Читать книгу: «Claiming His Runaway Bride / High-Stakes Passion»

Available in October 2009
from Mills & Boon^® Desire™

High-Society Secret Pregnancy by Maureen Child & Front Page Engagement by Laura Wright

Spaniard’s Seduction by Tessa Radley & Cole’s Red-Hot Pursuit by Brenda Jackson

Claiming His Runaway Bride by Yvonne Lindsay & High-Stakes Passion by Juliet Burns

Claiming His Runaway Bride
by Yvonne Lindsay

“I don’t know you.”

“Ah, that’s where you are wrong, my beautiful wife. You know me. Intimately.”

With that he bent down. She was momentarily aware of the almost driven expression on his face before the distance between them closed and the coolness of his firm lips captured hers. She bunched her hands into fists to stop herself from lifting her arms, from curling them around his shoulders and pressing her body against his to ease the ache.

Abruptly Luc pulled away.

“See, we’re not such strangers after all.” His eyes glittered, daring her to deny the way her body had awakened in response to his kiss.

High-Stakes Passion
by Juliet Burns

“I’ll see your ten and raise you, um, this whole stack of money,” Audrey said triumphantly.

“I don’t have any money left,” Mark said.

“Well, I guess you could bet something besides money.”

“Like what?”

Audrey stopped smiling and looked directly into Mark’s brooding blue eyes. “If I win…you stop drinking,” she said, “and you shave that awful beard!”

“What the hell kind of bet is that?”

“If you don’t think you can do it -”

“OK, Ms High-Stakes Player, let’s say we up the ante.”

“What do you mean?”

It was Mark’s turn to look smug as he clasped his hands behind his head. “I’ll see your bet by shaving my beard and I raise it by getting off the booze. Now, see my raise by wagering something I want, or fold.”

Surely he didn’t want…“Um, what do you have in mind?”

His smouldering gaze slid down her body. “I think you know exactly what I want. Now, do you fold, or play?”

CLAIMING HIS
RUNAWAY BRIDE

BY

YVONNE LINDSAY
HIGH-STAKES
PASSION

BY

JULIET BURNS

MILLS & BOON^®

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

CLAIMING HIS RUNAWAY BRIDE

New Zealand born, to Dutch immigrant parents, Yvonne Lindsay became an avid romance reader at the age of thirteen. Now, married to her blind date and with two surprisingly amenable teenagers, she remains a firm believer in the power of romance. Yvonne feels privileged to be able to bring to her readers the stories of her heart. In her spare time, when not writing, she can be found with her nose firmly in a book, reliving the power of love in all walks of life. She can be contacted via her website, www.yvonnelindsay.com.

Dear Reader,

As a child I always loved fairy tales—in fact, I never tired of reading them over and over again. Having children of my own was a chance to relive those tales of wonder—of the course of true love never running smooth, of happy ever after. One story that always spoke to my heart, as a child and as an adult, was Beauty and the Beast. I think it’s the whole “Love Conquers All” that just gets to me—the unwavering belief that true love can break the wickedest of spells and redeem the hardest of hearts. Anyway, suffice it to say that I’ve always been a bit of a romantic, and when I first started thinking about Claiming His Runaway Bride it was a simple matter to go for a Beauty and the Beast theme. My convoluted mind just couldn’t help but add an amnesiac runaway bride to the mix.

When I start my romance novels I always think very hard about the setting, and in all the beauty that is New Zealand I’m spoiled for choice. A part of the North Island I’ve always loved has been the Taupo district. Lake Taupo is the largest lake in the country, and the scenery around the area is exquisite in its beauty and diversity. Tourists travel from far and wide to appreciate the splendour of the countryside—especially those who enjoy outdoor pursuits. My “Beast” needed his own castle and domain, and what better area than the rugged strength and power of the hills to the southeast of Lake Taupo, where hunting, fishing and tramping reign supreme. And so Luc’s Tautara Lodge was created as an exclusive luxury adventure-holiday empire.

I hope you enjoy my own version of a modern fairy tale.

Best wishes,

Yvonne

This one is for my beautiful girls, Morgan and Tegan. One day your prince/s will come…:)

One

His wife?

How could she have forgotten something like that?

Someone like him?

Belinda eyed the silent stranger standing beside her father at the foot of her hospital bed. Tall, and looking as if his designer clothes were just a little too large on his frame, the stranger stood with his left hand in his trouser pocket, his right hand resting on the knob of a shiny black cane.

She didn’t even know his name. How could she be married to him and have no knowledge of it? Fear choked her throat.

His glittering green eyes never left her face. An intangible thread of something—was it anger?—burned just below the surface. His expression remained inscrutable. The hard lines of his face spoke of an iron will—this was not a man who tolerated fools.

Her breath hitched. She didn’t know him—how could they expect her to go home with a total stranger? Belinda cast a frightened look at her father. The smile he returned seemed strained; the lines on his face deeper than usual. Suddenly her desire to be released from her room here at Auckland City Hospital fled, and the place she’d itched to be free of assumed proportions more in line with a much-sought-after sanctuary.

A disturbing thought occurred to her.

“If you’re my husband why haven’t you been here at my side, like my parents have? It’s two weeks since I came out of the coma.” Her challenge rang hollowly across the room.

Belinda intercepted a glance between her father and the man who claimed to be her husband, saw the imperceptible nod her father gave.

“Well?” she demanded, her hands fisting in the bedclothes.

