Lucky Stars (16 page)

“Next week,” he demanded and her eyes flew to his.

“Dr. Flanagan is very busy,” Belle told him.

“I’m sure I can convince her to find an appointment for us in her diary,” James returned.

With the way he said it, who he was and the mountains of money he had, Belle was sure too.

“Fine,” she gritted between her teeth and looked away.

“Belle,” he called and her eyes snapped back to him. “I want you moving to The Point.”

“You’ve made that clear,” Belle assured him.

“I want your verbal agreement, right now.”

She shook her head and pulled at her arm but he still didn’t let go so she gave up.

“Belle, we’re agreeing this now,” he demanded.

She looked at his ear. “Give me some time to think about it.”

“No.”

Her eyes moved back to his and she asked on a whisper, “Why?”

“You know why.”

“No,” she said with complete honesty. “I don’t.”

He regarded her a moment as if to assess her truthfulness then he moved closer even though he was already close.

Belle backed away but she had nowhere to retreat and came up against the door.

When she did, he put his hand not on already her to the door by her waist and got even closer.

“You want to know why?” he asked quietly and she nodded, at his proximity unable to speak. Feeling the heat from his body, feeling overwhelmed by his large frame in a way she’d not felt when she was with him before and he continued, “All right, I’ll tell you why.”

The way he said that made her think she didn’t actually want to know why.

She didn’t get a chance to stop him.

“Because, three months ago, you walked away from me without looking back.
Now you’re carrying my child and therefore, out of necessity as we’re sharing parentage of that child, I’m not giving you the opportunity to do it again. Because you found out you were pregnant and you didn’t intend to tell me. Because you’re obviously having a difficult pregnancy and I intend to make certain it goes as smoothly as possible and ends successfully.”

There was a lot there, most of it Belle had no intention of addressing.

So she addressed the only thing she could.

“I’m not having a difficult pregnancy. I’m told what I’m experiencing is entirely natural,” she told him.

“I’d like to be assured of that by a qualified doctor,” he replied.

“My mother went through the same thing with me,” Belle pushed.

“That may be but I still want an expert opinion.”

Belle looked away, not willing to fight it. Especially when he was that close and muttered again, “Fine.”

“You’ll move in?” he asked and her eyes darted back to his.

“That’s not what I meant,” she answered.

“That’s what we’re talking about.”

She swallowed then took in a deep breath, looked at his nose and admitted, “I don’t want to live here. I don’t feel safe here. I feel safe at home. I want to stay there. I promise to keep you informed and involved however you like that to be.”

“If you don’t feel safe here then I’ll move in with you at your home.”

At these words, Belle’s body locked and her gaze jerked from his nose to his eyes.

“You can’t move in with me,” she breathed.

“Why not?” he enquired.

“Because I own a two bedroom cottage.
With Mom and Gram there, I have a full house. Mom’s already sleeping on the couch. There’s nowhere for you to sleep.”

“I’ll sleep with you.”

Belle felt her lips part and her eyes went wide as shock reverberated through her system.

“You
are
mad,” she said on a barely there whisper.

“I’ll do what I have to do to be close to this child,” he replied on a not at all barely there decree.

“I’ll move to The Point,” she blurted, then thought better of it immediately and was about to take it back but he saw his advantage and he was a heck of a lot quicker.

He pushed in closer, so close her head had to tilt back but she was against the door. She felt the wood against her head and had to move toward him to give it room to move so she could look up at him. She felt his chest brushing her breasts and even his hips brushing her belly.

Her mind blanked of everything but his nearness which suffused her senses.

“So, we’re agreed, you’re moving in,” he declared, his voice low and
rumbly
.

She blinked, trying to catch a thought and stall for time so she murmured, “James –”

“We’re agreed,” he pressed ruthlessly, dipping his head further so his face was an inch away and all she could see were his beautiful eyes.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“You won’t renege?” he demanded.

“No.”

“Make that a promise, Belle,” he ordered and she blinked again.

“What?”

“Promise me, right here, you’ll move in and you won’t renege.”

Belatedly she realised her heart was hammering in her chest and she was finding it difficult to breathe.

Something about this cleared her mind and she was able to focus.

Therefore, with some effort, she plucked up the courage to negotiate.

“I’ll promise you I’ll move in if you promise never to fight for custody. We’ll determine arrangements that will be best for the baby, just you and I, without dragging him or her through that kind of mess.”

“Agreed,” he said instantly.

At this, she relaxed which was a mistake because it pressed her body closer to the heat and hardness of his.

She tensed again and looked at his ear. “Move back.”

She felt him hesitate then he did as he was asked.

The moment he did, Belle turned to the door and put her hand on the knob but she stopped and was forced to look at him again when he spoke.

“I need to ask something more.”

Belle didn’t speak. She just kept looking at him.

He continued, “Mum is excited about this. She wants to be involved and she –”

Belle cut him off, “I’m happy for Joy to be as involved as she wants. She’s a lovely woman and she’s the baby’s Grandma.”

The air in the room changed. It turned unpleasant and Belle saw his face had again grown hard.

