The Helen Bianchin Collection

by Helen Bianchin

  Sandrine’s heart missed a beat, then thudded loudly in her chest as she stepped into the room. The attending doctor partly obscured Michel from her view, and she moved quickly to his side, her eyes sweeping over his features, his lengthy frame, in a bid to determine the extent of his injuries.

  ‘Michel,’ she breathed raggedly as she took in those flawless, broad-boned facial features, then roved over his bare chest.

  No scratches, no visible bruising, she noted with relief. The doctor was working on Michel’s left arm, stitching what looked to be a deep gash, and she paled at the sight of the needle suturing the wound.

  ‘My wife,’ Michel drawled as the doctor paused in his task to give her a quick glance.

  ‘Your husband is fine. A few bruised ribs from the restraining seat belt, plus a gashed arm. I’ll be done in a few minutes, then you can take him home.’

  Sandrine felt the blood drain from her face as her vivid imagination envisaged the car screeching as Michel applied the brakes, the sickening crunch as two cars collided, the reflexive action at the moment of impact.

  For one brief, infinitesimal second she experienced a mental flash of how it might have been, and the thought of what could have happened almost destroyed her. A life without Michel in it would be no life at all.

  A hand curved round her nape as Michel pulled her towards him, and her hands instinctively clutched hold of his shoulders. Then his mouth was on hers in a brief, hard kiss that almost immediately softened to a light caress before he released her.

  ‘Don’t, chérie,’ he chastised huskily, and uttered a muffled curse as he saw her lips tremble.

  She tried to smile but didn’t quite make it. Michel’s eyes darkened, and he caught her hand and held it. His thumb lightly caressed the veins inside her wrist, moving in a rhythmic pattern that stirred her senses. Just looking at him made her want to fling her arms around him and hold on tight.

  Relief flooded her veins, closely followed by love. The deep, abiding-forever kind. Her heart, her emotions, belonged to this man, unequivocally. Nothing else held any importance.

  ‘There, all done,’ the doctor declared as he applied a dressing and secured it. ‘Those stitches need to be removed in a week.’

  Michel rose to his feet, grabbed his shirt from the back of the chair, shrugged it on and attended to the buttons before slipping into his jacket. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  ‘I’ll organise the cab and drop you off on my way to the airport,’ Raoul stated as they exited the building, and Sandrine gave him a brief, keen glance.

  ‘You’re flying back to the Gold Coast?’

  He offered her a wry smile. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Do you?’

  Her eyes held musing humour. ‘Oh, yes.’ Stephanie was in for a battle if she thought she could easily dismiss Raoul. The Lanier men fought for what they wanted. ‘I recognise the signs.’

  ‘Then wish me luck, Sandrine.’

  ‘Do you need it?’

  His expression assumed a faint bleakness.

  So he wasn’t so sure after all. Good, she decided silently. He’d appreciate Stephanie all the more for not providing him with an easy victory.

  She lifted a hand and brushed her fingers down that firm cheek. ‘You have it, Raoul.’

  He offered her a smile that held warmth and affection. ‘Merci.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THERE was a rank of taxis outside the main entrance, and one moved forward at a flick from Michel’s fingers.

  Twenty minutes later the cab slid to a halt outside their apartment building, and they bade Raoul a quick farewell, then made their way through the foyer to the lift.

  The instant the lift doors closed behind them, Michel punched the appropriate panel button, then he pulled her close and fastened his mouth over hers in a kiss that was all too brief as the doors slid open at their designated floor. They walked the few steps to their door and then entered the apartment.

  For a few seconds she stood in dazed silence, her eyes large as she looked at him. There was so much she wanted to say, yet the words seemed caught in her throat.

  He was so dear to her, so very special. Life itself. Without him, the flame within her would flicker and die.

  Something flared in his eyes, and she stood perfectly still as he threaded his fingers into her hair and tilted her head.

