“We’re leaving now,” Lila announced.
“I’ll want to speak to Belle,” Jack returned and he watched with some surprise as both women grew pale. Therefore he knew without asking that not only had Belle told them not to come there, she didn’t know they were there.
Lila rallied first. “That’s not going to happen.”
“She’s carrying my child. I’ll want to speak to her,” Jack retorted.
“Well, since we don’t know if it’s your child, that’s unnecessary,” Lila shot back.
“It’s mine,” Jack said with soft meaning and watched the women exchange nervous glances.
“We thought,” Rachel started but when Jack’s eyes cut to her, she stopped. He watched her swallow then she pressed on, “We thought it was only fair you knew. Belle doesn’t want anything, not your money or anything. She didn’t even want you to know she was carrying your child. But she’s keeping it and it’s yours too and we thought it was only fair,” she finished but when Jack didn’t speak she continued. “Please don’t make us regret this gesture.”
Belle, Jack noted, was very like her mother.
This did not make him waiver mainly because Belle was pregnant with his child and fully intended to keep it from him.
And that was not going to happen.
“I’ll want to speak to her,” he repeated.
“Damn it, man!” Lila burst out.
“Either you arrange it or my solicitors will,” Jack warned. “And I don’t think you want solicitors involved.”
Lila made an angry noise but it was again Rachel who captured Jack’s attention.
“Why?” Rachel asked softly, her voice trembling with an emotion he couldn’t quite read. Hurt or anger, he wasn’t sure. “She doesn’t want to see you. Why put her through this?”
“It’s my child,” was all Jack said to explain which he thought was quite enough.
“I beg to differ. It’s Belle’s child too, not just yours,” Lila snapped.
“Then Belle and I, as the child’s mother and father, will speak like civilised people about what will happen during its gestation, birth and continued existence.”
“Oh lordy,” Rachel muttered.
“It’s gestation?” Lila breathed in a furious whisper.
“I’ll choose the obstetrician, the best, who will see to Belle’s care while the baby’s developing. I’ll choose the hospital, the best, so I can be assured of a successful outcome during delivery. And Belle and I’ll discuss what arrangements will be made after its birth.”
“Belle’s already got an obstetrician,” Rachel noted.
Jack’s eyes cut to Rachel. “Unless he’s the best, Belle will have another one.”
“She is lovely and Belle likes her,” Lila informed him.
Jack moved from the door and walked to his desk while saying, “This isn’t something we’re discussing. It’s something I’ll discuss with Belle.” He paused, put his phone and pen on the desk and turned, leaning a thigh against the side, his hand on the top. “Or my solicitors will discuss it with hers.”
“I knew by the way you and your brother behaved you were a bastard but nobody is this much of a bastard,” Lila snapped then clamped her mouth shut when Jack’s lethal gaze sliced to her.
“This conversation is over,” Jack announced.
“Please don’t do this,” Rachel begged and Lila shot her a furious look but Rachel ignored it. “Belle’s under enough stress as it is.”
“Then I suggest you encourage her to speak with me,” Jack replied instantly regardless of the fact that he felt more than a vague sense of disquiet at Rachel’s earnest words. “Tell her Saturday afternoon, three o’clock at The Point.”
“If she decides to come, and that’s a big ‘if’,” Lila proclaimed, “then we’ll be with her.”
Jack extended his head and murmured, “By all means.”
Rachel and Lila glanced at each other before Lila declared, “I do not have a good feeling about this and usually my feelings are spot on.”
Jack didn’t comment.
Neither did Rachel.
The two women stood staring at him, perhaps hoping he’d relent.
He didn’t.
Lila put her hand to the doorknob saying, “We’ve done enough damage to Bellerina. Let’s go, Rachel, before we do any more.”
“This wasn’t my idea,” Rachel replied.
“Well, it wasn’t mine,” Lila retorted.
“If I remember correctly, it was,” Rachel said.
They kept squabbling as Lila led the way out but Jack saw Rachel turn at the door and call, “We’ll see you Saturday.”
Then Rachel closed the door behind them.
Jack stared at it.
Belle Abbot was pregnant with his child.
One of the three indisputably magnificent times he fucked her (Jack knew he couldn’t put that down to romantic idiocy), he’d made her pregnant.
Belle, thin and wan, if the pictures in the paper were anything to go by, had been pregnant with his child for three months.
And she wasn’t going to tell him.
She was going to keep his child from him.
If her mother and grandmother hadn’t intervened, he might never have learned not only that he was going to be a father but that his child existed on the planet.
On this thought, it took an extreme effort of will not to pick up the expensive phone Yasmin had given him and throw it across the room.
Instead, he picked up the desk phone and dialled Olive’s extension.
He put it to his ear and when she answered, he said, “Get me everything you can on Belle Abbot. I want her home address, phone numbers, e-mail and work address by the end of the day. You have two weeks to compile a complete history.”
“What’s going on?” Olive asked in his ear but he didn’t reply.
He put the phone down, put Belle and her family out of his mind and went back to his meeting.
Chapter Six
All Freaking Day Long Sickness
Belle
As her mother drove Belle’s car, Belle watched The Point get closer and closer.
