They both walked toward him but he didn’t move.
When they were forced to stop in front of him, he still didn’t move.
“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 f**ked 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.