“The accident that took your memory also caused me injury. I am fit to return home now. With you.”

There was a great deal he wasn’t saying, and what he left unsaid caused her more anxiety than the realisation he too had been hospitalised. She’d been treated with kid gloves by the medical staff and her parents since she’d regained consciousness, everyone prepared to give her medical answers but nothing else. Not even the details of the accident that had left her in a coma for four weeks. Throughout the past two weeks of tests and examinations, her doctors had tried to find the cause of her amnesia and had come to the conclusion it was not a direct result of the blow to her head that she’d sustained in a car accident. She’d overheard the words “traumatic amnesia” and “hysterical amnesia” being discussed in low tones.

The last had made her shudder. Did that make her crazy, she wondered, that she chose to forget a part of her life that for anyone should have been full of excitement, fun and passion? Or did she have good reason to want to forget?

She looked again at the stranger. The slightly less-than-perfect fit of his clothing now made sense if he had been stuck in hospital. Had he been too incapacitated to see her? Did a lengthy stay in bed explain his gauntness? She had no doubt that he was the type of man who paid attention to every detail, and that under normal circumstances his clothing would conform to his body as if tailor-made.

Another thought skittered through her mind. Had they timed her release to coincide with his? Protest flared inside.

She’d been railroaded.

“No, I won’t do it. I won’t go home with you. I don’t even know you!” Her voice sounded shrill, panicked.

The stranger’s eyes narrowed, a muscle worked in the side of his jaw.

“I’m Luc Tanner, you are Belinda Tanner—my wife. Of course you’ll come home with me.” He nodded in her father’s direction. “Do you think your father would allow you out of his sight if I was a threat to his precious child? Rest assured, you know me well.”

There was an undercurrent in his tone she couldn’t quite nail, but it was enough to send a shiver down her spine. She shook her head slightly to rid herself of the sensation. What the stranger—Luc, she corrected herself—said made sense but a cautionary niggle played at the back of her mind.

“Why can’t I go home with Dad? At least until my memory returns.” She was grasping at straws, and she knew it.

“And if your memory never returns? Are we to forever forget our marriage? Our vows to each other?”

There was a thread of steel in his tone that sent a chill through her. It was a good question. What if she didn’t get her lost months back? And why, when she could remember so much else, could she remember nothing of their courtship, their marriage? The love they’d supposedly shared.

A spear of something else shot through her body. Had they been intimate? They must have been, even now her body warmed to his with a physical recognition her mind refused to accept. He was a very attractive man despite that air of aloofness he wore like a warrior’s mantle. A flush of heat suffused her cheeks as she studied his features—the slightly shadowed line between cheekbone and jaw bisected by a thin pink scar, the straight blade of his nose, the sensual curve of his lips. Had they lain together, delighted in each other’s scents, reactions, pleasure? Had she clutched that shortcropped sable-coloured hair as she’d held him to her body?

The stranger’s voice was like the sensual stroke of velvet across her skin as he changed tactics in the face of her refusal to go with him. “Belinda, I know you’re afraid, but I’m your husband. If you can’t trust me who can you trust? We will work through this,” he cajoled gently. “And if your memory never returns, we will make new memories.”

New memories. Why did the very thought strike dread into her heart?

She shot an imploring look at her father. “Dad?”

“You’ll be fine, my sweet. Besides, you know your mother and I had planned to travel for a bit. We postponed the trip because of the accident. Now that you and Luc are well again we can set our plans back on track. Go home with Luc, honey. Everything will be all right.”

Was it her imagination or were her father’s words just a little too emphatic?

“The doctor has seen fit to discharge you. It’s time for you to come home.” Luc held out his left hand to her, a hand that bore a glint of gold on his ring finger. A ring she’d supposedly put on him while declaring her love for him before witnesses.

Belinda was suddenly aware of her own naked hand. There wasn’t even so much as a dent in her skin to show where a ring had encircled her finger.

“Ah, yes, of course. Your rings.” Luc slid his hand inside the breast pocket of his jacket and extracted two rings. He limped forward to the side of her bed. “Let me.”

His fingers were surprisingly warm to the touch. They curled about her hand in a gentle, yet undeniably possessive grip. Something perverse inside her encouraged her to pull from his touch. As if he anticipated her action his fingers tightened as he helped her to her feet—his grip holding her hand captive.

He slid the platinum band, inlaid with baguette-cut white diamonds, onto her ring finger. As the overhead light caught the sparkle and fire in the stones, Belinda fought to control the tremor that quaked through her body, the sensation of having been branded Luc Tanner’s property. A shocking sense of déjà vu swamped her as the image of Luc placing the ring on her finger in another time and place filled her mind. A remembered thrill of excitement and anticipation surged through her.

She fought to hold on to the impression, the fleeting consciousness of her lost months, but it dissipated as quickly as it had come, leaving her feeling empty and alone.

Belinda became aware of Luc’s long fingers sliding another ring on her finger, bringing it up over her knuckle to nestle against the wedding band. The radiant-cut blue-grey diamond burned with cold fire, the shoulders of its setting decorated with smaller baguette-cut white diamonds. She gasped aloud at the size and beauty of the stone.

“Did…did I choose this?”

Luc’s dark brows pulled together, making him appear even more formidable than before. “You don’t remember this, either? For a moment I thought you did.”

