“None of this matters now at all, Miles.”
“How did you know?” he pushed.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Did Yasmin tell you?”
“It doesn’t matter!” she cried and Gretl woofed again.
Miles stared at her then muttered, “She told you. And why do you think she told you, Belle?”
“She didn’t tell me,” Belle denied, shaking her head and in the heat of the moment admitted a moment of rudeness. “I overheard her and Joy talking.”
“And you think that wasn’t planned?” Miles sneered.
She felt her eyes grow round.
“You are,” she whispered. “You are beyond belief.”
Miles shook his own head. “Think about it, Belle. She was done with Quincy then and she wanted a free run at Jack. Or, more to the point, she wanted Jack to have a free run at her since she likes being chased. She saw how he reacted to you so she didn’t delay in making that so.”
Belle ignored the wind whipping her hair across her face and uncrossed her arms so she could plant her hands on her hips before she asked cuttingly, “You’re telling me that Yasmin finagled Joy into a hallway she would have no idea I was walking down at the precise time she could have no idea I was walking down it to orchestrate a conversation that would put me off Jack. Is that what you’re telling me, Miles?”
“You’re getting to know her,” Miles retorted. “She’s very clever.”
“Yes, she is. You know who isn’t?” she queried but didn’t pause for an answer although she did thrust finger at him, “You!”
“Belle –”
Belle cut him off, “This is absurd, purposefully hurtful and I’m sorry to tell you, Miles, I’ll not keep it from Jack. What you’ve said to one woman he cares about, about another woman he cares about cannot stand. You’ll deal with him and, what’s worse, he’ll deal with you.”
On that, she bent, snatched up the rug and began to stomp past him but he caught her bicep, bringing her up short.
Goodness gracious, not this again.
She snapped her head back and hissed, “Take your hand off me.”
“Don’t be a fool, Belle. With the loss of that baby, your hold on him has slipped,” he clipped back, not having convinced her to believe any of his venom, he went in for the kill.
And she could not believe he did it or the way he did.
Therefore, with a vicious twist, she pulled her arm free, shouting, “Take your hand off me!”
She took one step away, he began to lunge toward her but stopped and both their heads whipped around when Jack’s voice cracked through the wind like a whip.
“Miles, right now, step the fuck back!”
Both Jack and Yasmin were coming their way, Jack’s face thunderous, his strides wide and Yasmin was racing on high heels on the uneven path to keep up, her face pale.
Belle just stared at Jack who she hadn’t expected to be home for at least another half an hour and who, as usual, was right there when she needed him.
She did this while her breath came fast and the rest of her attention focussed on not screaming bloody murder.
“I arrived at the house ten minutes ago,” Yasmin called. “I saw Miles going to you. I called Jack right away but he told me he was nearly here,” she puffed. “Now, he’s, well,” she stopped next to Jack who stopped three feet away from Miles, eyes glued on his brother and she threw a hand out at Jack lamely before she finished, “here.”
“Belle, you and Yasmin go to the house,” Jack growled, his enraged eyes still on his brother.
Before either of them could move, Miles informed Jack, “Yasmin was the one to tell Belle that you wanted a crack at her,” and after he spoke this semi-lie, Belle watched Jack’s back shoot straight.
“I did not!” Yasmin cried.
Miles looked at Yasmin. “She overheard you talking to Mum in the hallway that morning.”
When he imparted this information, Yasmin’s eyes flew to Belle, light dawned, her face paled and she whispered, “Oh God, no.”
“It’s okay, Yasmin,” Belle stated swiftly then added truthfully. “It was rude for me to eavesdrop.”
Yasmin clearly wasn’t thinking about Belle being rude. She sounded horrified when she replied, “I’m so sorry, Belle.” Her eyes moved to Jack. “And Jack, I had no idea –”
She didn’t finish.
Miles had looked back to Jack who never tore his gaze from his brother and spoke over her. “You thought it was me. It was not me. It was Yasmin.”
