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She was fed up with being a doormat for the heel of Harold's boot. "How can that be?" she asked mildly. "If I'm as fat as you say I am, the water I displace must mean I can't possibly use as much water as you."
"What... Did...You... Say?"
She'd made him so angry that spittle had collected at the corners of his mouth.
"You sad old cow!" he yelled. "Do you think you're being clever? Do you? Do you really think Jack Castle is going to save you? Let me tell you something, you fat old lump of lard. Jack Castle looks after number one." Harold thumped his chest for emphasis. "He'd sleep with his own grandmother if he thought she'd sell him this house. You're pathetic!"
Arabella shrieked as the toothbrush mug Harold had snatched up hit her in the face. Blood oozed through her fingers. "Where are you going?"
"Out!" he flung back at her.
"You can't! Harold! Please—don't drive! You've had far too much to drink."
She froze as the front door slammed shut.
He had almost reached the gates of the drive when he saw headlights leaving. Pulling onto the side of the road, he switched off his lights and sat waiting until Harold's car roared past. Relief that he'd come back for the contract flooded through him. He could only hope he was in time to save Bella.
He drew up outside the house, got out, and ran up the steps to hammer on the front door. "Bella! Bella!" He called out repeatedly, and with increasing urgency, as the ice in the pit of his stomach said this was bad. He tried again, but there was no reply. He hammered on the window. He cupped his face to look inside, but the house appeared to be in darkness. He stood back and saw a couple of lights on upstairs. Going around to the back of the house, he employed a skill he hadn't used in years. Pulling his sweater down over his fist, he cracked the window and removed the glass. Reaching in, he found the key and turned it.
"Bella!"
He kept on calling her name as he scouted the ground floor. He didn't want to frighten her by suddenly turning up. He dodged into the library to pick up the contract, and then out into the hall again where something made him look up. Above him on the landing, a wraith had just appeared from the shadows.
"Jack...?"
He was up the stairs and at her side in a moment. "Bella? What the hell?" She was clutching a towel to her face. Blood was seeping through the towel.
"It's nothing," she said.
He ground his jaw with murder in his heart "Who did this to you?"
He already knew the answer. Bella remained stubbornly silent.
"Let me see..." He took the towel away. Nothing? The flesh around her eyes was red and swollen, and though he doubted the eye with the bruise all around it would close, there was a nasty cut above it. "I'm taking you to the ER—"
"No!" She pushed him away. "I'm alright. I don't need stitches. You can clean it up."
"Me? This needs a doctor to look at it—"
"No!"
"Bella?"
"My friend works at the hospital," she admitted quietly. "Miranda's an emergency room doctor, and I happen to know she's on duty tonight, because it's her party tomorrow, which I'm supposed to be organizing for her. If I go to the hospital—apart from scaring the living daylights out of Miranda, it will spoil her night. She'll worry about me instead of thinking about herself. She'll probably forbid me to do anything, and then I've ruined everything for her."
"You haven't ruined anything," Jack insisted with a frown.
"Well, I won't go to the hospital," she repeated stubbornly.
"I disagree."
"You can't make me." She frowned as she stared at him. "Are you a bully too, Jack?"
"Don't," he murmured tensely. "I know you're upset—but please, just don't. Okay?"
Putting his arm around her, he led her towards the one room with lights on, which turned out to be Bella's bedroom. "Do you have a first aid kit up here?"
Jack bathed the wound and dressed it. She couldn't have imagined such a big man could be so gentle, or so thorough.
