Cole Cameron's Revenge
Sandra Marton
Faith knew there would be a price for Cole Cameron's support of her child, and she was right! The bad-boy-turned-multimillionaire, whom she hadn't seen for nine long years, demanded that she share his bed–as his wife!Cole had never forgiven Faith for marrying his brother. Now he was claiming her at last! But how long could his new bride hide the truth about the past? And that the child Cole thought was his brother's–was his!
“You’re mine now.”
“Yours?” Faith said incredulously. “Yours? I don’t belong to anybody, Cole Cameron. You’d better get that straight.”
He strode back toward her, caught her by the shoulders and took her mouth with his. She felt the power of his kiss, the heat of it…and hated herself for the soft moan she couldn’t prevent.
“You’re mine,” he said roughly. “Sooner or later you’ll admit it. And when you do, I’m going to collect.”
There are times in a man’s life…
When only seduction will settle old scores!
Pick up our exciting new series of revenge-filled romances—they’re recommended and red-hot!
Readers can write to Sandra Marton at P.O. Box 295, Storrs, CT 06268.
(Please enclose an SASE for a reply) or visit her Web site at http://www.sandramarton.com.
Cole Cameron’s Revenge
Sandra Marton
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
PROLOGUE
Liberty, Georgia, nine years ago.
THE Cameron family had lived in Liberty for as long as anybody could recall.
First they’d farmed the land. Then they’d ranched it, and when real estate values went sky high they subdivided it and built houses. The houses weren’t very good but they were big and expensive. It wasn’t cheap to live in a town that was rapidly becoming an Atlanta suburb.
Nowadays, the Camerons also owned the biggest bank in Liberty, the most prosperous realty company, and there wasn’t a politician in the state didn’t know where to go to pick up a fat check in return for an occasional favor.
People talked about the Camerons with respect. They talked about Isaiah that way and about his eldest son, Ted…but that wasn’t how they talked about Cole.
Ted spoke of his kid brother with love. Mrs. Sherry, the high school principal, talked about him with regret. Sheriff Steele talked about him with dismay.
Isaiah talked about him with disgust.
Cole didn’t care. He had once, a long time ago, but by the time he was in his eighteenth summer he’d given up hoping his father would ever look at him with love, the way he looked at Ted, or even with affection, the way he looked at his dogs.
By then, Cole was little over six foot two. He had brown hair streaked gold by the sun, green eyes, and a body leanly muscled from years of working on his father’s housing developments. Isaiah had never given his younger son a penny unless he worked for it.
The boy had been nothing but trouble from the day he was born.
Most of the female population of Liberty talked about Cole, too, but in whispers. They dreamed, and fantasized, and sighed, especially now that he was almost a man. He had his pick of females, all ages and sizes, and because he was young he flirted with them all and slept with the ones who were the prettiest. He never set out to hurt a woman’s feelings but maybe because they were so available or maybe because he was never satisfied with the present for very long, he broke a lot of hearts. And if, once in a while, he really did get into trouble riding his secondhand Harley too fast or cutting school or maybe drinking one beer too many, it just made him all the more appealing.
Ted, who was as unlike Cole as day was from night, worried that his brother would get into serious trouble one day. Isaiah didn’t worry. As far as he was concerned, it was inevitable. Cole always felt his father wouldn’t mind seeing that day come and might even rejoice when it finally arrived.
“You ruined my life,” Isaiah told him more than once, “the day you were born.”
Cole figured it was the truth. His mother had died giving him life and nothing he could possibly do would make up for the loss.
The end came sooner than anyone anticipated, not in one definable moment but in a series of seemingly unconnected events.
Her name was Faith. Her father was a man looking for something he’d never found, either in a woman or a bottle. He drifted from town to town through the South, taking whatever work he could find and dragging Faith and her mother with him. That summer, he settled his family in a trailer on the outskirts of Liberty.
One Monday—a day Cole had decided to go to school instead of doing something more interesting—he sauntered into the cafeteria at lunchtime and his gaze swept straight past the little clutch of cheerleaders waiting on his next move, past the jocks he played with on the Liberty High football team, and settled on an angel with long, pale blond hair and cornflower-blue eyes.