“And who told Yasmin it was me who wanted a crack at Belle when those words, Miles, came from your fucking mouth?” Jack asked, his voice low, rumbly and very, very angry.
Oh dear.
Belle needed to do something she just didn’t know how.
Or, in fact, what.
“Miles did, of course,” Yasmin whispered before Belle could figure it out.
“She misheard me,” Miles stated quickly.
“She did not,” Jack ground out. “You lied in an effort to cheat during a ridiculous, one-sided competition that I cannot fucking believe we’re still discussing months after the drama was over and only fucking weeks after the woman I love was shoved down the goddamned stairs and lost our child as a result.”
Miles’s torso swayed back and he whispered, “You love her?”
“Jesus, Miles, what do you think this is all about?” Jack asked, planting his hands on his hips.
“You love her,” Miles repeated in a whisper.
Jack didn’t get a chance to respond.
Unfortunately at this juncture, Joy was racing up, calling out, “What’s happening?”
“Belle, take Mum and Yasmin to the house,” Jack ordered, his eyes still locked on his brother.
“Please, no fighting,” Joy begged, arriving and immediately getting close to Jack so she could wrap her hands around his upper arm. “We were all getting along. Let’s not go back to fighting.” Her eyes moved to her younger son. “Please Miles. Especially not now.”
“I didn’t come to fight,” Miles told his mother. “Because Belle is sensitive, I took the chance to incur Jack’s wrath in order to warn her, after what’s happened, to tread cautiously.”
Really, Belle thought in disgust, eyeing Miles, it was high time to stop being meek and mild if her sensitivity set her up for this type of kindness.
“We’ll finish this, once and for all, between you and me,” Jack clipped then again ordered, “Belle, take Mum and Yasmin back to the house.”
Belle thought this was a capital idea and started to move but Joy asked, “Tread cautiously with what?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Miles answered. “She refuses to heed my warning.”
“What warning?” Joy pushed as Belle got close and grabbed her elbow, trying and failing to pull her away.
“It doesn’t matter,” Miles repeated, his eyes on his brother.
Belle froze when Yasmin stated softly, “You took me away from him. I participated but you did it and you did it purposefully. Now, you’re trying to take Belle from him too?”
“What’s this? What are you talking about? What’s going on?” Joy demanded, her hands giving Jack’s arm a shake.
“Belle, get Mum and Yasmin back… to… the house,” Jack growled.
Belle pulled gently at Joy’s elbow, she resisted and Yasmin ignored all of this and asked Miles, “Why would you do that? What could possess you?”
At this, Miles’s head turned slowly to Yasmin. “Possess me?”
“Yes,” she answered quietly. “I’ve known you both what feels like my whole life and Jack has never done anything to deserve this. So yes, when you behave like this, Miles, what possesses you?”
“He sees something, he takes it,” Miles replied and Yasmin shook her head.
“He didn’t take me. I gave myself to him. The same with Belle.”
“He sees something, he takes it, even if it doesn’t belong to him,” Miles went on stubbornly.
“This is fucking ridiculous. We’re talking about women, human fucking beings,” Jack muttered angrily and Miles’s gaze sliced to him.
“Three times, with three women, they were mine and you took them.”
At his words, Belle’s body got tight, she felt Joy’s get tight and she sensed Yasmin and Jack’s getting tight.
“Miles, Yasmin –” Jack started.
“I loved her,” Miles cut him off and Belle, Joy and Yasmin all gasped. “Before you took her, I loved her.”
“Oh my God,” Yasmin breathed.
“You should have –” Jack started again but Miles again didn’t let him finish.
“I didn’t have the time. You saw to that.”
“She wasn’t yours, Miles,” Jack said, his voice less angry. “Neither was Belle and you know it.”
“I don’t know it,” Miles replied.
“You know it, Miles, and there is no third,” Jack returned.
“There’s a third,” Miles retorted.
