All an Act
Jack
JACK STRODE SWIFTLY UP THE path to the stables where Rachel had told him Belle was with her grandmother.
It was fair to say Jack was not very happy.
Indeed, one could even say he was incensed.
Three weeks ago Belle had, as she’d agreed, arranged for Jack to attend an appointment with her at her obstetrician.
This was not what made him angry.
Her obstetrician was quite qualified (Jack had checked) and seemed confident, knowledgeable and self-assured.
She had also told Jack that Belle’s continuing morning sickness, weight loss, pallor and head pain were all quite natural.
Jack didn’t believe her.
Two weeks ago, Belle had traveled all the way up to London with his mother in order that she could accompany him to a second opinion appointment with an eminent obstetrician in Harley Street.
During the second opinion with the eminent Harley Street obstetrician, Jack was told the precise same thing.
Jack didn’t like it but he believed him.
This, as well, was not what made him angry.
One week ago, Belle, her mother and her grandmother had, as promised, moved into his home.
Upon her arrival, he was pleased both to note and be told by Rachel that Belle was feeling much better. The head pain was gone as was the morning sickness.
Jack saw with his own eyes that the color had come back to her face. She’d even seemed to gain weight and was beginning to form a small baby bump.
However, since she’d moved in, even though she was living under the same roof as him, Jack had barely seen her. Furthermore, the two weeks prior, he’d found it difficult to contact her.
Although he owned and ran two large conglomerates that necessitated him having a personal assistant, a personal secretary and a four-person administrative pool at his command, Belle was busier than he.
If she was not at her shop in St. Ives, she was in the workshop above her shop in St. Ives.
If she was not in her shop or workshop, she was off having coffee or shopping with her mother, grandmother or his mother or a combination of the three or, indeed, the whole lot of them.
If she was not in her shop or workshop or with any of the women, she was out on a walk and over the past week, she took Baron and Gretl.
Belle, Jack noted, walked a good deal.
If she was not in her shop, workshop, with the women or walking with his dogs, he could often see her from countless windows in the house sitting on one of the rocks by the sea surrounding The Point. She did not read. She did not write. She did not sew. She just sat, staring out to sea like not only could it speak to her but it was explaining the meaning of life and she was serenely accepting this knowledge as if it was her due.
If she was not in any of those places, she was asleep.
Belle, Jack noted as well in the last three weeks, slept a good deal.
So much so, yesterday, he’d phoned Dr. Flanagan with no small concern and asked why on earth that was happening.
He was assured this was entirely natural.
Then he’d called the eminent obstetrician in Harley Street who also assured Jack this was entirely natural.
Pregnant women, apparently, slept.
Quite a bit.
Therefore, Jack’s goal of spending time with her while his child was developing in her womb was not coming to fruition.
This made Jack angry.
For he knew, without doubt, regardless of how much pregnant women slept, she was avoiding him on purpose.
That made Jack incensed.
And he would not allow it.
Not for another day.
Therefore, he and his dogs were walking to the stables to confront Belle.
Both of his dogs, incidentally, had defected to Belle without the least indication of the years of loyalty they’d offered Jack.
Jack had even caught Baron being shooed out of Belle’s room last night.
He’d been walking to his own room and seen her door open. She’d actually had to scoot the dog out with her hands on his rump, so resistant was Baron to her efforts to remove him from her room.
She’d caught sight of Jack, her cheeks went pink, she’d given him a barely there wave, called goodnight and closed her door before he’d had a chance to open his mouth.
Baron, for his part, had the grace to look ashamed.
If Jack had been in any other mood he might find this amusing.
In his current mood, he did not.
He opened the door to the stables not caring that Lila was with Belle.
Although Rachel seemed to be friendly and gracious (albeit a bit strange) both to Jack’s mother and to Jack, Lila was not.
Lila obviously liked his mum.
Lila just as obviously detested Jack.
And she made this abundantly clear any chance she got, which, as she was living with him, was rather a lot.
Jack had over one hundred thousand employees and day to day (even hour to hour), he made decisions for the betterment of the business that angered many of them. Some of them he angered enough that they wrote Jack very scathing letters or sent equally scathing e-mails. Usually this was right before they resigned, if not, it was before they were sacked.
However, he didn’t have to live with any of them.
At that moment, he would happily take on Lila Cavendish. He didn’t care if she was going to be great-grandmother to his child.
He didn’t have to wait for this opportunity, though it would not come to fruition.
As he entered the stables, Lila was climbing down the ladder to the loft wearing jeans and a chambray shirt, both of them old, worn and covered in paint.
