Читать книгу Claiming His Runaway Bride / High-Stakes Passion: Claiming His Runaway Bride / High-Stakes Passion - Yvonne Lindsay, Juliet Burns, Juliet Burns - Страница 11

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.

As she entered the bedroom she saw his jacket already casually thrown onto the bed. She could hear the thunder of water in the voluminous spa bath.

A shudder ran through her. What if he changed his mind and decided to join her in the bath? A throb pulled deep inside her womb at the thought, even as her mind insisted its denial. She forced her feet toward the bathroom. Luc was bent over the bath, pouring a splash of perfumed bath foam into the water and swirling it with a sweep of his hand. She watched as he inhaled the fragrance, the expression of sheer longing on his face striking hard to her core.

She hadn’t stopped to think how this had all been for him. To be married and then to have lost her to this frozen wasteland of not remembering even the smallest thing about their life together.

“I’ve missed this,” he said as she entered the spacious room. His voice dropped an octave. “I’ve missed you.”

“I…I’m sorry, Luc. I’m trying to remember.” Her hands fisted in frustration at her sides and her voice became more insistent. “And I did! I remembered the garden. That’s when the headache became unbearable.”

“Don’t force it, Belinda. We don’t want a recurrence of your blackout. Let it come back to you in its own time.” He reached down and turned off the faucet, his movements fluid—just hinting at the muscled strength beneath his clothes. “There, your bath is ready.”

Without a second glance he turned away from her, pulling his shirt free of his trousers and unbuttoning it. She couldn’t tear her eyes away as he shrugged the fine cotton off his shoulders exposing the long lean line of his back. His skin still held a warm golden tan. As he unbuckled his belt and unsnapped his trousers she felt a deep longing rise within her, right up until the moment he exposed the long angry scar that laid an undeniable stripe from his hip down his right leg.

She couldn’t hold back the cry that broke from her lips.

“Ugly, isn’t it?” Luc half turned toward her, a flash of anger sparking in his eyes. “I’m told it will fade, and this one, too—” he gestured to the surgical scar on his abdomen “—in time. But I’ll always have a limp.”

“Is it still painful?” Belinda managed to ask, her gaze still riveted to the wound site. A stab of guilt lanced through her. So wrapped up in her own problems, she hadn’t considered what he’d physically been through.

“Sometimes it’s worse than others,” he admitted flatly before reaching into the shower to turn on the water. “Go on. Enjoy your bath.”

He stepped into the large shower cubicle, and she watched as the water cascaded over his body, rivulets running through the light dusting of hair on his chest and arrowing down lower, past his taut stomach. Even though he’d obviously lost some weight in hospital, he still had a commandingly powerful build. As he lathered shower gel over his skin, she suddenly wished she’d had the courage to join him in the shower. To be the one stroking the glistening liquid soap down his chest and across the ridged hardness of his abdomen, and lower.

A flush of heat suffused her body. What was she thinking? Only hours ago she’d been terrified at the prospect of travelling with him, of leaving the virtual safety of her hospital room. Now here she was, little more than an opportunistic voyeur as he luxuriated under the pounding water of his shower.

She wheeled about and focused instead on the bath he’d drawn for her. She needed to twist her hair up, and unerringly she opened the correct drawer where her hair accessories were lined up. It should give her some comfort, she decided, that she instinctively knew where such things were. With a modicum of movement she pinned her hair up, undressed and lowered herself into the warm fragrant water. As the foaming bubbles closed over her body, she relaxed. They offered her some privacy for when Luc came out of the shower, but something inside her begged to attract his attention, something she couldn’t control.

And that, right now, was her greatest fear. She didn’t recognise the woman who’d fallen in love with Luc Tanner and agreed to marry him. Clearly it wasn’t the Belinda Wallace she believed herself to be.

Something within her had changed in the past several months. Something drastic. It had seen her uplift herself from her home in Auckland, from her family and from her career. To give all that up for him.

She sank lower in the bath, covering her shoulders and stretching her long legs out before her. As she looked out the window over the valley, bathed in the start of a glorious sunset with swaths of red and purple creeping across the sky, she acknowledged she owed it to herself, and to Luc, to remember what that was.