Belle shook her head. “I didn’t have much of him but he’s a big personality. When I did have him, I had all of him and that was better than most kids have.”
She felt his heat and knew he’d drawn closer.
She tried to pretend that didn’t happen too.
“I hear Lila Cavendish is a bit of a character as well.”
She knew what he meant.
If her father was a big personality and Gram was a character, what happened to her?
She didn’t know why she said what she said next. Maybe it was the sea, the puppies, the several glasses of champagne she had at the party.
Or maybe it was just him.
But she said it.
“I used to wish I was like her,” Belle confided softly. “She and my Mom are cut from the same cloth. They light up a room.”
Forgetting her fear of heights, she walked to the edge and leaned her shoulder against the door, losing herself in the view and kept talking.
“Once when I was young, we visited my great-grandmother in a retirement home. It was the first time Gram and I visited her after Gram moved her in there. We walked in and it was dreary. Depressing.” Her voice dropped even lower. “You wouldn’t believe it.”
Belle shut her eyes against the memory, opened them and forged on.
“I remember Gram taking one look at all those old people in their bleak rec room and muttering, ‘This will not do.’ Then she dug in her purse and pulled out her bag of lemon drops. To this day, she always carries a bag of lemon drops.” This last came out in a barely there whisper.
She twisted her head to look at him and saw he was watching her, his arms crossed on his chest, his face so gentle and striking she had to look away so she’d have the courage to continue.
Belle pulled in a breath and watched a wave break against the jagged rocks of the shore before she went on.
“Anyway,” she said in a brighter voice, “she went around the whole room offering the old folks lemon drops, telling jokes, laughing and talking and livening up the room. That’s all it took. Gram and a bag of lemon drops.”
When he spoke, his voice was closer and her body jerked in surprise as she turned to see he was again at her side.
“There are many ways to light up a room.”
He would, she thought, know all about that. His magnetic beam probably entered a room ten minutes before he got to the door.
“Some women,” he continued, “light up a room just wearing an extraordinary dress.”
She looked away and nodded in agreement. “Like Yasmin.”
“Yes, like Yasmin. Though Yasmin’s dress tonight doesn’t come close to the one you’re wearing.”
Belle’s body jerked again and her head twisted around to look at him. It did this so quickly she thought she might have pulled something.
Before she could assess if she needed medical attention, he finished softly, “And she didn’t design hers.”
Something was happening.
She knew this because he was getting even closer.
Panic ensued, quickly chased by hysteria. She moved back but her shoulders were against the door and one side fell away to nothing so she froze in sheer terror.
His hands came to her waist and he moved directly into her space. So into it, her space evaporated and their space took its place.
“James –” she began in a warning protest, her voice trembling.