A quick glance around showed Belle was nowhere to be found.
“She’s in the loft,” Lila said quietly and Jack’s eyes went to her and then to the seemingly empty loft.
Lila’s announcement that Belle was in the loft surprised him. When he’d taken her up there, she’d acted frightened as a rabbit.
“She’s sleeping,” Lila went on and Jack’s gaze went back to her. “I’m glad you’re here,” she further surprised Jack by announcing. “I have to go to the house to call New York. I didn’t want to leave her up there because when she wakes she’ll go nuts and won’t be able to get down without me with her. It was an actual miracle I got her to go up there in the first place. But I have to make this call. Now, you can hang out and help her down if she wakes before I return.” She gave Jack a look that he couldn’t read and finished, “I’ll probably be a while.”
With that and without another word or inviting Jack to say one, she walked by Jack and his dogs and left the stables, quietly closing the door behind her.
Jack looked back to the loft.
Then he went to the ladder and climbed up.
Once there he saw Belle was sleeping on her side on a pile of old blankets. She had one hand under her cheek, the other arm curved around her face, palm up and resting by her forehead. Her legs were curled into her stomach and her face was soft in sleep. Some of her hair was spread on the blankets but mostly it was bunched against her neck and falling in her face.
He had, he realized, never seen her sleep.
She looked about twelve years old.
With some ease, he quelled the desire to bend and pull her hair away from her face and neck.
The desire to settle in behind her and draw her sleeping body into his took much more effort to subdue.
Nevertheless, he did it.
To take his mind off Belle, he looked to the sliding doors.
They’d been opened, an easel set in front of them, a large working canvas on the easel, a small wooden table next to it covered in a mess of tubes and brushes.
Lila was painting the view he’d shown Belle.
Likely Belle had shown Lila the view to paint.
This made Jack contradictorily pleased and annoyed.
He decided to go with annoyed.
He walked to the canvas and studied it, unable to suppress his fascination at seeing a Cavendish landscape in its early phases.
Lila had a tremendous following, many museum pieces, her work was coveted by galleries worldwide and she’d been written about in a variety of art books. She’d been deemed a living, contemporary master.
Many would pay for the opportunity he had at that very moment to see her art in process and it was not lost on Jack that this was one of those rare gifts life let fall in your lap.
“James?” He heard Belle’s honeyed, drowsy voice call his name and he had to stifle unwelcome desire at the sound of her drowsy voice just as he clenched his teeth in order not to correct her.
He despised it when she called him James. It was his name and there were people who called him that therefore he knew it was an irrational reaction.
He also could care less.
His eyes went to her and she was up on an arm, pulling her hair away from her face at the same time she was watching him, her face flushed with sleep.
She was wearing a red camisole top and a dark brown skirt that hit her knees and had cream and red patterns in it. The camisole and skirt showed a goodly amount of skin, now tanned from her many excursions with his dogs and her quiet, seaside reveries in the sun.
She had, quite clearly, entered the phase of pregnancy where she’d taken on what many referred to as “the glow.”
For Belle, since her natural glow was considerable, the additional element was spectacular.
“Where’s Gram?” she asked, pushing up to her feet which were bare, a pair of muted bronze flip-flops were lying by the blankets.
Her toes, Jack noted, were also painted a very bright red.
He took his eyes from her toes and looked into hers.
“She went to the house. She had a call to make,” Jack informed her.
“Oh crap!” Belle cried, looking at the ladder, her anxiety immediately evident. “It’s already time for that call? I must have been asleep ages. I can’t believe it’s that late and I can’t believe I fell asleep again.”
Jack watched her face work through her fear, his mind focused on the fact that he had words to say to her. They were words he’d rather not say in the hayloft where he’d become absurdly enchanted with her four months ago.
The stable floor, he could do.
He’d prefer the house.
But not the loft.
“I’ll help you down,” he offered as she continued to stare at the ladder at the same time she pushed her feet into her shoes, but when he made his offer, her eyes shot to him.
“I’m okay, actually,” she said, throwing out an arm in a false casual gesture, an effort to hide her discomfort. “I’ll just hang out and wait for Gram.”
“She gave the impression she might be a while,” Jack replied and he watched her wet her lips nervously but then she nodded.
“That’s okay too,” she lied. “I’ll just, um—”
Jack cut her off, “Belle, I’ll help you down.”
“No, really. I’m all right up here until she gets back.”
The last time she climbed down the ladder, she did it unaided.
She was also ordered by Jack to do so and she’d done it as they’d both been in the grip of a consuming passion that, looking back, seemed ludicrous.
