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

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      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. СКАЧАТЬ