“Who?” Jack asked.
“There’s a third,” Miles repeated.
“Who?” Jack pushed.
To which, Miles suddenly and frighteningly leaned in and roared, “There’s a third!”
“Fucking hell, Miles, if I don’t know –” Jack began to clip but Miles cut him off.
“You know, you bastard, dig deep down into your goddamned soul and you’ll know precisely who she was and you’ll know she was the worst of all,” Miles bit out.
“Miles, darling, are you feeling quite all right?” Joy asked hesitantly and Miles looked to his mother, his eyes burning in a way that made Belle step back.
Joy saw it too. Belle knew this when she let Jack go and stepped back with Belle.
“No, Mum,” he whispered, his voice strange, sinister, frightening, “I’m not all right. I’ve never been all right and you,” he pulled in breath and seared her with the heat of his gaze, “you’ve always known it.”
And with that bizarre, scary parting shot, he stalked between Jack and Yasmin and strode toward the castle.
“Jack, I think you should go after him,” Joy whispered, her voice trembling and Jack stopped looking over his shoulder at his retreating brother and looked to his mother.
“I will.” His eyes moved to Belle. “Please, love, get them inside.”
Belle nodded.
Jack glanced briefly at Yasmin before he turned and strode after his brother. Baron went with Jack. Gretl stayed close to Belle.
“Let’s do what Jack asks and get inside,” Belle urged softly, hooking her arm through Joy’s elbow and marching her to Yasmin while adjusting the rug under her arm so she could do the same with her friend. Then she led them firmly toward the castle.
“A third,” Yasmin murmured as they walked, all their eyes on Jack and Miles who were now having what looked like a very unhappy conversation beside Miles’s car.
“Do you know what that was all about?” Joy asked Yasmin.
“Some of it,” Yasmin muttered in a way that said she wasn’t feeling like sharing.
Therefore Belle quickly intervened by suggesting, “Why don’t we go inside, open a nice bottle of wine and talk about it where we’re comfortable?”
“Good idea,” Yasmin agreed as they watched Miles jerk open his car door that Jack immediately slammed closed.
Oh dear.
Belle hastened their step. “And let’s do that quickly,” she murmured.
“Good idea,” Yasmin agreed.
All three women raced up the steps where Belle, with effort, tugged open the heavy door and ushered them in.
“Fuck you!” she heard Miles shout, leaning in, his face an inch from Jack’s granite one and she closed her eyes, sent him strength and, for him but also for Joy and Yasmin, with effort, she shoved the door closed.
* * * * *
After a not-so-calming glass of wine and after Lila, who stood vigil at the window, told Belle that Miles was gone and Jack had “prowled into the house” (her words), Belle gave him some time.
Now Belle stood outside Jack’s study door and sought courage.
He loved her. He told her. He moved her into his home. He moved her into his room. He shared his dogs with her. And after she lost their baby, he didn’t leave her side.
And she loved him.
She could do this.
She closed her eyes, opened them, lifted a hand and knocked on the door.
She got no answer and still got no answer after a repeated knock.
She stared at the closed door wondering what to do next.
And as she stared, it came to her.
Jack was beyond that door.
And he was hers.
For three and a half weeks after she lost their child, he didn’t leave her side (well, most of the time, he did have to work).
Now he needed her at his.
Therefore she put her hand to the knob, turned it, opened the door and stuck her head through.
Jack was standing in the bay window looking out.
“Jack?” she called quietly and his torso twisted, his eyes coming to her.
“Belle, anyone else, they knock, I don’t answer, they go away. You do not have to knock.”
Belle wet her lips, buried a smile and walked in, closing the door behind her.
Yes, he was hers.
This unbelievably, criminally attractive man was… all… hers.
Jack watched her do this and when the door was closed he ordered her to do what she was going to do anyway.
“Come here.”
