the first time, she wondered whether she was carrying a girl or a boy. Her ob-gyn had offered her the chance to find out the baby’s sex, but she’d wanted to wait until birth.
Until this moment, she hadn’t known why she’d wanted to wait. But watching Connor’s gaze follow the movement of her hand, she realized she had always hoped that somehow, against all odds, she’d be able to share the birth of this child with her husband.
He might never forgive her for letting him believe she was dead so long, but she had no doubt whatsoever that he’d love their child.
“Why are you here in Cincinnati, pretending to be a Kaziri widow?”
She sighed. “Sometimes, I wonder that myself.”
Connor looked at her through narrowed eyes. “You look tired.”
“I had to walk eight blocks for my doctor’s appointment this morning, and then I was on my feet for hours at work.”
“And then you followed a couple of men down a dark street.”
“Yeah. Not my finest moment.”
He pulled a chair away from the table. “Take a load off.”
She took a seat, swallowing a sigh of pure relief. She looked down at her feet and saw that her ankles were looking a little puffy. “Ugh, whoever said women glow when they’re pregnant was probably blind or demented. I’ve just inflated.”
Connor smiled, giving her the first glimpse of his dimples in forever. Her heart turned a couple of flips in her chest at the sight, just as it had the first time he’d smiled at her. “You look beautiful. You always do.”
The kindness in his voice, the sincerity of the sentiment, drew hot tears to her eyes. “I shouldn’t be glad you’re here, because you’ve probably put yourself in terrible danger. But I am. I’m so, so glad you’re here.”
He