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.
Then 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.