Lucky Stars (59 page)

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.”

Belle gave him another small smile but she shared, “I’m afraid we can’t do that.”

His head moved back another inch. “And why’s that?”

“Well, first, Dad’s done with dinner. You’ll be pleased to know there was no open flame and he didn’t have time to make homemade barbeque sauce. They also didn’t have peppers that will burn out your throat so chilli was out. In the end he made meatloaf which doesn’t sound all that great but his is really delicious. And he also made apple pie which is definitely delicious.”

“Right,” Jack said. “That’s first, what’s next?”

Belle pressed even closer. “Well, yesterday, I told you all about my life. Tonight, you need to get started telling me all of yours.
After dinner, of course.”

Jack’s arms gave her a squeeze and he reminded her, “I’ve lived longer than you, poppet. Yours took an entire day. I’ll need more than an evening.”

“It can be continued and you can tell me more tomorrow.”

He grinned.

“And the next day,” she went on.

His grin got bigger.

Belle pressed closer and got up on her toes.
“And the next.”

“That’s a plan,” Jack whispered.

“Good,” Belle whispered back.

“Dude!
Baby girl! What the fuck! You want it to get cold?” Belle’s Dad could be heard shouting. “Haul ass into the dining room. You got two minutes or we’re starting without you.”

To this, Jack asked bizarrely, “Is it Sunday yet?”

Belle’s head tilted again and she told him what he had to know.
“No, why?”

“Because Saturday night we’re leaving all these mad people to their madness, we’re taking the dogs, we’re going to your cottage and we’re not coming back until Monday.”

“Now
that
,” Belle breathed, “sounds like a plan.”

“Count on it,” Jack muttered, his eyes dropping to her mouth, his head descending toward hers.

She felt a trill race up to her scalp but still, she whispered, “Jack, honey, the food will get cold.”

“Let it,” Jack murmured against her mouth then he took it in a sweet, deep, long, wet, delicious kiss.

They didn’t get to the dinner table in two minutes. It was more like five.

But they walked in hand in hand and they did it after Belle had managed to make Jack feel better.

She sat down to dinner at Jack’s side feeling like she’d just moved a mountain and she was proud of it.

And, even a little late, the food still tasted great.