Even so, it wasn’t and Jack knew it.
However Jack had no intention of recreating that event in order to assist her now.
“Lila asked me to look after you. I’ll help you down,” Jack pushed and her eyes went to his shoulder, something else he once found endearing and now he loathed. He decided not to call her on it and went on, “We’ll go down like the time we came up together. I’ll go first and you come down right after me.”
As he spoke, he watched her tanned face grow pale at the memory he too wished he didn’t have to share.
“No,” she whispered. “Really, I’m all right to wait for Gram.”
Jack was losing patience. He had things to do, the priority being his child and getting things straight with Belle. Then he had other pressing items on his day’s agenda.
He didn’t have time for her phobias.
“Belle, it’s a one-story ladder,” he stated wearily. “If I go down first and you fall, I’ll be in the position to catch you.”
“I know that,” she lied, still looking at his shoulder.
He walked to the ladder and swung his arm toward it. “Then let’s go.”
She shook her head and took a step back.
“Belle,” Jack said in warning.
“Why can’t you just leave me up here?” she asked, her eyes moving to his ear.
“Because we have to talk and we can’t do it up here.”
“I’m okay to talk up here,” Belle replied instantly, latching on to an excuse to remain in the loft.
“I’m not,” Jack returned.
She tilted her head and asked, “Why?”
He’d seen her tilt her head before.
Twice.
Both times it had been lying on his pillow.
He controlled his need to clench his teeth at the memory and instead replied, “I don’t have time to explain. I have things to do and I’d like to have our chat and then do them.”
“Okay, what do you want to talk about?” she invited.
“Not here.”
“I don’t under—”
Jack’s patience, already wearing thin, snapped and he strode across the loft to her. She had only the chance to back up two steps before he bent at the waist and put a shoulder to her hips.
She let out a small cry but he ignored it, lifted her on his shoulder and walked back across the loft as he felt her arms wrap tightly around his waist from the back.
“What are you—?” she started to ask but her words halted as her body stilled when he turned and executed a one-armed descent of the ladder, Belle over his shoulder, his other arm wrapped firmly around her thighs.
By the time his feet hit the stable floor, her arms were so tight around him they were causing pain, her body was stiff as a board and she was completely silent except for very heavy breathing.
He walked from the ladder, bent again and set her on her feet.
When he straightened, stepped away from her and took one look at her face, it was his turn to go still.
Her fear was so stark, she actually looked in pain. So much in pain, she completely ignored Baron and Gretl who were both clamoring around her legs for attention.
Then her expression changed, the pain didn’t go away, in fact, it got worse.
Far worse.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” she whispered, sounding like she’d just witnessed him hacking away at a body with an ax.
“I climbed down a ladder, Belle, you were safe the entire time,” he told her.
She looked away, seemingly trying to compose herself.
And failing.
She pulled her hair from her face with a shaky hand and muttered, “I thought . . . I’d hoped . . .” She dropped her hand, her eyes came directly to his with no evasion and she declared, “It’s true.”
He ignored the unease he felt at her reaction and stated, “Belle, I don’t have time for this. Say what’s on your mind so I can explain why I need to speak with you and then get on with my day.”
She stared at him a moment as if she’d never seen him before then he watched her squeeze her eyes shut and turn her face away.
She took in a deep breath and her gaze came back to his face. This time, she focused on his nose.
“Of course, James. You’re very busy,” she said softly. “What did you need to speak with me about?”
He ignored her question and asked his own, “You said, ‘It’s true.’ What’s true?”
“Nothing,” she muttered. “What did you want to talk about?”
Without a reserve of patience to draw on, Jack quickly lost his again.
This made his tone sharp when he demanded, “Belle, just answer the fucking question.”
He watched her body jerk and after a moment’s hesitation, her chin lifted, her eyes caught his and she spoke.
“I never liked Miles,” she announced and Jack braced, instinctively knowing he would not like where this was going before she continued. “I’m sorry. I know he’s your brother but it’s true. I don’t know why I went out with him in the first place. Even after considering this question for four months, I still don’t have an answer. He showed no regard for me, or my wishes, ever.”
She stopped speaking and Jack waited.
Then she started speaking again.
“You did.”
This time, he felt his body jerk and watched as her arms moved to wrap around her midriff in a way that looked protective before she kept speaking.
“You seemed to know I was different, I had phobias, I was neurotic and you didn’t care. You acted like you liked it, like you thought it was cute.” She threw out a hand. “Or something.” She paused as she wrapped her arm back around her. “Now I know.”