  ‘I couldn’t bear to lose you,’ she said simply, and saw his lips curve into a gentle smile. 177

  ‘It isn’t going to happen.’

  ‘Today, just for a while, I thought it might have.’

  As long as he lived, he’d never forget the expression in her eyes, the paleness of her features when she entered the emergency room. His thumb caressed the firm line of her jaw. ‘I know.’

  She swallowed, the expression in her eyes mirroring her emotions. ‘You probably should rest,’ she voiced huskily.

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Michel…’ She paused as his head lowered down to hers and his lips settled on one cheekbone, then began trailing a path down the slope of her jawbone to settle at the edge of her mouth.

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘I can’t think when you do that.’

  ‘Is it so important that you think?’

  One hand moved to the vee of her top and slid beneath it.

  ‘I want…’ Her breath hitched as his fingers brushed the slope of her breast, the touch infinitely erotic over the soft silk and lace of her bra.

  His lips teased hers, light as a butterfly’s wing, as they stroked over the sensuous lower curve, then he swept his tongue to taste the sweetness within.

  This, this, was where she was meant to be. Held in the arms of the man who was her soul mate. Nothing else mattered.

  ‘What is it you want, chérie?’ Michel drawled gently.

  ‘You,’ she said simply. ‘But first…’ Her voice climbed a few notches, then came to a sudden halt as his fingers slid to unfasten the clip of her bra. The sensitive peaks burgeoned in anticipation of his touch, and heat arrowed from deep within as he began an erotic, evocative stroking. It drove her wild, and she groaned out loud as he pulled the knit top over her head, discarded her bra, then lowered his mouth to one highly sensitised peak.

  She could feel herself begin to melt as her body melded to his, aligning itself to allow him access as her hands crept round his neck.

  A long, heartfelt sigh whispered from her lips as he shifted his attention to render a similar salutation to its twin. For what seemed an age she exulted in the sheer sensation his touch evoked, feeling every pore, every nerve cell pulse into vibrant life.

  It wasn’t enough, and she murmured encouragement when his fingers slipped to her waist and attended to the zip fastening.

  His clothes were an impossible barrier she sought to remove with considerable care, and his gentle smile almost completely undid her as he put her at arm’s length and finished the task.

  Sandrine took in his muscled frame, the olive-toned skin stretching over superb bone structure and honed sinew. His shoulders were broad, his chest tightly muscled and liberally sprinkled with dark, curling hair that arrowed down to his waist, then flared into a geometric vee at the juncture of his thighs.

  He was an impressive, well-endowed man, a skilled and exciting lover whose degree of tendresse melted her bones, while his passion had the power to awe and overwhelm.

  With one easy movement he swept an arm beneath her knees and lifted her high against his chest.

  ‘Your arm,’ she protested, and heard his husky laughter.

  ‘Afraid it might hinder me?’ Michel teased as he strode through to the bedroom.

  ‘Hurt you,’ she corrected as he pulled back the bed-clothes and drew her down with him onto the sheets.

  He kissed her, deeply and with such soul-destroying intensity she lost track of time and place until he slowly released his mouth from her own.

  She looked kissed, he saw with satisfaction. Her mouth was slightly
swollen, and her eyes resembled huge liquid pools a man could drown in.

  He wanted to savour the taste of her, skim his lips over every inch of her skin, suckle at her breasts with the ferocity of a newborn infant seeking succour. Except a man nurtured his woman’s breasts to give her pleasure, for some of the most sensitised nerve endings were centred at those peaks.

  Most of all he wanted to bury himself deep in her moist heat and become lost in the sweet sorcery that was Sandrine. His woman, his wife. His life.

  From the moment he met her, he had only one agenda. It was instant, breathtaking desire. Yet it had been more than that, much more. Deep within the raw, primitive emotion had been the instinctive knowledge they were meant to be. Almost as if they’d known each other in a former existence.