Cole flashed her a devastating smile and turned on the charm that never failed him. Nothing happened. It took him a week to get Faith Davenport to smile in return, another week before she’d eat lunch with him and by the time she finally agreed to let him take her out, Cole Cameron was, in the words of the poets, well and truly smitten.
His friends thought he’d lost his mind. Faith was pretty but not beautiful; she didn’t sparkle the way other girls did and she didn’t treat Cole like the catch he was. Cole didn’t care. There was a freshness to her, a sweetness unlike anything he’d ever known, and he felt something reach into his chest and squeeze his heart.
After their second date, Cole wanted more. Not sex: Faith was innocent, he was certain. For the first time in his life he didn’t want to seduce a girl so much as he just wanted to be with her. She was easy to talk to, she was good, she was gentle…and she didn’t see him as a bad-boy celebrity. He was just Cole Cameron, and she saw qualities in him he’d never known were there. Good qualities. That was a new experience.
He laughed when she told him he was smart. But he began hitting the books and the next thing he knew, he was acing his exams. School suddenly became interesting. He started showing up every day. When Faith asked where he wanted to go to college, he blinked. He wasn’t planning on college but she persisted, so he had a talk with his guidance counselor and yes, it looked as if maybe, with his newly improved grades and his football skills, he might just wangle himself a scholarship because there was no way his father would foot the bill.
Faith was changing his life and Cole loved it. The truth was that he loved her. He wanted to tell her that, to ask her to go steady but before he could, he had an unpleasant duty to perform.
He’d been seeing a woman. Not a girl—a woman. She wasn’t the first Liberty housewife who’d tried to seduce him but she was the first who’d succeeded. Her name was Jeanine. She was the young, sexy, bored wife of fat, middle-aged Edward Francke, who owned half the businesses and most of the politicians in town.
Cole had noticed her. Hell, every male in town over the age of ten had noticed her.
One day, when his old Harley had quit on the road to Windham Lake and he’d stripped off his shirt while he worked on it, Jeanine pulled her Cadillac onto the shoulder next to him. The late-morning sun was hot, the air humid. Cole noticed the Caddy and the woman, but he was too intent on getting the motorcycle working to pay either much attention.
Jeanine said hi. Cole said hi in return. After a couple of minutes, she got out of the car.
“You know a lot about engines?” she said in a whispery drawl.
Cole, still busy with the bike, shrugged his shoulders. “Enough to fool around some.”
She gave a silvery laugh. “Well, then, how’d you like to fool around with mine?”
That was when Cole looked at her, let his eyes drift slowly up her long, bare legs, over her full bosom to her face. He’d watched her pink tongue snake slowly over her bottom lip and he’d known exactly what engine she meant.
By the time he met Faith, he’d been screwing Jeanine for a couple of months. Friday afternoons, when her husband was over in the next county playing golf, Cole would ride his bike out to her house on the lake and then ride her until they were both exhausted. It had never been as much fun as he’d hoped it would be and, after he met Faith, he stopped. Just stopped. He figured Jeanine would figure out that it was over.
He had no desire to see any female except Faith, even if it meant giving up sex, which he’d done because of Faith’s innocence. It was true that their last couple of dates, things had heated up. Faith had whimpered in his arms. He’d touched her breasts. She’d even taken his hand in hers and brought it low on her belly and he’d wanted to accept that sweet invitation but he hadn’t.
Faith wasn’t like that. She was a fresh flower, not to be taken casually. He’d wait until he was out of school, until he had a job…until he could buy her a ring, get down on one knee and ask her to be his wife.
And then, on what would turn out to be the start of Cole’s last weekend in Liberty, everything went to pieces.
Jeanine phoned him the afternoon of the Liberty High senior prom. The housekeeper gave him a funny look when she told him he had a call and Cole knew the reason the minute he heard that hoarse, sexy voice.
She had to see him, she said. It was urgent. She sounded panicked so Cole got on his Harley, rode out to her house. She was waiting for him and the “urgency” was that she hadn’t seen him in weeks and weeks and where in hell had he been? Cole told her, as gently as he could, that things were over between them.