Somehow he’d sensed her flash of memory when he’d put on her wedding band. The implication of how well he understood her was unnerving, more unnerving perhaps than even the knowledge that she couldn’t remember a single thing about him.

“No,” she replied on a whisper. “I remember nothing.”

“I commissioned the ring for you the day I met you.”

“The day we met? But how…?” Belinda looked up at him in surprise.

Luc’s gaze held hers. “I knew from that day you would be my wife.”

Her laugh sounded forced, even to her ears. “And did I have any say in the matter?”

“Belinda.” He pronounced each syllable of her name with care, making it sound like a caress. “You loved me before. You will love me again.”

He lifted her hand to his lips, and pressed a kiss against her knuckles. His lips were surprisingly cool and an unexpected quiver of longing spread through her. What would it feel like if he kissed her? Would that unlock their past, the memories entrapped within her mind?

Luc drew her to his side, the imprint of his body heat seeped through her light clothing and deeper, to her skin. She pulled away, just enough to break the unnerving contact that had already sent her pulse into an erratic beat. His body felt unfamiliar, yet she was drawn to him at the same time. Surely if they had been married, been intimate together, she would have some physical memory imprinted in her psyche?

“The helicopter is waiting. We can’t obstruct the hospital helipad for any longer than absolutely necessary.”

“Helicopter? We aren’t driving? Just how far are we going?”

“Tautara Estate is southeast of Lake Taupo. Perhaps being back there will assist in triggering a memory for you.”

“Lake Taupo, but that’s almost a four-hour drive from here. What if…?” Her voice trailed away helplessly. What if, indeed? There’d be no one there to help her if the fears that plagued the edge of her consciousness became more than she could bear.

“What if…?” Luc prompted, his lips a thin implacable line across his face.

“Nothing.” Belinda dropped her head slightly, allowing the fullness of her hair to cover her face, to hide the sudden tears that stung her eyes. Everything inside her screamed that this was wrong, but she couldn’t, for the life of her, remember why. The doctors had told her her memory should return in time, that she should stop trying to force things, but right now the black void in her mind threatened to overwhelm her.

“Then let’s go.”

Belinda walked two steps with Luc then halted, her sudden stop sending him slightly off balance. She noticed he used the cane to regain his stability. Was he fully recovered himself? She already sensed it was a question she couldn’t ask, sensed he was too proud to admit to physical failure or weakness. Pulling from Luc’s hold, she turned to her father, holding her arms out for a hug.

“I’ll see you later, then, Dad. You’ll give my love to Mum?” She searched his face once more for any inkling of why she felt as if she’d been shucked off like last year’s haute couture, but he refused to fully meet her gaze. Instead he wrapped her in his arms and held her as if he’d never let her go.

“Yes, I will. She wasn’t up to today’s visit but we will see you soon,” Baxter Wallace said, his voice thick.

“Baxter.” Luc’s voice cut through the air with the precision of fine steel, and her father’s arms dropped to his side.

“Go on, darling, everything will be all right. Just wait and see,” he urged.

“Of course everything will be all right. Why wouldn’t it be?” Luc tucked Belinda’s arm in the crook of his and guided her out the door.

Later, as the helicopter lifted from the pad, Belinda tried to remember why she’d been so excited when the doctor had told her she’d be discharged this afternoon. Now she felt anything but. She had nothing with her but the clothes on her back and the rings on her finger—rings that felt as foreign to her as the man who was her husband. She didn’t even have so much as a pair of sunglasses to ward off the sharp late-summer-afternoon light.

She cast a glance forward to her husband who sat next to the pilot in the cockpit. Her husband. No matter what they said, he was a stranger, and deep in her heart she knew he’d remain that way for a long, long time.

You loved me before. You will love me again.

His words echoed in her mind and as they did it occurred to her he’d said nothing of his feelings for her. Not one word of love had passed his lips from the moment she’d set eyes on him. The realisation sat like a cold ball of lead in the pit of stomach.

Relief poured through Luc’s aching bones as his Eurocopter Squirrel neared Tautara Estate—so named because of its position on the hilltop overlooking a small tributary river to New Zealand’s largest lake. He consciously fought to stop himself from rubbing his hip to ease the ache of sitting in the confines of the cockpit of the helicopter. He’d accepted he was unable, at this time anyway, to pilot the craft himself. His recovery from the broken hip and torn spleen had taken longer than expected when a bone infection had delayed his rehabilitation.

The knowledge that his wife lay only a couple of floors away from him, locked in a coma that had baffled her doctors, had done much to hasten his recuperation. Her emergence from the coma had come just as he commenced intensive physical therapy and had begun to welcome the challenge of restoring his body to its customary strength. He’d had no desire to appear as a cripple the first time she saw him after the accident. He’d pushed himself hard this past fortnight, but it had been worth it. He was nearly home.

With her.

The chopper followed the path of one of the lake’s tributaries, where he often hosted trout fishing expeditions for his celebrity guests, and Luc took comfort in the familiar landscape, the energy of the land below reaching out to him. Yes, he’d heal more quickly here, in charge of his own progress. In charge of his life. The way it should be.

He cast a look backward to where Belinda sat staring out the side window. A fierce wave of possession swept through him. She was his. Lost memory or not, things would return to the way they should have been all along—before the accident.

Her misty blue-grey eyes were serious as she gazed at her surroundings, her face pale, her hands curled into tight fists in her lap. She’d barely moved for the duration of the flight. Frozen in the past he supposed. She didn’t remember meeting him, their courtship or their wedding. She didn’t remember the crash. A part of him hoped she never would.

