“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 f**k! 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.