She went there and when she arrived he turned fully to her, his hands coming to her waist then sliding around to hold her loosely. She lifted hers and rested them lightly on his chest, tipping her head back to look into his troubled, green eyes.
“Are you okay?” she asked softly even though she saw he was not.
“No,” he answered harshly, giving her the answer she expected.
She moved an inch closer and his arms around her tightened.
“Are you going to be okay?” she asked.
“Are you okay?” Jack asked back and she nodded. Then he sighed before muttering, “Then I’ll be okay.”
That was such a Jack answer. So much so it made her heart and her belly warm.
So Belle moved closer and his arms got tighter, drawing her against him and her hands pressed into his chest.
“I’m sorry you had to endure another scene with Miles,” she said gently.
“And I’m sorry he got to you which should not have happened,” Jack returned again being very Jack, thinking of her and not himself.
“I promise, I’m okay. He just made me angry, that’s all,” she assured him. “And, um, now, what he’s done is making me worry about you.”
Jack took in her words and sighed again before saying, “Don’t worry about me, poppet. You know this isn’t the first time. I’m used to it.”
That didn’t make her feel much better.
“That was… it was… it seemed different.” She hesitated then asked, “What exactly was that?”
Jack lifted a hand to cup her jaw, his thumb moving out to stroke her cheek and his voice was not harsh in the slightest when he replied, “You know, my love, that Yasmin and I were once together. What you don’t know was, during a fight when Yasmin had broken it off with me in a way she did not intend to be permanent, Miles sought her out, got her drunk and had sex with her.”
Belle gasped.
Jack nodded.
“I’m sorry to be blunt, poppet,” he muttered. “But that’s what happened. Yasmin admitted this to me and, not surprisingly, we were then done in a way that was very much permanent.”
She could not believe this and yet she could. Miles had a knack for being a very big jerk and Yasmin had a knack for messing up her life.
Still, she hated it that Jack seemed always caught in the middle.
So Belle pressed even closer and she did the only thing she could think to do.
She whispered
a heartfelt, “I’m sorry.”
“I was then too,” he replied and his thumb stroked her cheek again before his hand slid down to curl around the side of her neck. “Now, I’m not.”
Belle gave him a small smile and his eyes warmed when he saw it.
Then they grew intense and he continued, “I don’t know what he said to you but I can well imagine. And I want you to know that not only are Yasmin and I done, we have been for a long time. Our relationship has changed to something we both enjoy that would never shift again. And, my love, that wouldn’t have happened even before you. And although we have that history and it isn’t pleasant, now, with you in my life, it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“I’m sorry to say you imagined well, honey, but I didn’t believe him. Not even for a second. Not only because you’re you but also because Yasmin’s Yasmin,” Belle assured him. “I knew all that before you told me.”
“Good,” he murmured and Belle gave him a squeeze. “What I did not know,” Jack went on, his eyes losing focus and for the first time they drifted to her ear, “until today, was that he had feelings for her for some time prior to that.”
Yes, she got that was a surprise not just to Jack but to Yasmin as well.
“And the third woman?” Belle asked, Jack’s gaze came back to her and regained focus.
“I have no clue.”
“He didn’t share?”
“By the time we finished things, my brother was in no mood to share.”
Belle definitely caught that.
“So are things… finished?” she enquired carefully.
“Absolutely,” he stated firmly.
“Oh Jack,” she whispered, pushing her hands down so she could slide them around and hold him tightly too. “I don’t have brothers or sisters so I don’t know how this feels but it can’t feel good.”
“No, poppet,” he muttered, “it doesn’t feel good.”
“I don’t know what to do to help,” she admitted and felt his arms give her a reflexive squeeze as his lips twitched.
“You’re doing it.”
Her head tilted to the side. “Just this?”
“Just this, Belle,” he replied gently.
“This is easy,” she told him. “I could do this for hours.”
To that, his lips curled up but his head came down and he touched his mouth to hers before he moved back half an inch and suggested, “That’s good then. So let’s do this for hours.”