As the helicopter gained height, then circled over Tautara Estate, Luc allowed a smile of satisfaction to play across his lips. The estate was a monument to his success and power and was renowned worldwide amongst the wealthy, the famous—even royalty—for its facilities and attractions. And it was home in a way he’d never had a home before. The words his father had beaten into him on a regular basis—“You’ll never amount to anything. Nothing you have will stay yours.”—echoed in his head.

“You were wrong, old man,” he swore silently. “I am and I have everything you never were or ever had.”

Yes, now they were back all would be well again.

The pilot set the chopper down on the designated pad and Luc disembarked, turning to help Belinda from the cabin. They walked in silence toward the main house, which sprawled before them. Belinda halted beside him.

“Is something wrong?” Luc asked, forcing himself not to scoop her up in his arms and carry her to the front door through his sheer will.

“I’ve been here before?” she asked, her voice tentative.

“Of course. Many times before our wedding.”

“I should remember something, but I don’t. There’s…nothing there.”

Luc sensed the frustration that held her in its grip and unbidden, felt a brief but undeniable pull of sympathy for her. The feeling left him as quickly as it had come.

“Come into the house, perhaps something there will jog your memory.”

He took her hand in his and felt a measure of relief when her slender fingers curled around his, almost as if she was frightened to take the next step without him at her side. A grim smile settled on his face, and the fingers of his other hand gripped the head of his custom-made cane, its solid weight against the palm of his hand a reminder of the disability that would forever remain a legacy of their short marriage.

Whether she remembered again or not, he had her back at Tautara Lodge, where she belonged. As they crossed the threshold onto the New Zealand native parquet floor in the imposing cathedral-ceilinged entrance, Luc fought to hold back a roar of triumph. Nothing would interfere with his plans now.

No one reneged on Luc Tanner and got away with it—least of all his beautiful wife.

Two

Belinda stared around her. She felt as if she’d been totally displaced in her world. Nothing about the ornate stained-glass and rimu wood-framed doors at the front entrance felt familiar, and as her heels clicked on the highly polished wooden floor the faint echo rang out as a taunting reminder of the echoes in her mind. Fleeting. Intangible. Lost in a moment.

“Let me show you our suite.”

“Our suite?”

“Yes, I run Tautara Estate as a luxury lodge for overseas visitors. They pay handsomely for their privacy, I demand mine. Our rooms are to this side.”

Luc led her through another set of panelled rimu doors and down a wide, high-ceilinged, carpeted corridor. To her left was a panel of floor-to-ceiling glass windows giving an exquisite view down through the valley, with Lake Taupo, sunlight glinting off its surface, far in the distance. The tranquil beauty of the scene lay in direct contrast to the nerves leaping and dancing in her stomach.

At the end of the corridor Luc swiped a key card and thrust open the door. Belinda stifled a gasp at the stepdown lounge that spread before her. It was twice the size of her parents’ formal sitting room at their palatial St. Helier’s Bay home in Auckland. Twice the size and, by the looks of it, twice as expensively comfortable.

She walked down the stairs ahead of Luc. Her hand stroked the fronds of the potted palms that guarded the base of the shallow stairs and trailed over the surface of the baby grand piano nestled in an alcove of the room to her left.

“You play?” she asked.

Her fingers grazed the cool ivory of the keys, sending a single discordant note to hover on the air.

“After a fashion,” Luc answered noncommittally.

Belinda lifted her head and met his gaze fully for the first time since they’d left the hospital.

“Did you play for me?”

Suddenly she needed to know. The piano was a beautiful instrument—an instrument of passion, capable of expressing deepest desires and yearnings even when words failed. As she waited for Luc’s response his eyes changed, deepening in colour, becoming the stormy green of a storm-tossed lake. The scar across his cheek paled and she noted the tension in the set of his jaw.

“Luc?” she prompted.

“Yes. I played for you,” he finally ground out.

The light in his eyes changed again, reflecting a heat that flared to unexpected life from deep within her body. She saw the muscles working in his throat, the twin spots of colour that marked the slant of his cheek-bones—sensed the unleashed power of his body. Had he wooed her with music? Had she been seduced by the power of his long-fingered hands as they’d coaxed perfection from the keys of the baby grand? Had he then coaxed perfection from her?

A shiver of longing played down her spine, and she felt her breathing slow, her blood thicken languidly in her veins.

Belinda forced herself to break eye contact, to step further into the room with its luxurious fittings and deeply comfortable furnishings. Despite the value of each piece it was obviously a room that was used and enjoyed. Or at least it had been until they’d been hospitalised.

“I’ll show you the rest of the suite.” Luc’s voice cut sharply across her thoughts.

“Yes, that’s a good idea,” she replied as she followed him up the shallow stairs on the other side of the lounge, to the informal dining area and small but functional kitchen. “So you’re completely self-contained here,” Belinda observed as they passed through to another corridor.

“We are.”

Belinda couldn’t help but notice his subtle emphasis on the word “we.”

Luc continued. “The lodge has its own gym and indoor pool, and you can see the tennis court through there.” He indicated a deep-set window that framed a vista out toward the back of the main section of the lodge where a full-size tennis court stood in readiness. “My office is located in the main section of the lodge.”

“Do you have any guests here at the moment?”

“No. Not since the accident.”