Jack crossed his own arms on his chest, not really feeling like getting into this, talking about Miles or her time with Jack and definitely not how she felt about it.
Even so, he found himself asking, “Now you know what?”
When she spoke again, her voice was quiet and unbelievably sad. “Now I know that night was an act. It was all an act because the Jack I met that night would never have carried me down the ladder like that, knowing he’d frighten me the way you just did.”
She couldn’t have scored a better hit if she’d pulled a trigger at point blank range.
Before Jack could form a reply, she kept going, softly, her voice now devoid of emotion sounding like it came from an entirely different being, not Belle.
“Now, James, what did you need to speak to me about?”
“It wasn’t an act,” Jack stated, again ignoring her question.
Belle didn’t reply.
She just stared at him, right in the eyes as if she had no neuroses, no phobias, no anxiety, no self-consciousness and lastly, no fear of him.
At this, his unease grew.
“It wasn’t an act,” he repeated.
She sighed and requested quietly, “James, just tell me what you need to tell me.”
He covered the two steps distance between them in an instant.
She didn’t flinch or back away.
His unease shifted to something that felt a great deal like alarm. This alarm drove him to do something about her mistaken impression. Something which he found he couldn’t abide, not for another second.
She was carrying his child and she thought he was a heartless bastard.
Because of this, he found he was willing to do whatever he had to do to disabuse her of that mistaken impression once and for all.
Jack looked down at her as she tipped her head back to regard him and his course, already started, became clear.
“Would you like me to prove it to you?” he asked softly.
He saw anger cross her expression before she said, “The papers think I’m a moron, I know. But you shouldn’t make the same mistake because I’m not. I won’t fall for your game twice.”
“No, you won’t,” Jack agreed. “Mainly because you didn’t fall for anything the first time.”
“Honestly, James, I thought you were busy—” she began and may have intended to say more.
Jack would never know.
Because his hands shot out, closed at her waist and he yanked her body to his.
Then his head descended and his mouth crushed down on hers.
Her hips pulled at his hands but his arms wrapped around her and he held her tight against him.
She felt, he noted immediately, better than he remembered.
But he couldn’t taste her.
She wouldn’t open her mouth and she was pressing at his shoulders at the same time she was pushing her weight against his arms.
She tore her mouth from his and snapped, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Proving it wasn’t an act,” Jack replied calmly as she squirmed, her soft body moving against his and Jack remembered how good that felt too.
“By kissing me?” she screeched.
“Poppet,” Jack murmured and when he did, she stilled in his arms. “That wasn’t a kiss.” His hand slid up her spine, her neck and into her hair, holding her head steady. “This,” he muttered, “will be a kiss.”
Then his mouth captured hers again.
She resisted.
He coaxed.
She kept resisting and his arm at her waist slid up her back, his fingers curling around and the tips started to stroke the side of her breast. He felt her stiff body begin to melt at his touch, he knew he was making progress and his lips moved a breath away from hers.
“Open your mouth,” he demanded softly.
She shook her head and he wrapped his fist in her hair, pulling her head back gently.
“Open your mouth,” he repeated against her lips.
She again shook her head.
“Poppet—” he started.
But she interrupted by whispering, “Don’t call me—”
She didn’t finish, as she was speaking, he muttered, “There it is.”
And his parted lips took hers, his tongue sliding inside her mouth.
Jack tasted her and remembered just exactly how much he liked that as well.
Like the first time he kissed her, she responded the minute his tongue touched hers.
Her body melted into his, her hands glided up his arms, one arm wrapped around his neck, the fingers of her other hand slid into his hair.
He felt triumph shoot through him at her response and as a reward to himself, and Belle, he slanted his head and deepened the kiss.
She welcomed it, a soft, sexy noise coming from the back of her throat and filling his mouth.
At the sound of it, the feel of it, the taste of it, the memory of how much he liked the noises she made nearly four months before when he was driving deep inside her, he groaned into her mouth in return as his arm left her back.
His hand went under her camisole, slid across the silken skin at her waist and up.
His body gladly absorbed the shiver his hand caused just as one of her hands yanked his shirt free of his trousers and he felt her soft, sweet, shy touch trailing along his own skin.
His fist in her hair tightened as he felt his need for her quicken and he knew in a moment he’d carry her back up the ladder and take her on the blankets where she’d slept.
And he was looking forward to it.
He was actually aching to do it.
“That didn’t take long.”
Jack’s body froze and he felt Belle’s do the same when they both heard Miles’s voice.
