“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 f**king 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 went on.
“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 then 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.