“You seem to have forgotten that when you decided to keep this from me,” he told her, his voice as hard as his face.

Something inside her, a bit of her grandmother coming out for once, made her lift her chin, look him in the eye and defend herself.

Mainly because, she thought, she had every bloody right to do what she did.

“You’re absolutely correct,” she agreed. “I did. I completely forgot about Joy and the fact that she’s a lovely woman. My only thought was to stay well away from you and your brother.” She watched his jaw tense. It frightened her a little bit but she sallied forth anyway because this was her child she was talking about and when you had a child, you had no choice but to develop a backbone. “And James, as the years pass, if I get even a suspicion our child is learning to behave in the ways demonstrated during my encounters with you and Miles then we have a problem.”

She didn’t give him the chance to retort. She turned the knob and got the heck out of there, nearly running back to the sitting room.

James didn’t follow.

In fact, he didn’t join them for tea.

In fact, she didn’t see him again until Joy was walking them out to the car, chattering happily with Mom and Gram (there was, Belle was both pleased and
weirded
out to note, serious bonding going on between her family and James’s).

They were all giving hugs good-bye when, out of nowhere, James appeared at her side.

He handed her his business card.

“I’ll expect a call about the doctor’s appointment next week,” he stated.

Belle took the card, looked at his ear and nodded.

“If you have trouble with the appointment, you tell me and I’ll arrange it,” he continued.

Belle’s eyes didn’t leave his ear when she continued nodding.

“I’ll expect news about your planned arrival at The Point next week as well,” he went on.

Belle licked her lips then nodded again.

She saw his head jerk toward Mom and Gram then without another word he strode away.

The Cavendish/Abbot family were silent in the car for several very long minutes as they drove from
Chy
An
Als
Point.

Finally, Gram (as usual) broke the silence by grandly declaring, “I do
not
like that man.”

This was not a surprise.

The surprise was Mom’s verbally stated opinion. An opinion that made Belle’s head twist toward her mother, her mouth open, her mind thinking that maybe Mom had finally jumped straight into the deep end.

“I do, I like him a lot.”

“
What?
” Gram shouted.

“You do?” Belle breathed.

“He may be a jerk in a lot of ways –” Mom began.

“
May
be?” Gram demanded.

“Yes, he
may
be,” Mom returned. “We don’t know him all that well and these are emotional times.”

“Um, were you
not
present when I explained what happened with James and his brother?” Belle asked incredulously.

“And were you temporarily blind when your daughter poured out her story through fits of tears?” Gram snapped.

 
“And do you
not
hear the reporters’ rude questions shouted at me practically every day?” Belle didn’t let up.

“I hear them,
Bellerina
. Still, I can’t help but like him,” Mom replied softly.

“She thinks he’s sexy,” Gram said on an annoyed sigh. “Her brain always gets addled around sexy men.”

This, unfortunately, was true.

“Well, he
is
sexy,” Mom admitted.

This, unfortunately, was true too.

“But that’s not it,” Mom continued.

“What is it, then?” Gram demanded to know.

“I don’t know. I have a theory,” Mom replied and Belle rolled her eyes and turned away.

Her mother had a lot of theories and they were usually daft at best, preposterous at worst and they were mostly at worst.

“Would you like to share your theory?” Gram asked
,
sounding like she’d rather not hear it but curiosity was getting the better of her.

For her part, Belle didn’t want to know.

She didn’t want to think of James at all.

Pretty soon, she’d be living in his house and therefore likely having to think about him all the time.

Then she’d have their baby and she’d have to see him far more than she wanted to.

For the rest of her life.

Therefore, she would have preferred a brief respite from James Bennett.

And she
always
preferred a respite from her mother’s theories.

“I don’t want to share it, not yet. It isn’t fully formed,” Mom said and Belle sighed in relief.

Finally, something went her way.

“I still can’t help but like him,” Mom muttered stubbornly.

Well, not
entirely
her way.

“Can we stop talking about this?” Belle asked.

“Of course,
Bellerina
,” Gram stated inflexibly, her meaning clear to everyone in the car most, especially Mom.

Mom drove and they were all silent.

Then Mom’s hand came out and squeezed Belle’s knee.
 

“Everything’s going to be fine,
Bellerina
.
I feel it in my bones,” she whispered.

Hearing these words from her mother on many occasions in her life, Belle knew that Rachel Abbot felt a lot in her bones. Her bones were very busy sensing intuitive communications other mere mortals could not interpret.

However, unlike much of what Rachel Abbot did and said, when her bones spoke, they were rarely wrong.

Belle didn’t know what to make of that.

But since it was her Mom’s bones speaking, for the first time in a long time, Belle felt a very tiny, nearly imperceptible but still there, smidgeon of hope.

Chapter Seven

Shredded

Olive

Olive Mayfair closed her office door on the private investigator and turned back to her cluttered desk.

It was after eight o’clock in the evening and even though she had two days before the deadline Jack gave her on the Abbot report, she wanted to get it done so she could get what she’d learned out of her mind and move on.