With one look at her Jack knew either the world was coming to an end or there was a toilet backed up in the branch of his bank located in Iowa City, Iowa.
He looked back at the conference table at which he was sitting at the head.
The ten people in the room with him were all watching Olive.
“Excuse me,” Jack muttered, put his hands to the arms of his chair and pushed up. He grabbed his Mont Blanc pen, a present his father gave him when he graduated from Oxford, and his wildly expensive phone which could, if he’d take the time to programme it, likely call Mars, a present from Yasmin.
He pushed through the door, Olive lunged forward immediately, grabbed his arm and dragged him away from the windows.
She tugged him to a stop, looked up at him and, with a grave expression on her face, declared, “We have a problem.”
“You don’t say,” Jack muttered dryly.
“This is Code One!” she announced on a whispered screech.
Jack crossed his arms on his chest and regarded her silently.
“Lila Cavendish and her daughter, Rachel Abbot, are here,” she told him.
Jack felt her words like a sharp, strong jab direct to the gut.
“Excuse me?” Jack asked, hoping he hadn’t heard what he thought he’d heard.
“Lila Cavendish and Rachel Abbot, grandmother and mother to Belle Abbot, are here. In your office. Right now.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed as his temper flared.
Why Belle’s mother and grandmother would be in his offices in London, he could not fathom.
He also didn’t care.
“Get rid of them,” he demanded and Olive threw her hands out at the sides.
“I knew you’d say that and I tried. They won’t go.”
This surprised him. “They won’t go?”
“No. I didn’t even let them into your office. They marched right in. Lila even made herself a cappuccino with your espresso maker.” She paused. “And your milk! Straight from your fridge!” she said this last like it was a crime punishable by death.
“Why are they here?” Jack asked.
“I don’t know. They won’t tell me. They’re demanding to speak to you,” Olive replied.
“Tell them I’m in a meeting and they’ll need to make an appointment,” Jack said.
“I did that already. They don’t care. They said they’d wait ‘until the cows come home’, whatever that means. We don’t have cows in London,” Olive noted unnecessarily.
Jack made a decision and turned toward his office. “I’ll take care of them. Go back to the meeting. Tell them I’ll be five minutes.”
He watched Olive nod and walked to his office trying, not entirely successfully, to control his anger.
The debacle with Belle at The Point had made the papers. How, Jack didn’t know. But considering the number of people who saw Miles prominently displaying Belle on his arm at the party then the next morning all the shouting and finally they watched Belle fleeing the castle, it could be anyone.
Including Miles, a manoeuvre which, if his brother arranged it, backfired.
For an entire month, the media was in fits of glee. They picked every possibility of the Bennett Brothers’ love triangle with an adopted national treasure apart and, Jack had to admit, they did a splendid job of it.
The Bennett Brothers rivalry wasn’t a secret and many people who only remotely knew Jack or Miles were more than happy to discuss it.