She didn’t take the news well. She pouted, then she raged. At last, she threatened.
“Nobody walks out on me, Cole Cameron,” she shouted as he rode off. “It’s not over until I say it is. You can’t just do whatever you want and get away with it!”
His father, his teachers, everybody in Cole’s life had been giving him that same message for as long as he could remember. Jeanine’s warning was just one more to ignore.
That night, Cole put on his rented tux, borrowed Ted’s car and called for Faith. He knew she was embarrassed by the differences between the big house he’d grown up in and the trailer she lived in but he’d assured her that it didn’t matter.
What he’d never told her was that his father thought it did.
When Isaiah heard the rumor that his youngest son was dating a girl from the trailer park, he’d spoken to Cole for the first time in weeks, warning him to be careful of females after the Cameron name and money.
Cole found the speech laughable considering that everybody knew he had the name but not the money. Isaiah always made it clear that he had a good son and a bad son, and that Cole would never get a dime of his money.
As it turned out, his father’s speech was a warning Cole should have taken to heart.
That night, he drove to the trailer, picked up Faith. She was beautiful, almost ethereal in a gown she’d made herself of white lace and pale pink silk. He helped her into Ted’s car, set off for the high school gym, but halfway there Faith reached over and put her hand on his thigh.
His skin felt as if it were burning; his breath caught in his throat.
“I don’t want to go to the dance,” she whispered. “Take me to the lake, Cole. To our place. Please.”
Cole hesitated, though he could already feel the blood pooling in his groin. “Their place” was a grassy bank hidden among the trees where he’d touched her breasts and come as close as he’d ever been in his young life to losing control.
“Are you sure?” he finally said, in a voice so thick he hardly knew it as his own.
Faith replied by leaning over and kissing him.
He drove to the lake, took a blanket from the trunk of Ted’s car and spread it on the grass. Then he undressed Faith, undressed himself, and found everything he’d ever imagined as he took the gift of her sweet virginity.
“I’m going to marry you,” he whispered as she lay in his arms and she smiled, kissed his mouth and drew him deep inside her again.
He had her back at the trailer park by midnight, which was her curfew even on this special night, this prom night…this night he’d finally declared his love and made Faith his, forever. Keyed up, too high on happiness to sleep, Cole drove into the hills overlooking the town and thought about Faith and how much he loved her, and of the life they’d share.
The first rays of morning sunlight were touching the hills when he drove Ted’s car back to the big house that had never felt like home. He put the car into the garage and slipped, unnoticed, into his bed. He was deep in sleep when Isaiah flung open the bedroom door.
“You worthless fool,” he shouted, grabbing Cole by the arm and yanking him from the bed. “Were you drunk or are you just plain stupid?”
Baffled, half asleep, Cole blinked his eyes and stared at his father. “What’s the matter?”
His father slapped his face. “Don’t give me that crap, boy. You broke into the Francke’s house last night.”
“What?”
“You heard me. You broke into their house and trashed the living room.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I wasn’t anywhere near the Francke’s house last night.”
“Francke’s wife saw you. She was on the prom committee. She saw you coming out the window just as she came home.”
“I don’t care what she says. She couldn’t have seen me because I wasn’t there.”
“She says it was you, all right, and you did it because she wouldn’t give you what you wanted.”
“The lady says you’ve been sniffing around her like a dog around a bone,” another voice said.
Cole looked past his father. Sheriff Steele was standing in the doorway. “That’s not true, either.”
“No?”
“No,” Cole repeated coldly. “If anything, it’s just the opposite, Sheriff. She’s pissed off because I won’t do what she wants.”
Isaiah raised his hand to strike his son again. Cole’s eyes met his father’s and the older man took a step back.
“The woman says she saw you, boy.”
“She’s lying.” Cole looked at the sheriff. “I wasn’t anywhere near the Francke place last night.”
“Where were you, then?”
At the prom, Cole almost said, but he saw the little glint in the sheriff’s eyes.
