“Okay,” Belle whispered as she put the chain around her neck and the amulet came to rest just below her br**sts. She looked up from what appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be a pretty, filigreed glass charm and smiled at Cassandra. “Thank you.”
Cassandra’s hand came up, gave Belle’s upper arm a squeeze and she started, “You’re –”
But she didn’t finish because at that moment they heard a loud crash coming from the study.
Belle’s heart dropped to her feet then those feet, frozen for a split second, ran toward the study.
Cassandra was at her heels.
When Belle hit the room, Jack was facing down Olive who looked pale.
Jack, on the other hand, looked furious.
No, Belle thought, shrinking back so much she bumped into Cassandra, he looked murderous.
And he was talking.
Or, more to the point, thundering.
“… fucking report!”
“I put it on your desk weeks ago,” Olive replied.
Jack lifted a newspaper and threw it on his desk with such force it slid across, taking everything with it in its path.
“With that?” Jack roared.
“With that, yes, Jack,” Olive sounded shocked and upset and maybe a little scared.
Belle was more than a little scared at Jack’s fury, the intensity of which she would have never imagined he was capable.
And this made Belle want to run.
Unfortunately Cassandra was the strong sort of woman and she probably never ran from anything.
Therefore she called attention to their presence in the room by asking, “What’s up?”
Jack turned to them, his eyes zeroed in on Belle and they narrowed ominously.
Thoughts of running a fleeting memory, Belle froze in terror under his heated stare.
“You were married?” he asked. He was no longer roaring, his voice was low, menacing, showing his fury in a vastly more terrifying way.
His question made every cell in Belle’s body petrify.
“What’s going on?” Joy entered the room.
Jack ignored his mother and demanded, “Belle, I asked you a question.”
With great effort, she cleared her throat but even doing so, her voice was breathy when she replied, “Yes.”
She barely finished the sibilant ending of her word when Jack clipped, his tone no less infuriated, “He beat you.”
Joy gasped and Cassandra made a strangled noise.
He’d found out.
Oh God, he’d found out!