Belinda furrowed her brow in confusion. “Is it your off season or something? Couldn’t your staff still have been able to provide their services and the full range of your facilities even while you were in hospital?”

“Certainly they could. I wouldn’t employ them otherwise.”

“Then why?”

“This time had been booked up for personal reasons.”

She hesitated, noting how his hand had tightened on the head of his cane. His limp seemed more pronounced.

“Personal reasons?” she probed.

“Our honeymoon, to be precise.”

He bit the words out as if they were poison past his lips and Belinda flinched at his tone.

Their honeymoon?

“Just how long have we been married?” Her voice shook as she asked the question.

“Not long.”

“Luc? Tell me.” Belinda pushed her back against the wall behind her, certain she’d need its support.

“Belinda, the doctors said you need time. You must take things slowly.”

“How long have we been married?” she insisted, enunciating each word as clearly as she could through a mouth that felt as if it was stuffed with cotton wool.

“Just over six weeks.”

“Six weeks? But then that means…” Her voice trailed away weakly. Her legs threatened to give way on her, and she braced her hands against the solid strength of the wall behind her.

“I shouldn’t have told you.”

Luc stepped toward her, but Belinda threw up one hand in protest as he leaned forward to touch her.

“No! Don’t. I’m okay. I’ll be okay. It was just…unexpected, that’s all.”

Six weeks? That meant they’d been involved in the accident shortly after their wedding. But then why would no one give her any details about it? Why couldn’t she remember?

Luc remained silent, his eyes flicking over her, searching for proof of her affirmation that she was indeed all right. He took a step away and turned to throw open double doors that led into a sumptuous bedroom. Her eyes were inexorably drawn to the king-size pedestal bed that dominated the room, dwarfing the exquisite outlook from the French doors that lined the outside wall.

Despite the generous proportions of the room and the bank of glass that allowed the crisp sunlight to warm the air, she felt the walls close in on her as the tension between them tautened like a drawn bow. Belinda could barely tear her eyes from the expanse of fine linen, the teals and blues of the damask duvet cover mirroring the tones and textures of the water in the far distance and the flora outside. She hadn’t stopped to think about their arrangements once they arrived here. What if he expected to sleep with her?

An image imprinted in her mind of her body entwined with Luc’s. Her throat dried, making it difficult to formulate her next words.

“Is this the only bedroom?”

“Yes. When we start our family we will extend this part of the lodge. I already have the plans drawn up.”

“I would prefer to sleep somewhere else.”

“Impossible.”

“What?”

“You’re my wife. You sleep with me.”

“But—”

“Are you afraid of me, Belinda?”

Luc stepped close enough to her that she could smell the subtle tang of his cologne, the lime and spice intertwined into something that sent her pulse skittering through her veins. He lifted a hand to stroke a tendril of her hair back behind her ears. She tilted her head slightly, breaking the tenuous contact even as it began, but not soon enough to halt the heated tingle that danced across the surface of her skin.

“Afraid? No. Not at all,” she lied. Afraid? She was terrified. As far as she was aware, their acquaintance, their knowledge of each other—be it physical or mental—had started from the moment he’d walked into her hospital room only a scant few hours ago.

“Then you think I would force my attention on you?” He cupped the back of her head, stroking her hair, forcing her to meet his gaze.

“I—I don’t know,” she stammered. “I don’t know you.”

“Ah, that’s where you are wrong, my beautiful wife. You know me. Intimately.”

With that he bent down. She was momentarily aware of the almost driven expression on his face before the distance between them closed and the coolness of his firm lips captured hers. She went rigid at the contact and felt his fingers tighten imperceptibly at the nape of her neck. Her lips parted on a gasp of shock and despite her determination not to return his caress she found herself unable to halt the answer of her body to his. The pressure of his kiss firmed, demanded more, and like an automaton she gave it.

She bunched her hands into fists to stop herself from lifting her arms, from curling them around his shoulders and pressing her body against his to ease the ache that made her breasts throb with need. Luc deepened the kiss, his tongue probing past her lips to gently stroke the soft inner recess of her mouth. A spear of desire drove through her from deep within her core. She fought the near overwhelming craving to be touched by him. To be dragged from the fugue of not knowing, to full aching awareness of Luc—of his taste, of his touch.

Abruptly Luc pulled away.

“See, we’re not such strangers after all.” His eyes glittered like chips of aventurine as he pinned her with his unblinking stare. Daring her to deny the way her body had awakened in response to his kiss. “There will be no force, I can assure you.”

He limped toward the door, leaving Belinda standing there, alone.

“Where are you going?” she blurted. As unsettling as she found his presence, and her reaction to it, the prospect of being left alone was even more so. He was the only thing even vaguely familiar to her.

“Missing me already?” His lips fleetingly curved into an approximation of a smile. “I have business to attend to.”

“Business? But surely it can wait. You must be tired. You’re limping worse than before.”

As soon as the words escaped her lips she knew she’d made a mistake. Luc Tanner was not the sort of man who liked to be reminded of his all-too-human frailty.

“Why, Belinda, you sound just like a concerned wife.” He flashed her a smile that had nothing to do with humor. “My business has waited too long already. I suggest you rest until dinnertime.”

He wheeled around on his good leg and left the room, leaning heavily on the cane she instinctively knew he had come to hate with all the seething passion she sensed beneath the cool surface he projected to the world. The seething passion he’d held in check while provoking a clamour in her that she knew already only he could answer.