“That’s right,” the sheriff said softly. “I already checked. You weren’t at the dance. You weren’t anywhere near the high school. Mrs. Francke would have seen you if you were. So, if you didn’t go to her house and trash it, where were you?”
With Faith, down by the lake. Cole opened his mouth, then clamped it shut.
The sheriff grinned. “Cat got your tongue, son?”
Cole stared at the men. How could he tell the truth without involving Faith? The whole town would start talking, making up stories that would get wilder as they spread. And the very thought of the sheriff going to Faith for confirmation of Cole’s story made his belly clench. Faith’s old man was a drunk; he was mean. God only knew what he’d do if the law turned up to question his daughter.
“Answer the man,” Isaiah barked.
“I said all I’m going to say. I didn’t do what Mrs. Francke says I did.”
“You got a way to prove that, son?”
Cole looked at the sheriff. “The only proof I can give you is my word.”
“Your word,” his father said, and laughed. “Your word is useless, same as you are. I don’t know how I could have had two sons and one of ’em be not worth a damn.”
Cole saw his brother’s pinched white face appear just past his father’s shoulder.
“I didn’t do it,” he said, as much to Ted as to anybody else.
“I know you didn’t,” Ted said, but it didn’t matter. Things moved quickly after that. Francke had told the sheriff he wouldn’t bring charges if he were paid for the items that had been smashed. The sheriff said he didn’t see how anything would be gained if he locked Cole up. And Isaiah said he didn’t give a damn one way or the other.
“You’re not my son anymore,” he said coldly. “I want you out of this house, tonight.”
Cole wanted to object, not to being thrown out of Cameron House but to being found guilty, but how could he? Nobody was going to listen to him. By morning, the story would be all over town. He’d be a pariah. It was one thing to ride a motorcycle too fast or cut school, or even chug down too many beers. Breaking into a house, vandalizing it, was different.
There was only one way out of this mess.
He had to leave Liberty and not return until he’d made himself bigger than the lies Jeanine Francke had fabricated. Then he could shove the allegations down his accusers’ throats, walk straight to Faith’s door and claim her as his own.
He’d go to Faith, tell her what had happened, vow that he’d come back for her someday…
But how could he? Just turning up at the trailer park would drag her into this mess. Faith, his sweet, innocent Faith, would listen to his story and insist on going straight to his father and the sheriff to defend him. And she’d be ruined. Wasn’t that precisely what he was determined to avoid happening?
There was only one way to prove his love for his girl. He had to leave her and never look back. The truth was, she deserved somebody better. She always had.
The dream wasn’t just over, it was dead.
“I want you out of this house, boy.” Isaiah folded his arms. “You have ten minutes to pack.”
Cole tossed jeans and T-shirts into a beaten-up backpack. When he’d finished, Isaiah held out a hundred-dollar bill. He took it, tore it in half and dropped it at his father’s feet. Then he went out the door and away from the house that had never felt like home. He climbed onto his Harley and gunned the engine to life just as Ted ran down the steps.
“Cole,” Ted hollered, “wait.”
Cole had already started the bike moving. “Take care of Faith,” he said.
“What should I tell her?”
That I love her, Cole thought, that I’ll always love her…
“Nothing. You hear me, Teddy? Take care of her. Make sure she’s okay. And—and don’t tell her what happened.”
“Yeah, but she’ll ask.”
“Let her think I got tired of it here and took off. It’s better if I just get the hell out of her life.”
“No. Cole, please—”
“Swear it!”
Ted sighed. “Yeah,” he said, “okay. But where will you go? How will you live? Cole—”
Cole let in the clutch and roared down the driveway.
Two years later, he’d worked his way across Georgia to Corpus Christi and then across the oceans of the world on an oil tanker, to Kuwait. He’d grown up. He’d stopped being so brash. His luck started to change and he lost some of the bitterness that plagued him.
More and more, he thought about going home. About seeing Ted and maybe even somehow reconciling with his father. Mostly, he thought about going back to claim Faith, and the life they could have together. He was in the midst of making plans to do just that when a letter arrived from Ted. The envelope was dirty and torn; it looked as if it had followed him around the world for almost as long as he’d been away.
