Lucky Stars (Ghosts and Reincarnation #5)(26)

“Get out and close the goddamned door,” James clipped harshly.

Belle twisted around in his arm to look at Joy. “Don’t close that door!”

“Belle, darling…” Joy started but Belle didn’t listen. She’d dropped her suitcase somewhere along the line and was struggling in earnest to break free of James’s arm that was held tight around her waist.

“Go and close the f**king door!” James shouted and Belle heard everyone move around her, including Miles. Someone closed the door but she was still pushing against his arm with her hands and her weight.

Once the door closed, James used his arm to shake her gently.

“Calm down,” he ordered, his mouth at her ear, the heat of his body pressed against her back.

“Let me go,” she demanded.

“Belle, I don’t know what Miles said to you –”

“Miles didn’t say much of anything except he called me a f**king whore,” Belle snapped, gained an inch but only so James could turn her to face him then both his arms locked around her. She stopped struggling, looked up at him and added, “Twice.”

“That’s unfortunate, love, but –” he began but she cut in.

“Unfortunate? You call that unfortunate? I’ve never been called a whore in my life!” she screamed.

“Belle –” he started again but she kept talking.

“And I deserved it. He was right. I know it, you know it. That’s exactly how I acted.”

He gave her another gentle shake as she watched his face grow hard. “Don’t say that.”

She changed themes and accused, “You said you’d take care of everything.”

“It wasn’t me who wanted you to go to your room,” he shot back.

He was right.

So right.

She was such an idiot.

Then again, if she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have known who he was. He would have kept using her and lying to her to rub his brother’s nose in it.

Until he lost interest.

And she would have loved every second of it.

Until he broke her heart.

“You’re right,” she told him. “It’s my fault.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

She was losing the will to fight so again she switched themes.

“Let me go,” she demanded.

That earned her another gentle shake. “I’m not letting you go.”

“Let me go!” she shouted.

“You have to give me the chance to explain.”

“I don’t have to do anything, James,” she retorted.

At the sound of his name, his arms tightened and she knew he was getting angry with her.

“Stop calling me that,” he warned.

“Okay, I will. Gladly. I’ll stop calling you anything,” she returned.

“Cut the crap, poppet, you know, between us, it’s bullshit.”

She was right, he was angry with her, she could tell.

And for some reason, she didn’t care.

And furthermore, she didn’t know anything.

Except there was no “us”. There was a one night stand, something else she’d never done in her life and something else that caused her extreme humiliation.

“I don’t know anything of the sort except you and Miles take sibling rivalry to unprecedented extremes and I got caught in the middle.”

“That isn’t f**king true,” he snapped.

“No? So you’re saying me and my winning personality knocked you clean off your feet?” she asked sarcastically.

His eyes narrowed even as he admitted, “Something like that.”

She felt anger tear through her at his lie and got up on tiptoe to hiss, “You are so full of it.”

He glared at her a moment then his gaze moved to the ceiling as his hand slid up her back and tangled in her hair.

She steeled herself against how good his touch felt, how sweetly familiar it was even though she’d only had it for one night.

When his gaze came back to hold hers, his anger had disappeared and with one look at his gentle face, she had to re-steel herself.

“You’re full of surprises,” he murmured.

“Funny, I was thinking the same about you,” she snapped back and this, for some insane reason, made him grin.

His head dipped closer and her body froze.

“Who would have thought the woman I met last night who could barely bring herself to look in my eyes, could stand here this morning in my arms arguing with me?” he asked a question to which he didn’t want the answer and he did it in a voice that said this no longer annoyed him. Instead, it said he found it adorably entertaining.

It occurred to her what he was doing and she felt tears sting her eyes yet again.

“Don’t,” she whispered.

His face got even closer, so close their foreheads were nearly touching.

“Don’t what?” he asked softly.

“Don’t do this,” she told him. “You don’t have to worry. I won’t go flying into Miles’s arms. That ship has sailed.”

She watched his eyes flare before he lowered his head so their foreheads were now, actually, touching.

It hit her in a way that wounded her deeply that she liked that.