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

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.