She felt like throwing up.
This was not unusual. For the past six weeks she’d been throwing up a lot.
Morning Sickness was a misnomer. All Freaking Day Long Sickness was more like it.
She hoped she got through this, whatever it was, with James without vomiting on some priceless rug.
That would be beyond humiliating. Not that he could humiliate her any more than he already had, both privately and very, very publicly.
Still, she hoped it didn’t happen.
It had been three days but Belle was still angry with her Mom and Gram.
She could not believe they’d gone to see James.
In all their crazy schemes, that was the craziest.
She had no idea what they were thinking (then again, she never did).
Six weeks ago, after finding out she was pregnant and allowing herself a week of temporary insanity (intensified by the lessening, but still present, media scrutiny), Belle had decided to keep the baby.
She was thirty-five and she was never, but never, going to get in another relationship even under torture. She’d die before she let another man muck up her life. So she decided this would be her only chance. Unless she was artificially inseminated. Or she adopted which would be difficult as she was single and although currently wildly famous (not for all good reasons), she wasn’t wildly rich and successful, like a pop star or an actress who could mosey down to Africa with her army of attorneys and have her pick of children on whom she could lavish her attention.
She’d gone home to tell her family and, like an idiot, in a misguided attempt at acquiring moral (and other) support, she’d brought them back.
She should have never done that.
She knew better.
Therefore for the first time in her life (or, since she’d become involved with Miles, then James), she had no idea
what she was thinking.
With her behaviour of the last three plus months, she seriously needed to get her head examined.
Like today, letting her Mom (her Gram was staunchly against it) talk her into going to talk with James.
She knew she should just hire a solicitor and plan, fight, hope and do anything else she had to do to bring about the best for her child.
But no.
There she was in her car, her mother driving and The Point was looming huge and daunting in front of them.
She just hoped she didn’t look as bad as she felt.
She’d decided to wear jeans because she didn’t want to make it look as if she cared overly much about her appearance when seeing James again. Then she’d decided to wear slightly faded but not excessively faded jeans because she didn’t want James to think she was being in his face with her casual attire.
She’d paired this with a white camisole over which she wore a very feminine blouse she’d designed herself. White. Nearly see-through. Delicate pin-tucks at the front. Girlie gathered cap sleeves with a tiny ruffle at the edges. Buttons opened enough to show some cleavage but not enough cleavage to make her look like the hussy she felt she was the last time she’d visited The Point.
She’d put on a pair of silver ballet toe flats. Carried a big, poochy, black, expensive designer handbag that she’d purchased in a wild flight of fancy at duty free shopping on her way home to tell her family she was pregnant (this, she excused as still being in the throes of temporary insanity). And, last, she’d donned a black belt with enormous, square, silver rivets in it.
She’d worn silver hoops in her ears, a dozen silver bangles at her wrist and put her hair in a ponytail at the back of her head because James told her he liked her hair down. That she knew was being in his face but she didn’t think it was obvious so she cut herself some slack.
She looked like an innocent rock ‘n’ roll virgin.
Albeit a pregnant one.
She sat as her mother park the car at the base of the sweeping, wide, stone stairwell that led to the arched, fifteen-foot tall, studded, wooden double doors.
Belle felt a wave of nausea and swallowed it down.
Her grandmother, sitting in the backseat, leaned forward and rested her hand on Belle’s shoulder. “You okay, Bellerina?”
No, she was definitely not okay.
But she didn’t admit that.
“Let’s just get this done,” Belle muttered instead, threw open her door and stepped out.
No sooner had she done this than one of the double doors swung open and Joy, wearing an elegant, blue dress the likes of which one would don to meet The Queen, came flying out.
She was wearing the brooch Belle had given her.
“Belle!” she cried, rushing down the steps, throwing her arms wide and Belle braced just as Joy reached her and gave her a warm, friendly hug. “Oh darling, I’m so pleased to hear your and Jack’s news. So, so, so, so, so, so, so pleased,” she chanted, her arms still tight around Belle and Joy was swinging her side to side with abandoned delight.
Joy moved a bit away but held Belle by the forearms so she could look into Belle’s eyes with a friendly smile.
As if the last time Belle saw her, Belle wasn’t dashing out of her house in humiliation after loudly fighting with both her sons because she’d been dating one and slept with the other.
As if, for a month after that, Belle’s sordid relationship with her sons hadn’t been written about in detail (not all of them correct, but they were correct enough) in every newspaper on three continents (maybe seven, Belle had no friends in South America, Asia, Africa or Antarctica so who knew).
Joy gave Belle’s arms a squeeze and repeated on a whisper, “So pleased.” Then her head jerked around and she shrieked, “My God! You are not Belle’s mother!” And she rushed to Rachel and embraced her too.
“Is James Bennett adopted?” Gram asked, sotto voce, in Belle’s ear and Belle choked back a wave of hysterical laughter.
This was not hard to do. While swallowing her laughter, she saw movement at the door and her mirth and hysteria died.
She looked up and there stood James, arms crossed on his chest, legs set wide. He was wearing jeans and an untucked, tailored, black shirt. He was looking even more beautiful than she remembered him and she thought she’d remembered every single detail of him in glaring clarity but, apparently, she had not.