Who was this man who was her husband? What had drawn her to him? And what on earth about her had drawn him in return?

She pressed shaking fingers against her lips. Had their attraction been purely physical? If her incendiary reaction to his kiss had been any indicator, she could certainly have believed that. But she’d never been overtly sexual. Her relationships had always been…civilised, for want of a better word. She had the feeling that any pretension to civilised behaviour from Luc was a mask. Beneath the surface, at grassroots level, he was indomitably feral.

So what was it, then? Had she been so drawn to the wildness in him, been so desperate to escape the confines of her “safe” world? She’d worked darned hard being the perfect hostess for her father in recent years, years in which her mother’s health had steadily declined. She’d sublimated her own burgeoning career as a landscape designer, settling for the occasional showpiece job for her father’s wealthy cronies. Jobs that had left her feeling as if she’d been appeased, like a fractious child. No matter how many magazines her gardens had been featured in, her family, including her two older sisters, had continued to condescendingly treat it as her little hobby.

Belinda sank down onto the comfortable two-seater couch, positioned to make the most of the expansive view across the valley. She knew everything about her life up until the point where she’d met him. Why couldn’t she remember anything about that time?

Couldn’t remember, or wouldn’t?

The question chilled her to her bones.

She pushed herself up and out of the seat, determined to find something that would trigger a memory. He said she’d been here before, many times. Surely she’d left a piece of herself here. Something familiar.

She hesitated a moment before pulling open a door, almost fearful of what she would find behind it. It was one thing to want to know what had happened in the past, it was quite another to discover it.

A sigh of relief rushed past her lips as she viewed the luxuriously appointed bathroom. A massive spa bath lay along one glassed wall, a double vanity lined another, and set into an alcove was a large shower stall with multiple showerheads. Clearly, everything here was designed with two in mind.

She smiled as she identified her Chanel products in the shower stall, on the bathroom vanity. Her favourite fragrance and lotion nestled side by side as if they had done so forever. She reached out and grabbed the lotion, squeezing out a small blob and smoothing it over her bare arms, taking comfort in the familiarity of its scent.

Inside a drawer she recognised makeup and personal effects. All undeniably hers. Bit by bit the tension inside her started to ease away. As strange as Luc felt to her, this was her home. These were her things.

Emboldened by her discovery, Belinda went to investigate what lay behind the other door from their room. She laughed quietly. Already she was calling it theirs. It must be right.

A spacious dressing room with his and hers large wardrobes set on either side revealed an extensive array of clothing—for both of them. Formal wear, casual wear, in between. Belinda’s fingers lingered over the array of fabrics and designs, hoping for a “ping” of memory. An image to hold on to.

A tremor ran through her as she reached for a garment, still shrouded in the cheap plastic dry cleaner’s bag, and pulled it away from the rest. Even through the protective covering the myriad of crystal beads sparkled like tears embroidered against the cross-over bodice of the ivory satin bridal gown.

Belinda dragged the cover off. Her wedding dress. She should feel something, anything but this emptiness. Surely some sensation, some remembrance should linger in her mind. She shook out the full train of the dress and held the gown to her and studied herself in the full-length mirror. She tried to imagine herself in it, walking toward Luc, ready to pledge her love and her life to him.

Nothing.

A frown furrowed her brow and she felt the beginnings of a headache start to pound. In frustration she haphazardly shoved the bag back over the dress and pushed the hanger back onto the rail. As she did so her hand caught on the dry cleaner’s ticket, attached to the bag. She pulled it off and her stomach lurched as she saw the box that had been ticked for special attention—remove bloodstains—and the handwritten note saying the removal of stains was successful.

Blood. Had it been hers or Luc’s?

She rubbed her forehead and gave a hard mental push through her mind, but all it elicited was a sharper edge to what had started as a dull pain behind her eyes. Whatever she’d locked in the past determinedly remained there.

It wasn’t until she had gone through a few drawers of underwear and other clothing that she found a disreputable pair of jeans and a handful of T-shirts that, despite being laundered, were streaked with green stains. She sank to her knees as she pulled them from the drawer and unfolded them.

Her gardening gear. Her heart began to race. Finally she recognised something. Her hands shook as she kicked off her shoes and peeled away the clothes she’d worn home from the hospital—clothes her parents had brought up to her the night before—and stepped into the jeans. They fit. A little on the loose side, but that was only to be expected after her stay in hospital. She searched for a belt and put it through the loops, adjusting it a couple of notches tighter than the wear on the belt suggested was usual. A smile pulled at her lips as she pulled on one of the T-shirts. Yes, this felt right, and if she could get into the garden maybe she’d remember more.

Leaving her discarded clothing on the floor, Belinda slipped on a pair of rubber-soled flat shoes from the shoe rack and headed for the French doors across the bedroom. She flung them open, stepping out onto the private deck, and inhaled the herbaceous scents on the air.

Stairs led off the deck from the right-hand side, down into the impeccably landscaped gardens. As she danced down them, she cast her eyes around, waiting for that same spark of recognition that had struck when she’d found the gardening wear, but it continued to elude her.

The grounds were extensive and the sun was low in the sky when she found the herb garden. Crushed-shell pathways, edged with old bricks, formed a complex Celtic knot pattern, with lush foliage of a variety of herbs—their scents rich in the evening air—filling the spaces in between. At its central point a sundial was mounted, casting long shadows into the boxed rosemary nearby.