Cole opened the envelope and read the letter inside. It said that his father was dead. He’d had a heart attack and died more than a year ago.
He waited to feel some sense of loss for the man who’d sired him but there was nothing except a small, cold disappointment that he’d been deprived of the chance to confront Isaiah and tell him how wrong he’d been about his youngest son.
Dad left everything to me, Ted wrote. Of course, that’s not the way it should be. We’ll sort things out when you get home.
Cole smiled tightly. Ted would think that way but he didn’t want a penny of the Cameron money. He turned the letter over, blinked at the next line.
I don’t quite know how to tell you this. Understand, I did it because of what you told me, to take care of Faith. She was so alone after you left, so desperate…
“No,” Cole whispered, “no…”
His brother was married. Married to Faith, to the girl Cole loved, the girl he worshiped, the girl whose memory was all that had kept him alive while he’d struggled to find a place for himself in life. Isaiah, damn him, had been right.
I love you, she’d said, I’ll never love anyone but you…but she’d been after the Cameron name and money all along.
The rest of the letter was a blur. Cole crumpled it in his hand; a roar of anguish ripped from his throat. Men standing near him looked up, then slowly moved away. They were roughnecks, same as he. They could handle themselves anywhere black gold oozed from the earth, but not one of them wanted to deal with what they saw in Cole Cameron’s eyes that day.
He tore the letter into tiny pieces and flung them to the wind that swept endlessly across the desert sand. Then he turned his back on home, on Ted, on Faith, on everything he’d ever been stupid enough to let himself believe in or want.
From that moment on, the only thing Cole believed in was getting rich.
And the only thing he wanted was revenge.
CHAPTER ONE
Liberty, Georgia, today.
JUNE had come to Georgia, bringing with it heat so fierce it might have been midsummer. Even now, at a little before nine in the morning, the air was thick and weighted with humidity.
Faith, sitting before her dressing-table mirror, all but groaned with despair. Any other morning, she wouldn’t have been bothered by the weather. She’d grown up in the South and she knew that the only way to deal with summer was to ignore it. You scraped your hair into a ponytail, put on shorts, T-shirt and sandals, and left your face scrubbed and bare.
But not today.
In just over an hour, she had a meeting with Sam Jergen, Ted’s lawyer. She had to look like Faith Cameron, not Faith Davenport. Jergen didn’t like her. He still thought of her as a seventeen-year-old tramp who’d trapped his client into marriage nine long years ago. She’d known that the minute she’d met him, but the lawyer wasn’t stupid. He’d been careful to treat her with respect while Ted was alive.
He gave up the pretense the day of the funeral.
“Sorry for your trouble, Miz Davenport,” Jergen had said as he took her hand, and then he’d smiled slyly. “Sorry about that. I meant Miz Cameron, of course.”
Of course, Faith thought, tightening her jaw.
What he’d really meant to call her was one of the names the town used for her, but she hadn’t given him the pleasure of reacting. She wouldn’t today, either, even though she figured he’d do his best to demean her.
Tears blurred Faith’s eyes.
Ted, gone.
She still couldn’t believe it, that her husband had lost his life in an automobile accident on a rain-slicked back road between Liberty and Atlanta. The weeks since then had gone by in a haze. There’d been people coming and going, supposedly to offer their condolences but really, she knew, to get a first good look at her now that nobody was around to protect her from gossip.
It was old gossip, but what did that matter? Gossip could linger for a lifetime in a place like Liberty, especially when it was juicy. And what could have been more juicy than her quick trip up the altar with one Cameron brother after she’d been ditched by the other…except, maybe, the speed with which she’d become pregnant?
Faith picked up her brush and stroked it through her hair.
Oh, if only she could cancel today’s meeting—but there wasn’t any point in putting off what had to be done. Jergen had made it clear this was important.
“It’s about your husband’s estate,” he’d said.
She’d almost told him to stop trying to sound so officious. What would take place this morning wasn’t any surprise. This was the formal reading of Ted’s will but she knew what was in it. Her practical husband had insisted on telling her the details of the document he’d suddenly decided to draw up a year ago.