“This is a record for Belle. It’s been a whole week since you two have been under the same roof,” Miles carried on as Jack lifted his head and looked into the somewhat dazed but also now frightened eyes of Belle.
She pulled at his hold but his arm grew tighter as he released her hair and contained her retreat by wrapping that arm around her as well.
Miles came to stand at their sides and Jack turned his head to his brother seeing Belle do the same.
“Unless, of course, she’s been sneaking to your room at night, Jack,” Miles noted with a sneer on his mouth, addressing Jack but his eyes were glued on Belle. “But Mum wouldn’t know about that, would she? She just got finished telling me it was all good, all platonic, everything was just swell. Even though she didn’t look like it was swell. She looked like she’d rather you two were going at it like rabbits.” His sneer deepened when he continued, “She’ll be so pleased.”
When Miles stopped speaking, his gaze moved to Jack, and Jack clipped, “Are you finished?”
“Want me to leave so you can fuck Belle in the hayloft?” Miles returned, his voice coated with derision.
“Actually, yes,” Jack replied and he felt Belle’s body jolt but he kept firm hold of her as he watched his hit score and Miles flinched.
Then Miles recovered. “Don’t mind me. I just came to ride.” His head jerked to a stall and he went on crudely, “A different kind of riding than you’re about to do, of course.”
Jack barely restrained an urge to shift Belle aside and do bodily harm to his brother.
Instead, he let Belle have some space but kept her in his arms and turned partially toward Miles who was moving toward the tack room.
“I believe I left a message with your assistant asking you to avoid The Point for the next six months,” Jack called to his brother.
“I got the message,” Miles replied carelessly.
Jack felt Belle tremble in his arms, he took away the space he’d just given her and pulled her deeper into his body.
When Miles spoke again, he sounded like a spoiled child, “However, it is my home and I’ll come whenever I want.”
“It’s my home, Miles,” Jack noted with quiet meaning, and he watched Miles’s torso twist so he could look at his brother.
“After Dad died, your name may have been transferred to the deed but it’s still my fucking home,” Miles fired back.
“After Dad died, my name was transferred to the deed, making it my home and I let you stay here when I please,” Jack returned and Miles moved to face him fully as Jack kept talking. “When I don’t, you stay away. And for the next six months, you’ll stay away.”
Miles stared at Jack in incredulity for a moment before he spat, “You must be joking.”
“No,” Jack replied immediately. “I’m quite serious.”
Miles’s eyes shifted to Belle and they narrowed as his face filled with scorn.
“So you’re saying you’re kicking out your own brother so your latest fuck won’t feel uncomfortable?” he asked, his voice snide.
“I wouldn’t put it that way, however, Belle and her family are here, this is their home now and I intend them to feel safe and comfortable. I can imagine by your behavior four months ago and just now that Belle isn’t feeling exactly safe at the moment. So yes, in essence, what you say is true.” Miles opened his mouth but Jack got there before him and when he spoke his voice was low and vibrating with fury. “And, I swear to God Miles, if you call Belle my ‘fuck’ again or utter one more vulgar statement alluding to her, I’ll rip your goddamned head off.”
Jack felt Belle’s stiff body go solid before it began to relax at his side but he didn’t take his eyes off his brother.
Miles glared at Jack, and Jack calmly held his glare.
Though Jack did not feel calm.
He was even more incensed than he’d been when he arrived at the stables.
He was no longer angry at Belle, but at his fucking brother and, more importantly, at what his fucking brother had interrupted.
When Miles didn’t move or speak, Jack did the latter. “You’re still standing in my stables.”
“My horse happens to be stabled here,” Miles returned.
“Call Olive. Tell her where you want Mystery stabled and I’ll have her transported,” Jack replied.
Miles’s eyes grew wide. “So now you’re kicking out my horse too?”
Jack turned fully to his brother but held Belle closely at his side with an arm tight around her waist.
“I’d like to take the time to explain things to you fully, Miles, so you’ll understand precisely how I feel about you right now and my intent that you and anything of yours you need is gone as soon as possible. But it’s more important I have the opportunity to speak with Belle. So I’m asking you nicely to go, call Olive, tell her what you need and where you want it to be. She’ll arrange everything,” Jack said to his brother.
“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.
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 fucking house and the stables where my fucking horse is housed, is standing with his arm around the woman I used to fucking date. A woman who had his fucking tongue in her fucking mouth not five minutes ago. And who’s also carrying his bastard fucking child, because, within hours of meeting her, she was so gagging for him she opened her fucking legs, that brother is telling me to get the fuck 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 realized 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.
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.