Claiming His Runaway Bride / High-Stakes Passion. Yvonne Lindsay

never missed his parents after their deaths.

      As the final note hung on the air, Luc let his eyes open again. Belinda sat opposite him on one of the large cream sofas, her feet curled under her. His eyes raked over her barely clad body, his pulse leaping to instant life. It had been torture to leave her in bed, her body gilded by the bedside lamp, her hair a glorious fan across the fine linen of her pillowcase. He’d wanted to make love with her with a physical ache that had almost driven him to his knees—to imprint himself back in her mind and her body in a way she would never forget again.

      He dragged his wayward thoughts under disciplined restraint. Luc Tanner hadn’t gotten where he was today by giving in to impulse. No, everything about his life was about control. He’d learned the hard way what a lack of power did to a person, how it demeaned them—rendered them helpless victims. The helpless had no respect in this world. Pity, yes. But he’d had his fill of pity and well-meaning intentions. Now he commanded respect in all walks of his life.

      “You play beautifully,” Belinda said, her voice hesitant, as if she sensed the power play going on inside him.

      “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

      “You didn’t. I guess I’m too used to the disruptions and noise of the hospital. The quiet, of all things, woke me. A bit later I heard you on the piano. Did your meeting with Manu go well?”

      “Yes, everything’s organised. Are you sure you’re okay with this? I can have them rerouted to another property if necessary.”

      “Luc, when I couldn’t get back to sleep I started to think about a few things, and to be honest, as terrifying as it is, I have to get back into my old life if I’m going to move forward. I can’t turn back time and see what happened before, but I can’t stay stagnant like this, either. It’s driving me crazy. Everything around me—” she waved her arm to encapsulate the room “—it’s all new, yet sometimes familiar at the same time. Even the music you played. I know you’ve played it for me before, haven’t you?”

      “I have.”

      Luc swallowed. Yes, he’d played it for her before. The last time had been the night he’d proposed. They’d spent a day out on the estate together, made love together for the first time on the riverbank during a picnic—his body tightened in remembrance of her welcoming embrace, at how she’d uninhibitedly given herself fully to him. He’d instantly become addicted to her in a way he’d never imagined possible.

      He’d never wanted anyone or anything in his life as much as he wanted her. The truth had frightened him until he’d persuaded himself it was because she was the perfect accompaniment to the world he’d built. He couldn’t have been thinking of anything else. By the time they’d driven back to the house, he’d decided to step up his plans and propose to her earlier than he’d anticipated. He still remembered the surge of triumph when she’d said yes.

      They’d fallen to the floor, right here in this sitting room, and made love again to seal their betrothal. All she’d worn for the next twenty-four hours had been the blue diamond engagement ring he’d had made for her months earlier.

      “Will you play something else for me now?” Belinda’s voice dragged him back from the past.

      “Another time,” he said, rising from the piano bench and grabbing his cane.

      He offered her his hand to pull her to her feet, and they went through to the bedroom together. By the time he’d undressed and was ready for bed she was curled on her side of the bed, her eyes closed, her breathing even.

      She’d fallen asleep after all. But as he slid between the cool cotton of the sheets, she rolled over to face him, her blue-grey eyes massive in her heart-shaped face.

      “Luc?”

      He lifted a hand to smooth away a strand of her hair that fell across her cheek. “Hmmm?”

      “What I said before…” She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. “What I said before about getting back into my old life—I meant every aspect of my old life. Obviously we’re not strangers to each other. Whenever I look at you my body tells me that.”

      So she still felt the same inexorable pull between them. Luc suppressed the smile of satisfaction that threatened to spread across his face at her words.

      He watched as she moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, clearly choosing her next words carefully.

      “Well, what I mean is…if you want to…y’know. Maybe it’ll help.” Her words faded away into the expanding silence of the room.

      Luc traced the curve of her brow, then the sweep of her cheekbone with one finger, before bringing it to rest at the cupid’s bow of her lips. He’d wanted her to come to him willingly and now she had. Something foreign warmed and bloomed deep inside him.

      “No,” he said quietly, his negative response surprising even himself.

      “You don’t want me?” She sounded hurt and relieved at the same time.

      “Oh, I want you. When the time is right we will make love again. But tonight isn’t that time. When we make love it won’t be because you want to remember, but because you do.”

      Was that relief in her eyes or disappointment? He leaned forward and took her lips gently with his own, holding back the beast that clawed within him to plunder their generous softness. As much as it tormented him, he would wait.

      She sighed softly against his lips. “Good night, Luc.”

      She rolled over to her other side, and Luc curved his arm around her, pulling her in close against the hardness of his body. He felt her stiffen as the evidence of his arousal nestled along the crease of her buttocks, then felt her relax into him as the truth of his obvious desire for her sank in, secure in the knowledge his rejection of her wasn’t because he didn’t want her.

      He lay there for hours, his eyes burning in the dark as she slid into a deep sleep. Her body shaped to his. His instincts screamed to take her and brand her his once more. It would be the ultimate satisfaction, when she remembered everything, for her to know she hadn’t been able to resist him. But he’d meant what he’d said before. When she made love with him again it would be because she remembered what their lovemaking had been like, how it had become a compulsion neither of them could deny. How they’d both resented everything that had come between their opportunities to be alone together. If he could do anything in his power to encourage that memory, he would.

      The intense satisfying physicality of their relationship had been an unexpected bonus. An indicator, of sorts, that he’d been right all along when he’d decided to make Belinda Wallace his wife and mistress of Tautara Lodge. His life—his plan—would carry on as before. The hiccup of their accident would fade into a minor blip on the radar of his success.

      Six

      The next morning Belinda awoke feeling more rested than she had in ages. But with the fresh light of the morning, and the cool empty sheets beside her, anxiety had reasserted itself once more.

      Where had the trepidation she’d felt when she’d first seen him at the hospital gone? She’d been forced into close contact with him yesterday—a close contact she hadn’t questioned and which, to be totally honest, had felt right. Was this how victims of Stockholm Syndrome felt? Had that been Luc’s intention all along—to make her completely reliant on him so far away from what little familiarity she had?

      Aside from the obvious, the fact she couldn’t remember what was a very important part of her life, why did she still feel as though there was something more overshadowing her mind’s refusal to recall her memories. Even now, as she approached Luc at the dining table, where he sat reading a paper over breakfast, she sensed a closed door deep inside of him, a part of him that lay deep in shadow, and she wanted to know what was behind that door.

      The only way she would find out was to keep going. He was her husband. She owed it to them both. Belinda painted a smile on her face and forced herself