He’d left everything to her, in trust for Peter. “It’s his birthright,” he’d said.
Faith had hesitated. “Are you sure you don’t want to leave something to…” She couldn’t say the name. “To your brother?”
Ted’s eyes had darkened, just enough so she knew that time hadn’t dulled the pain he felt. He hadn’t heard from Cole since he’d sent him the letter about their marriage. Though they never talked about it, she knew he was blind to the truth; he couldn’t or wouldn’t see Cole for what he was, but she understood that. Love could warp your judgment. Hadn’t she wept nights for Cole, even after he’d abandoned her? She, at least, had come to her senses.
“No,” he’d said softly, “there’s no point. Cole hated this house. He hated our father. He wouldn’t want anything that carries the Cameron name. But I know he’ll come back someday, Faith. And when he does, you have to tell him the truth. He’s entitled to know he gave you a child, just as Peter has the right to know the man who’s really his father.”
Faith stared into the mirror. Cole wasn’t entitled to anything. Not from her. As for Peter…She couldn’t imagine a time she’d want to hurt him by telling him that his real father had run out on her. Her child was better off going through life thinking of Ted as his father. He’d be happy that way, and her son’s happiness was all that mattered. It was why she’d agreed to marry Ted—and why she’d decided to leave Liberty, as soon as the formal reading of the will was over.
This morning, after the lawyer finished with all the legal rigmarole, she’d have the money to start life fresh and she was going to do it in a place far from here, a place where “Cameron” was just another name. Making the decision hadn’t been easy. Despite everything, Liberty was home. But there was that old saying, something about home being where the heart was.
Without Ted, this place had no heart. The sooner she left, the better.
Faith rose from the dressing table, walked briskly to the closet and opened it. She ran a hand along the clothing hanging from the rod, pausing when her fingers brushed over the pink suit she’d worn for Ted’s funeral. People had stared at her openly, condemnation glittering in their eyes. The hell with them, she’d thought. The suit was for Ted, who’d hated black.
But today wasn’t about her love and respect for Ted. It was about Peter’s future. She had no idea what it took—if, in fact, it took anything—to set in motion the things that would set the two of them free of Liberty. She knew nothing about the financial aspects of the life she’d lived as Mrs. Theodore Cameron. Ted had handled all of that.
She chose a cream silk blouse, then a black silk suit. Silk, on a day like this. She’d probably melt from the heat, but it was the right outfit to wear. She dressed quickly, grimacing as she pulled on panty hose, a bra, even a half-slip. The blouse stuck to her skin almost as soon as she slipped it on but at last she was ready, her skirt zipped, her jacket buttoned, her feet jammed into the confines of a pair of low-heeled black leather pumps.
She took a deep breath. “Ready or not,” she said softly, and turned to the mirror.
The suit was fine, businesslike and purposeful, and so long as she kept the jacket buttoned nobody would know that beads of sweat were already forming beneath the blouse. The shoes were okay, too. But her hair…
“Dammit,” Faith muttered.
It was reacting to the humidity the way it always did, by spinning itself into gold curls instead of lying in the soft, ladylike waves she wanted. Her face was shining, too, despite its unaccustomed dusting of powder.
So much for looking cool and confident. She looked the way she felt, uncertain and grief-stricken at the loss of the only person who’d ever truly cared for her. Perhaps, she thought wryly, the mirror was determined to reflect a portrait of the inner woman instead of the outer one.
“Mommy?”
Faith swung around. “Peter?”
Her son pushed the door open and came into the bedroom, his face solemn—too solemn for a boy his age. Her heart swelled with love at the sight of him. She squatted down and opened her arms wide. Peter walked toward her and when he was close enough, Faith reached out and drew him close, sighing as she felt the tension in his stiff body.
“Mommy? Alice says you’re going to town.”
Faith drew back, smiled and brushed his silky chestnut hair back from his forehead. “She’s right.”
“Do you have to go?”
“Yes. But I won’t be long, sweetheart. Just an hour or two, I promise.”