His eyes were on her and she felt the trill go up her spine as her belly did a flip that had nothing to do with nausea.
Quickly she turned her eyes away and watched Joy introduce herself to Gram with another welcoming hug.
Then Joy disengaged from Gram and linked arms with Belle, leading her up the steps.
“I’ve ordered high tea and we’ve made sure we have plenty for dinner if you all decide to stay which I think would be lovely,” Joy wittered on as she firmly guided Belle up the steps even though Belle tried very hard to drag her feet.
They nearly made it to the top and Belle didn’t look up but she saw James’s thighs, hips then stomach and none of them moved out of the way of the door.
She ignored this by turning to Joy and saying, “I’m sorry you went to all that trouble, Joy, but I’m not very hungry.”
The forceful, no-nonsense words uttered in James’s unmistakable, deep voice brought Belle to a stop.
“You’ll eat.”
Her gaze skittered to his still unfairly beautiful eyes and she saw he was staring at her.
“I’m not hungry,” Belle repeated.
“You’re eating for two so you’ll eat,” James returned and Belle felt the heat sting her cheeks at his nearly instant reference to their unborn child.
She also felt like running back down the steps to her car or avoiding it altogether and jumping into the sea and swimming to France.
At the same time she felt like kicking him in the shin.
No, “Hello.” No, “How are you?” No, “I’m so sorry I broke your heart and devastated your life, all in one night, how will you ever forgive me?”
Just, “You’ll eat.”
Belle didn’t know what to say so she looked away and said nothing at all.
Luckily Joy knew exactly what to do in intensely uncomfortable situations and she guided Belle into the house and to the sitting room, a room Belle especially liked, decorated in warm greens and bright yellows. She chatted the whole time making them all at ease (or as at ease as they could be under the circumstances) and then rushed out to order the refreshments.
Belle, Mom and Gram all had taken seats.
James stood leaning against the mantel of the fireplace, arms still crossed on his chest.
Belle wished he would sit. He was tall and he seemed even taller (for obvious reasons) when she was seated.
She, however, didn’t tell him this.
In fact, except for a quick glance, she didn’t look at him at all.
“What an, erm, lovely room,” Mom commented nervously.
James didn’t reply.
They waited.
James still didn’t reply.
“Can we get on with this?” Gram asked impatiently.
James spoke but Belle still didn’t look at him. “We’ll wait until Mum returns.”
“Whyever would we do that?” Gram snapped.
“Do you expect the have the right to speak about the future of your unborn great-grandchild during these discussions?” James asked.
“Of course I do,” Gram returned, unusually not quick enough to catch his meaning.
“Then we’ll wait until Mum returns,” James stated firmly and Gram clamped her mouth shut and glared at Belle.
She did this as if it was all Belle’s fault when it wasn’t Belle who’d shot off to London and forced herself into James Bennett’s office and announced he’d gotten someone pregnant.
Belle returned her grandmother’s glare.
Gram’s eyes grew narrow, something which, when Belle was a child, would frighten the
dickens out of her. Something which, when Belle was a pregnant thirty-five year old woman sorting through the mess Gram had made for her (well, kind of), Belle didn’t react to at all.
Gram let out an annoyed sigh and looked away just as Joy re-entered the room.
“Tea, cakes, sandwiches, everything, coming right up,” Joy announced and at the very thought of food, Belle felt bile slide up her throat.
She put her hand to her chest and swallowed. She felt her mother’s eyes move to her in question and Belle spared her a glance and gave her a short shake of the head.
When she looked away from Rachel, her eyes slid past James then came jerking back when she saw his gaze was narrowed on her hand at her chest.
She dropped it and looked away.
“All right,” Joy clapped happily as she sat down. “Let’s talk baby. Belle, darling, are you taking vitamins?”
She was, however most of them ended up in the toilet.
She didn’t tell Joy this. She just smiled and said, “Yes. Everything, so far, is healthy and happy.”
“Except those headaches you get,” Mom put in.
“And the morning sickness,” Gram added.
“Oh dear, are you getting headaches and nausea?” Joy asked with concern.
“It’s not that bad,” Belle assured her on a total lie.
She was going to hell with a number of black marks on her soul, she just knew it. And most of them could be attributed to her behaviour around the Bennett family.
“Who’s your doctor?” James asked suddenly and Belle’s eyes went to his shoulder.
“Dr. Flanagan. She’s an obstetrician in Penzance.”
“I’ll want to check her credentials,” James declared and Belle felt extreme irritation but she bit it back.
“Of course,” she murmured and heard her grandmother emit an angry noise but Belle gave Lila a look and Lila bit her tongue.
“Where are you planning the delivery?” James asked and Belle looked back at his shoulder.
“I haven’t gotten that far yet,” she told his shoulder.
“Belle,” he called even though he obviously had her attention.
She kept staring at his shoulder. “What?”
“Look at me,” he demanded, no warmth or amusement in his tone as he called her on not meeting his eyes and her body jolted unpleasantly as her gaze jerked to his and, once he held her eyes, he declared, “You’ll have our child in theatre.”