Kristen Ashley: Lucky Stars

She should have never come there.

And she decided she was breaking up with Miles the first chance she got.

If it didn’t demonstrate extremely bad manners, she would have done it that very night.

She would definitely do it tomorrow.

This was most assuredly not a safe place for Belle Abbot to be.

She needed her tranquil, cosy cottage. She needed her tidy sewing room. She needed to be anywhere but there.

On that thought, she saw a closed door and hoped that no one would mind if she opened it and went inside. She didn’t care if it was a closet. She’d stand amongst the brooms just to get away for five minutes.

She opened the door and found it wasn’t a closet.

Instead, it was James Bennett’s study. She remembered it amongst the numerous rooms Miles had shown her that afternoon.

It was, Belle saw with relief, dark and deserted.

She slipped in and quietly closed the door.

This room, like all of the rest in Chy An Als, was huge. It held a gigantic desk with two chairs at angles in front of it all of which sat in the massive bay window. There was a large, tan-coloured, button-backed sofa that was situated facing an enormous, stone mantel fireplace, a heavy, ornate, dark wood, low table between the two. There was another seating area in the corner, two comfy armchairs separated by a round table and sharing an ottoman. The entire room (outside the window) was lined in bookshelves chock-a-block with books.

Belle didn’t see any of that. Instead, as she started to pick her way across the room aided by the bright moonlight shining from the bay window that faced the sea, she heard the telltale jangle of dog tags.

Between the table and fireplace, she stopped and looked down to see a large dog, who appeared in the moonlight to be a German Shepherd, standing at attention and staring at her.

Belle smiled.

She loved dogs.

Slowly, so as not to alarm him, she crouched low and, just as slowly, lifted her hand toward him.

He came forward cautiously and sniffed her hand.

“Hey there, fella,” she whispered and watched his head come up at the sound of her voice.

Then it moved, his snout butting Belle’s hand. At his invitation, she shifted forward slowly, shuffling in a crouch and started to stroke the silky, thick fur at his handsome head.

“Aren’t you beautiful?” she asked on a soft coo. He inched toward her as the strokes became her fingernails scratching behind his ear and she let out a soft laugh. “You know it, don’t you? Just how beautiful you are,” she went on and lifted her other hand to rub his neck as her nails worked behind his ear.

He came closer and sat down, pressing into her hands and she leaned her face toward him carefully not wishing to scare him.

She didn’t. He lifted his mouth to her face and licked her jaw.

Belle burst out laughing and framed his doggie neck with her hands, catching his ruff gently in her fists and giving his neck an affectionate shake.

“Now, that’s the best kiss I’ve had in three years,” she told him with complete honesty and she heard his tail sweep the floor at her compliment.

She took her hands away and stood, patting her hip to bring him with her as she made her way to the window.

“Come on, handsome,” she invited softly. “Show me the view.

He trotted alongside her as she went to the window, stopped and looked.

All she saw was sea and sky in every direction. Both the waters and the heavens the same rich midnight blue, the white caps of the waves breaking the sea, fluffy white clouds dotting the sky, all of it illuminated by the moonlight.

It was spectacular.

She looked down at the dog, which had sat next to her and bent slightly to stroke his head.

“I could live here for a thousand years and never get used to this view,” she told the dog.

“I’m not sure that’s true,” the very deep, very masculine, very unmistakable voice of James Bennett said from behind her.

Terror shooting through her, Belle straightened and whirled to face the room. She did this so fast the blood rushed to her head and she swayed slightly while her eyes focussed on where the voice had come from.

On the couch she could see long legs covered in dark trousers stretched straight out. There was a white shirted chest, one arm cocked so a shadowy dark head could rest on a hand and the other arm up, looking like it was holding a glass.

Her first petrified thought was to run directly from the room.

This was a good thought, a thought she was ready to go with wholeheartedly.

Unfortunately, Belle’s feet had somehow come detached from her brain’s commands and didn’t move.

“I’ve lived here thirty-eight years and don’t even see it anymore.” He continued speaking, not moving from his position but she knew from her melty stomach and the hairs prickling at her neck that his eyes were on her.

From the silence in the room, she realised something was expected of her and she swallowed.

Finally, she mumbled, “That’s kind of sad,” because it was.

Then her locked body became frozen as she watched the white shirt move, curling into the trousers and she knew he was going to stand.

Now! Her mind screamed at her immobile feet. Now’s the time to run!

Her feet stayed stubbornly stationary.

She saw James was on his own feet and coming her way.

Belle stared at him, body statue-still, as he approached then kept approaching then kept approaching until he was not even a foot away.

Then he stopped and she nearly let out the breath she was holding but he immediately leaned in close.

Too close.

Magnetically close.

She steeled her body against his pull and her lungs began to burn as she looked up at him to see that he was gazing over her shoulder.

Then she saw his eyes flick down to hers in the moonlight even though he didn’t lean away.

“You’re right,” he said softly. “It is sad.”

Do something! Her mind shrieked.

“Um…” her mouth said.

Then she stopped speaking.

“Yes?” James prompted, still not leaning away.

“What?” she asked quickly, mind all of a sudden completely blank.

“You were going to say something,” he told her.

Was she?

She was.

What was she going to say?

“Um…” she repeated.

She stopped speaking again.

His entire face, bathed in moonlight, smiled.

Seeing it, Belle’s mind went completely blank again as her belly did a weird, not unpleasant in the slightest, flip.

“Why are you here?” he asked quietly.

She felt her head give a tiny jerk and then tilt.

“Here?” she parroted.

“In the study,” he explained. “Away from the party.” He hesitated and his voice was deeper when he went on, “Away from Miles.”

Well, one thing she knew, she couldn’t tell him his brother was driving her up the wall and she was breaking up with him that very next day.

“Um…” she said yet again then her mind kicked in gear. “I needed a break. I’m not a people person.”

Now why did she tell him that?

It sounded rude and it made her sound like an idiot.

A rude idiot.

Even though it was true.

He seemed to get even closer when he remarked, “I guessed that.”

She was stunned and a little disappointed. She thought she’d been pretty good at hiding it.

“You did?”

She heard his soft chuckle. It was a delicious sound. Just as delicious as it was the first time she heard it and that made her belly do a weird, intensely pleasant flip too.

“Yes, Belle. You’re definitely not a people person,” he told her.

For some reason she didn’t like him thinking that so she decided to explain. “No, it’s just a lot of people, all together, at once. Normally I’m okay, you know, on a one-on-one basis.”