  Crazy, he dismissed with a mental shake of his head. He possessed a logical, analytical mind. Yet he was frighteningly aware of the timing and how, had he not been at a friend’s home attending a party, he might never have met her. Equally, the slender thread of chance that led her to be persuaded to tag along to something she freely admitted hadn’t been her first choice of an evening’s entertainment.

  Of the many women he’d met socially and in the business arena, there had been none who’d come close to the magic that was Sandrine.

  Beautiful, with a gently curving slenderness that made her frame perfect for displaying designer clothes on various European catwalks. Fine-boned facial features, lovely, wide-spaced dark brown eyes, a generous mouth.

  Rather than her physical appearance, it had been the genuine warmth of her smile, the expressive eyes and her joie de vivre. The way her chin tilted when she laughed, the faint twist of her head as she tossed her hair back over her shoulders. The sound of her voice, its faint huskiness when she became emotionally aroused. And because he was a man, the feel of her body in his arms, her mouth beneath his. The scent and essence that made her unique.

  Destined to be, he mused, like two halves of a whole that fitted perfectly together as one.

  ‘Michel?’

  He looked down at her and tried to control the slight tremor that threatened to destroy the slim hold on his libido. ‘You get to talk after we make love,’ he teased mercilessly, and felt his body go weak at the languorous humour evident in those beautiful dark eyes.

  ‘You could make an exception.’

  He trailed a finger down the slope of her nose. ‘So what is it you want to say that can’t wait, hmm?’

  She reached up a hand and pressed a finger to his lips, stilling any words he might have added. ‘I love you.’ There was the prick of unshed tears, an ache deep inside her heart.

  He kissed each of her fingers in turn, and she almost melted from the warmth evident in his gaze. ‘Merci, chérie,’ he said gently.

  ‘I always have,’ she assured him with such a depth of feeling two tears materialised, clung to her lashes, then spilled to run down her cheek in twin rivulets. ‘I always will.’

  His thumb stroked away the dampness. ‘Are you done?’

  She inclined her head and made an attempt to restore her composure. Her gaze speared his, and there was a depth apparent that made him catch his breath.

  ‘I have something for you.’ He reached out and slid open a drawer of the bedside pedestal, extracted something, then turned back to her and caught hold of her left hand.

  It was an exquisite diamond-studded ring, a perfect complement to her existing rings.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Sandrine breathed. ‘Thank you.’ A circle symbolising eternity. She wanted to cry. ‘I have nothing for you.’

  The passionate warmth evident in his gaze succeeded in melting her bones. ‘You’re wrong,’ Michel said tenderly. ‘You are my gift. Infinitely more precious than anything you could give me. Je t’aime, mon amour.’ His voice was husky as he curved her close against him. ‘Je t’adore.’ His lips hovered fractionally above her own. ‘You are my life, my love. Everything.’

  Love was understanding, compassion and trust. And more, much more.

  She linked her hands behind his head and pulled him down to her. ‘Merci,’ she teased, and heard his husky growl an instant before his mouth closed over hers.

  After the loving, she lay spent, curled in against his side, one arm flung across his midriff, her cheek resting on his chest.

  The sun had shifted lower in the sky, and soon dusk would fall. Shadows danced slowly across the pale wall, creating an indecipherable pattern.

  At last everything had fallen into place, she decided dreamily. The film was finished, publicity completed. Tomorrow she would board a flight with Michel bound for New York. A week later they’d embark on a holiday in France.

  Paris in winter, drizzle, grey skies. But nothing would dull the magic of love in a city made for lovers. It was the appropriate city in which to try to conceive a child.

  ‘Are you awake?’

  She felt him shift slightly towards her. ‘Want me to order in something to eat?’

  ‘How do you feel about children?’

  ‘In general?’

  She waited a few seconds. ‘Ours.’

  Now she had his attention. ‘Are you trying to tell me something?’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell…yet.’

  He propped up his head as he leant towards her. ‘The thought of your being pregnant with my child overwhelms me.’

  She wrinkled her nose at him. ‘Too overwhelming?’