Rosemary—for remembrance. She’d have laughed out loud if the irony hadn’t been so painful. Yet of all the places she’d explored in the garden this was the one area she felt most at home. Absently Belinda snapped off a sprig of rosemary and, rubbing it between her fingers, brought the fragrant herb to her nose and inhaled deeply.

Suddenly she knew. This was her garden. She’d planned and painstakingly directed the position of each plant in its place. The parsley she’d planted herself—she remembered that much—laughing at the time at something her sisters had said about how each time they’d planted parsley they’d fallen pregnant. The hope she’d felt that the old wives’ tale would come true for her struck her square at her centre, and she staggered to the bench seat positioned to make the most of the final rays of the sun.

She remembered. Oh, God, she remembered the garden. It had taken months to get it to this state, but what of the rest? What of the time she must have spent here with Luc, of their growing relationship and their plans for a future together—their love?

The pounding behind her eyes changed in tempo, sharpening to a vicious stab that made her flinch. As her eyes uncontrollably slid closed and Belinda began to lose her grip on consciousness, a question echoed in her head: was this the pain of remembrance or the pain of regret?

Three

Luc threw his Mont Blanc pen on his desk with scant regard to the limited-edition, eighteen-karat-gold masterpiece. He pushed his chair back from the desk. Damned if he could think straight today, and he knew whose fault that was.

Belinda.

A fierce sense of possession swirled deep inside him. He’d had to force himself to walk away from her earlier, to give her space, when all he’d wanted to do was imprint himself back into her mind, her body. He could have done it. She’d welcomed his kiss, participated fully in the duel of senses. But some perverse sense of honour embedded in his psyche insisted she come to him again willingly.

He pushed himself up and out of his chair and crossed his expansive office to the window overlooking the gardens. His first thought on seeing the young woman in tattered jeans and a T-shirt was that they had a trespasser on the property, but the quickening inside him told him exactly who it was. He’d had the same visceral reaction the first time he’d laid eyes on her and decided she’d be his. He smiled.

Expanding the existing kitchen garden had been the impetus to orchestrate her arrival at Tautara Estate. He’d done his research and known she would never be able to resist the opportunity to create an herb garden to rival any other in the country. Didier, the chef he’d unabashedly poached from a Côte D’Azur five-star hotel, had long bemoaned the lack of an extensive array of fresh herbs to use in his sumptuous cuisine and had theatrically fallen to the ground to kiss Belinda’s feet once the garden had been planted.

Her lengthy stay at Tautara, punctuated by trips back to Auckland to act as hostess for her father’s enumerable functions, had set the scene for his successful campaign. She had been away often enough to miss him—enough to realise she loved him and belonged here, at his side. It had taken time, but he’d achieved his goal.

But then Luc Tanner was the kind of man who always got what he wanted and he’d wanted Belinda with a gut-deep need that surpassed anything he’d known before. He thought back to the first time he’d seen Belinda, at a boutique hoteliers’ function hosted by her father.

Rather than approach her directly, Luc had gone instead to her father, Baxter Wallace, who’d laughed in Luc’s face at his request for an introduction to his precious youngest daughter and turned him down flat. Undeterred, Luc had bided his time, always watching from afar, knowing, eventually, he would succeed in his quest. And the time came, as it always did.

When, several months later, Baxter was fleeced to the tune of several hundreds of thousands of dollars in a credit-card scam targeting boutique hotels and chains, his bank had happily entered into extensive loans to rectify the situation. But by the time Baxter’s wife had been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, requiring expensive treatment overseas not covered by their insurance company, the banks had already capped their financial well. So to whom had a desperate Baxter turned?

Luc Tanner.

No one else had the resources, or the motivation, to help. And much as it had obviously galled Baxter Wallace to turn to the one man he’d spurned, he’d succumbed in the end.

They’d come to an agreement, one that had suited them both. One that now hung on whether or not Belinda regained her memory.

Luc’s eyes narrowed as he saw Belinda drop to the surface of a bench seat in the garden, one hand pressed to her head. Something was very wrong. He propelled himself toward the door, calling to Manu, his majordomo, for assistance even as she slid to the ground.

Manu reached her first. Luc’s hand ached from his grip on the head of his walking cane and he silently and vehemently cursed the disability that had prevented him from being at his wife’s side when she needed him.

“What do you think? Is she okay?” Luc asked, as the one man he trusted above all others checked Belinda’s vital signs.

“She’s coming round, it’s just a faint, I reckon.”

Luc clumsily dropped to his knees, ignoring the shaft of pain that speared through his hip, and brushed the hair from Belinda’s face just as her eyes fluttered open.

“Luc?” Her voice was weak, her eyes unfocused.

“You fainted. Manu’s checking you over to make sure you haven’t hurt yourself. Don’t worry. I trust him with my life.”

“She looks fine, Luc. No sign of any bumps on her head. No grazes anywhere.”

“How do you feel?” Luc wrapped his arm around Belinda’s shoulders as she struggled to sit up.

“I…I don’t know what happened. One minute I was okay, with a bit of a headache, the next it was excruciating pain. Then you guys were here.”

“And now? The headache. Has it gone?” As soon as he had her back inside the house he would call her neurologist. He didn’t like the sound of this headache. Not if it had the capacity to render her unconscious.

“It’s going away. I’ll be fine in a minute.”

