“You’re asking me nicely?” Miles queried spitefully.
Jack’s voice dipped low with warning when he returned, “If you’d prefer, I’ll make my wishes clear not nicely. However, as I mentioned, I need to speak to Belle and, to make my wishes clear to you, I’d have to ask her to leave.”
Without delay, Miles started to roll up the sleeves of his shirt, his eyes glued to Jack, and he challenged, “Then ask her to leave, Jack. I’d vastly prefer you make your wishes clear not nicely.”
For the first time since Miles arrived, Belle spoke, she did it softly and with a good deal of disgust obvious in her tone, “I don’t believe this is happening.”
Jack looked down to see she was staring at Miles with unhappy astonishment.
Then before Jack could speak, she said to Miles, “You need to grow up.”
“Run along, Belle. Jack and I have things to discuss,” Miles returned, his eyes not leaving Jack.
“I won’t run along while you two beat each other to a pulp. What’s the matter with you?” Belle snapped and Miles’s eyes cut to her.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he drawled sarcastically. “Maybe it’s the fact that my brother, who owns my f**king house and the stables where my f**king horse is housed, is standing with his arm around the woman I used to f**king date. A woman who had his f**king tongue in her f**king mouth not five minutes ago. And who’s also carrying his bastard f**king child, because, within hours of meeting her, she was so gagging for him she opened her f**king legs, that brother is telling me to get the f**k out. Don’t you think that might make you a bit peeved, gorgeous?”
Jack heard Belle gasp but it didn’t register.
He’d heard enough and it had all poured forth from his brother’s mouth.
He was done.
He pushed Belle behind him, his eyes locked on Miles and he muttered, “Go to the house, Belle.”
He felt her hands wrap around his forearm in a firm grip.
“Don’t let him –”
But Jack turned, his eyes pinned her to the spot and he repeated, “Poppet, go to the house. I’ll be there shortly.”
She stared at him a moment, her gaze soft and pleading, and she whispered, “Don’t do this, Jack.”
He felt Belle’s use of his nickname slice straight through his gut.
For some irrational reason he didn’t have the time to process, he realised the feeling was fierce and intensely satisfying.
He still didn’t change his mind.
Instead his hand went to her jaw and his thumb slid along her cheekbone.
“Go to the house, love.”
Her eyes moved to Miles then back to Jack.
Then she nodded, turned on her heel and ran out of the stables.
She stopped at the door and cooed at his dogs, patting her thigh. They ran to her and out the door she closed behind them.
Jack faced his brother.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” Miles sneered, slowly advancing.
Jack very much doubted it.
And, in the end, Jack was right.
Chapter Nine
Multiple Personalities
Belle
Belle woke on her side in her big, soft bed at The Point feeling for the first time in her week of living there, strangely pleasant, cosy and safe.
Then it registered there was warmth at her back and a heavy weight on her waist.
She opened her eyes and looked down to see a man’s hand (not any man’s hand, she’d know that strong, long-fingered hand anywhere, it was James’s) dangling at her waist. She saw in the sunlight streaming through her windows that the knuckles were raw and torn, painful-looking scabs forming at the splits.
She no sooner processed this disturbing fact when she heard dog tags and two canine heads popped up on her side of the bed.
One darker (Baron), one blonder (Gretl).
She had not gone to sleep last night with the dogs in her room.
She had also not gone to sleep with James in her bed.
Indeed, she had only seen James once after she ran from the stables to tell Joy her two sons were fighting.
Yes, she told on two grown men, what else was she going to do?
Half an hour after she’d run from the stables, Belle, Rachel and Lila stood on the front steps and watched James load a far worse for the wear Miles into Joy’s Mercedes. Then James left Joy to drive Miles to the hospital, Rachel running down to the car to accompany her.
James had walked slowly up the steps, fury in his eyes, as Lila and Belle watched him in open-mouthed shock.
He hadn’t said a word but his glittering eyes sliced through them making them both take a large step away from the door
Then he’d locked himself in his study.
Several hours later, Joy and Rachel had come back.
Miles had not.
Joy had gone directly to her room.
Lila made Rachel and Belle leave her alone. A half an hour later, Lila herself went up, taking a tray of soup, sandwiches and a bottle of wine with her.
By the time Rachel and Belle went to bed, Lila nor Joy nor James had emerged.
Now, somehow, James was in bed with her.
Belle reached out an arm, curled her fingers around the edge of the mattress, preparing to catapult herself from the bed.
Before she could succeed in this endeavour, James’s arm, resting lightly at her waist, became an iron band, hauling her into his hard body.
Belle froze and felt his face burrowing into her hair.
“We have to talk,” he growled.
Holy heck, her mind breathed.
“What are you doing in my bed?” her mouth asked.
“Containment,” he answered.
“What?”
“Containment,” he repeated. “Given the chance, you’ll escape. I’m not going to let that happen.”
Holy heck, her mind breathed again.
Belle had dealt with a number of different James Bennetts in the last three weeks. The jerky one (at their first meeting, post-fling). The demanding one (at the doctor appointments). The broody one (the times he wasn’t being something else). The impatient one, which was a variation of the jerky one (at the stables). The sexy one (also at the stables). And the loving one (again, at the stables).
This, she could tell, was an all new James Bennett.
Therefore she thought it best to proceed with caution.
“Can I please get out of bed?” she enquired.
His body moved away and she thought that was an affirmative response.
She was wrong.
His hand pressed her so her back was to the bed and he loomed over her, up on an elbow, his other arm resting on her midriff.
“No,” he replied unnecessarily.