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