Her pale face belied her words. Between them, the two men helped Belinda to her feet. Luc felt frustrated that he had to defer to Manu’s unencumbered strength in this situation. Before the accident he would simply have lifted Belinda into his arms and carried her to their suite, but now even such a responsibility was denied him. They walked slowly to the lower entry to the house where an elevator door stood open and waiting. It was a short ride to the next level, where they made their way to Luc and Belinda’s private suite.

“I’ll arrange for your evening meal to be sent through to you,” Manu said as he left them at the door to their rooms.

“Thank you—” Luc clasped his seneschal’s hand “—for everything.”

“Not a problem, Luc. You know I’m here for you, man.”

Luc gave a sharp, brief nod. He and Manu went back further than either of them wanted to admit. The bond they’d formed in their preteens, occasionally tripping on the wrong side of the law in a vain attempt to shake off their respective parents’ unsavoury influence, was immutable.

Belinda dropped into one of the deep leather couches in the sunken living room with an audible sigh.

“I’m calling your doctor.” Luc crossed the room and lifted a cordless handset from a side table. He punched in the private number of her specialist without once referring to the card the man had given him prior to Belinda’s release from hospital.

“No, please. Don’t. I’ll be okay. I probably just overdid things is all. I was trying to force myself to remember. Doing everything I’d been told not to do.” She rose and took the phone from him, firmly replacing it on its station. “Honestly, I’ll be fine.”

“You will tell me immediately if you suffer another of these headaches,” he insisted.

“Yes, of course.” Her eyes briefly met his before fluttering away.

Would she? Her body language told him differently, but he had to give her the benefit of the doubt.

“Until I’m satisfied you won’t have a recurrence of today’s episode I don’t want you out of my sight.” It was a vow as much as a statement, and he saw her stiffen at his words.

“Surely that won’t be necessary, besides being totally impractical,” she argued gently.

“Let me be the judge of that. I will at least need to know where you are at all times.” He took her hand and drew her toward him, placing her hand over his heart. The air between them heated with the warmth of their bodies. “I nearly lost you once already. I’m not prepared to take any more chances.”

He saw the shiver run down her spine, the flare of her nostrils, the widening of her eyes as the impact of his words sank in. On the surface he knew they appeared to be little more than what one would expect from a newly wed groom to his bride. Only he knew the difference.

Belinda allowed his words to penetrate into the dark recesses of her mind. She should feel comforted, reassured by his protectiveness, but instead she felt only trepidation. He still held her hand against his chest, and she tried not to focus on the strong, steady beat of his heart, the breadth of muscle she felt beneath her finger-tips.

Or the overwhelming desire she had to flex her hand against his strength, to imprint the shape and feel of him against her palm. Her heart picked up a beat and skittered in her chest as her eyes met his.

His gaze was unbreakable, and she was drawn even closer to him as she returned his stare. Now there was no air between them, her body was against his, length to length. Had he pulled her closer, or had she crossed that final barrier of distance without realising it herself? The long, strong muscles of his thighs pressed against hers, her pelvis cradled his slightly narrower hips, the soft curve of her belly moulded against the washboard hardness of his.

His pupils dilated and she felt his indrawn breath as if it had come from deep inside her own chest. Maybe it had. Already the lines between where she began and ended were blurred as she parted her lips, moistening their suddenly dry surface with the tip of her tongue. His own lips were set in a firm line, his brows drawn together slightly.

“Luc?” Her voice broke from her throat as more of a plea than a reassurance, and she felt the tension in him break as he lowered his head and caught her lips in a kiss that threatened to knock her hard-fought equilibrium six ways from Sunday.

If anything she felt more light-headed than she had in the garden when she’d regained consciousness, yet something still held her back, prevented her from committing fully to his touch. She drew back, feeling the loss of him like a physical ache as he let go her hand and she no longer absorbed his heartbeat or his heat.

He turned away from her and tunnelled one hand through his short-cropped hair in a gesture that told her more than any of his carefully calculated words. So, her cool, calm and collected husband could be rattled. Somehow the knowledge didn’t give her the power she had hoped.

“I’m going to shower before our dinner arrives. Join me.”

His invitation—or was it more of a command?—hung on the air between them as he limped up the shallow stairs toward their bedroom, his cane stabbing at the thickly carpeted surface like some kind of weapon.

Belinda’s throat constricted on her words of denial. They were husband and wife, no matter how foreign the words felt to her. Dare she bare herself to a man who was essentially unknown to her? Would she find familiarity in his touch? She took a tentative step toward him, then halted as fear overtook her need for the truth.

“Belinda. I meant what I said about you not being out of my sight.” Luc paused at the top of the stairs, his body vibrating with a tension that was almost palpable. “You don’t need to shower with me if it makes you uncomfortable, but I want you there. In the room with me.”

A thrill of something charged through her veins. Was this a test of some sort?

“Fine,” she answered unsteadily. “But I think I’d rather have a bath.”

“I’ll draw it for you.”

“I can manage myself.”

“Of course you can.” His voice was conciliatory. “But let me do this for you. For my wife. I’ve been able to do little else for you in the past six weeks.”

She sensed a hidden message in his last words and it left a prickle of discomfort running across her scalp. She shook her head lightly to rid herself of the sensation. She was being overly sensitive. Not surprising really when only this morning she’d been safely ensconced in a private room in hospital. Suddenly she couldn’t wait to immerse herself in clean, soft water, to rid herself of the remnants of any lingering scent from her stay in hospital.