Lucky Stars (Ghosts and Reincarnation #5)(23)

“I don’t think I want to know,” Joy replied and she sounded like she didn’t want to know. In fact, she sounded like she really didn’t want to know.

Even so, Yasmin told her and what she said made the floor lurch crazily under Belle’s bare feet.

“Miles told me Jack told him to back off from Belle,” Yasmin confided and Belle felt her eyes widen in surprise, wondering why Jack would do such a thing.

“I’m not sure that’s a bad thing,” Joy remarked and Belle wondered anew why Miles’s mother would agree.

“No, except Miles told me that Jack said this because he told Miles he wanted a crack at her,” Yasmin returned.

Belle’s hand went to the wall as her weight pressed into it because her knees had buckled.

A crack at her?

What did that mean?

She didn’t have to wait long to find out.

“Jack wouldn’t say that,” Joy defended.

“Normally, I wouldn’t think so either but you didn’t see Jack when he first met her. As they were being introduced, right in front of Miles, he made a play for her,” Yasmin said.

“He didn’t,” Joy whispered in horror.

“He did,” Yasmin returned. “He knew who she was the minute he saw her. The gorgeous, enigmatic Tiny Dynamo, the ultimate challenge for the Bennett Brothers. And he knew why Miles brought her here, to throw down the gauntlet, to shove her in Jack’s face. And Jack took up the challenge immediately. I saw it with my own eyes. Miles told me Jack threw down when they were talking about her. Miles informed me Jack even said, ‘You’re on’.”

Belle’s heart started racing so fast she felt her pulse beating in her neck and her wrists and she thought surely the two women could hear it.

But she was too astounded to care.

You’re on?

A crack at her?

Her mind flew from memory to memory of the night before, wickedly handsome, outrageously famous, incomprehensibly rich James Bennett determinedly wooing her.

Her, Belle “Meek and Mild” Abbot.

Not because he liked her.

Not because he thought she was interesting.

But because he was competing with his brother to win a prize.

She should have known she’d never capture the attention of a man like that.

She should have known.

She didn’t want to wish that she’d never saved that school bus driver or the children from drowning but in her darkest moments of the last eight months (for instance, now), she had to admit that she sometimes did.

She felt bile slide up her throat and tears stinging the backs of her eyes. She swallowed painfully and blinked back the wetness as the women kept talking.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do with those two,” Joy’s voice was filled with angry frustration. “This constant rivalry, it’s driving me mad. It started practically the day Miles was born and it just gets worse and worse. But I thought Jack…” She paused for a moment and then went on, “Poor Belle, caught in the middle. She’s such a sweet girl. I should never have left her side. I knew it. I just knew it.” She sounded like she knew it and her certainty made Belle’s heart lurch.

“She is,” Yasmin agreed. “But if I know Jack, it’s too late. He doesn’t often take Miles up on one of his challenges but when he does, he stops at nothing to win. I think he thinks eventually Miles will tire of losing.”

“Yes, but this has gone too far. I’m going to have to have a word with the two of them the first chance I get,” Joy replied with resolve.

“I’m sorry, Joy, but you’re right,” Yasmin gently concurred. “I don’t care if they’re grown men, something must be said. Playing with Belle like that, it’s just cruel.”

“Yasmin, darling, if this hasn’t gone past the point of redemption and you see Belle, you’ll have to look after her. I’ll do the same. She isn’t leaving until tomorrow. We have to protect her from this,” Joy declared.

“Of course,” Yasmin murmured and Belle knew by their voices they were moving down the hall.

As their conversation trailed away, Belle stood plastered against the wall feeling utterly, devastatingly, irreparably humiliated.

The handsome, legendary, born in a castle with a silver spoon in their mouths Bennett Brothers had competed to win her, a human being.

And she’d fallen for it. Not only with James but also, if not to the same extent, with Miles even though she’d always known something was off about him. Now she knew exactly what it was and, in hindsight, it was glaringly obvious.

Worse, Joy and Yasmin felt they needed to protect her like she was some naïve idiot unable to look out for herself.

Worse than that, they were right.

She was a stupid, silly, foolish, naïve idiot.

Belle choked back tears as she peeked around the corner and saw the hall deserted. Joy and Yasmin had disappeared.

Then she ran to her room like the very devil was at her back.

She had to get out of there.

Immediately.

She knew all along this wasn’t a safe place.

And she was right.

She should have listened to herself.

She now understood the reason she wrapped herself in cotton wool. To protect herself from this kind of irrevocable damage because it hurt worse than anything she could ever imagine. Worse than a broken arm. Worse than a sprained ankle. Worse than anything.