  He kissed her with lingering thoroughness. ‘I think we should work on it.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘You object?’

  She didn’t answer. Instead, she showed him just how she intended to work on it.

  The Husband Assignment

  Helen Bianchin

  CHAPTER ONE

  RAOUL LANIER inclined his head in silent acknowledgment as the attractive airline hostess extended a customary farewell to passengers leaving the aircraft.

  Her mouth curved a little wider, and the expression in her eyes offered numerous sensual delights should he choose to extend an invitation to share a drink during her stopover.

  The attention she’d bestowed on him during the long international flight had included a friendly warmth that went beyond the courteous solicitousness proffered to his fellow travelers.

  It could have proved an interesting diversion, if fleeting sexual encounters formed part of his personal agenda, Raoul mused as he cleared the aircraft and entered the concourse.

  As the eldest son and part heir to a billion-dollar fortune, a sense of caution coupled with cynicism had formed at an early age.

  Good European genes had blessed him with enviable height, superb bone structure and ruggedly attractive facial features that inevitably drew a second glance. Physical fitness and fine clothes completed a combination that proved magnetic to women of all ages.

  A quality that was both an advantage and a curse, he acknowledged with rueful humor as he rode the escalator down to ground level and crossed to the appropriate luggage carousel.

  Raoul checked his watch. He had two hours in which to clear customs, take a cab to the hotel at Double Bay, shower and change, before he was scheduled to appear at a business meeting.

  Primarily his Australian visit was intended to target the possibility of setting up a Sydney base for the multinational Lanier conglomerate. Wheels had already been set in motion, and if all the details met with his satisfaction, he was prepared to clinch the deal.

  Not easily, for he was a skilled tactician whose strategy was recognized and lauded by his peers and associates.

  He spotted his luggage, hefted it from the carousel and then strode out of the terminal to summon a taxi.

  Brilliant summer sunshine had him reaching for protective sunglasses as he provided the driver with the name of his hotel, then he sank back against the seat in contemplative silence.

  The meeting this afternoon held importance. He planned to present a noncommittal persona, and absent himself from the scene for several days, reachabl
e only by cell phone during a sojourn on Queensland’s Gold Coast.

  Checking up on family. His mouth thinned slightly as his expression assumed reflective thought.

  He held filial affection for both his brothers. The youngest, Sebastian, had recently married and was at present taking an extended holiday in Europe with his new wife.

  However, it was Michel who was providing concern, with his marriage of six months in apparent crisis. Seven weeks ago Michel’s wife had left New York and flown to Australia to take part in a movie being filmed at the Gold Coast Warner Brothers’ studios.

  Michel had concluded important European meetings, then followed Sandrine with a view to negotiating a reconciliation. The fact the movie had developed financial problems merely added a bargaining dimension Raoul suspected Michel intended to use to his advantage.

  Each of the Lanier brothers possessed a considerable personal fortune, and sinking a few million dollars into a floundering movie wouldn’t put a dent in Michel’s assets.

  A sudden screech of brakes, a muffled curse from the taxi driver, followed by an offered apology captured his attention, and he caught the buildup of traffic, the terrace houses, as the driver swung into the outer lane.

  Raoul caught a glimpse of tall buildings stretched skyward in the distance, and estimated it would take ten minutes, fifteen at most, to reach the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Double Bay.

  He was no stranger to this large southern hemispheric city, and he held a certain affection for its scenic beauty and stunning architecture, albeit that it was very young in terms of his native France.

  Home was a luxury two-story apartment in Auteuil filled with antique furniture, marble-tiled floors, oriental rugs, objets d’art.

  He had been born and raised in Paris, graduated from one of its finest universities, then was absorbed into the Lanier corporation as a junior executive.

  Raoul gave a grim smile in memory of those early days beneath his father’s eaglelike tutelage. Henri Lanier had been a hard taskmaster. Ruthless, Raoul conceded, but fair.