Her son nodded. He’d taken Ted’s death hard. Lately, he didn’t want to be away from her side.
“Would you like me to bring you something?”
Peter shook his head. “No, thank you.”
“A new game from the computer store?”
“Dad bought me one, just before…He bought me one.” Peter’s lip quivered. “I wish he was still here, Mommy.”
Faith gathered her son tightly into her embrace. “Me, too.” She held him for a minute, inhaling his little-boy scent. Then she cleared her throat, cupped his shoulders and held him out in front of her. “So,” she said briskly, “what are you going to do until I get home?”
Peter shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“How about phoning Charlie and asking him over?”
“Charlie isn’t home. Today’s Sean’s party, remember?”
Damn, Faith thought, of course. She was so wrapped up in her own worries that she’d forgotten her son’s distress at being the only boy who hadn’t been asked to his classmate’s party.
“Why wasn’t I invited, too?” Peter had said, and she’d come within a breath of telling him the truth, that the town was already reassessing her position and his in Liberty’s rigid social order.
“Because Sean’s a ninny,” she’d said with forced gaiety, “and besides, why would you want to go to his old party when we can have a party right here, all by ourselves?”
“It’s a good thing you reminded me,” Faith said. “That means today is our party, too. I’ll pick up some goodies on my way home.”
“Uh-huh,” Peter said, with polite disinterest.
“Let’s see…I’ll get some liver…”
“Liv-er! Yuck. I hate liver.”
“And some Brussels sprouts…”
“Double yuck!”
“Or maybe lima beans. That’s it. Liver, and lima beans, and tapioca pudding for dessert—”
“The stuff with the eyeballs in it?”
“Sure. Isn’t that your favorite meal?”
“No way, Mommy! Lima beans and liver and eyeball pudding isn’t a party!”
“Isn’t it?” Faith grinned. To her delight, her son grinned back. “Well then, I guess I’ll have to pick up some yucky stuff like hamburgers and French fries and chocolate malteds at the Burger Pit.”
It was a bribe, she thought a few minutes later, as she drove out the gates of the Cameron estate and turned her station wagon onto the main road, but so what? It had brought a smile to her little boy’s face. His happiness was everything to her.
Ted had felt the same way.
Ted, Faith thought, and she felt the sorrow welling inside her heart again. What a wonderful man he’d been. The people of Liberty thought so, too, even if they also thought he was a fool to have married her.
Her hands tightened on the wheel. What had made him come to see her, that fateful day nine long years ago? Cole had been gone just a little over seven weeks when he’d knocked at the trailer door. Her mother had opened it, then stepped back with a little gasp.
“My word,” she’d said. “You must be…Faith? It’s—it’s Mr. Cameron.”
Faith had been in the tiny kitchen. Her heart had leaped into her throat at the sound of those words. “Cole,” she’d said, “oh, Cole…”
But it was Ted she saw, when she came racing to the door. She knew him by sight, though they’d never spoken. Ted was years older than Cole. He worked in the bank his father owned. The only other thing she knew about him was that Cole said the two of them were as different as night and day.
“What do you want?” she’d said, disappointment sharpening her tone. Ted had smiled and said he’d come to see her, acting as if he made visits to trailer parks all the time, and saying, “Yes, thank you very much,” to her flustered mother’s offer of a cup of tea.
“Are you okay?” he’d asked quietly, once he and Faith were alone.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Look, Faith, I know you and Cole…I know he meant a lot to you—”
“Cole?” Faith tossed her head. “I hardly remember him.”
“Faith. Please. I know you’re hurt—”
“You don’t know anything!” Without warning, she started to weep. “I hate your brother. You hear what I’m saying? I hate him!”
Ted’s gaze went from her face to her hand. She looked down and realized that she’d inadvertently placed her hand protectively over her still-flat stomach. Heat rushed to her face as she looked up and her eyes met Ted’s.
“You’re pregnant,” he said softly.
“No!” Her face turned white. “I’m not…pregnant,” she said, the word hissing softly from between her teeth. She shot a nervous glance over her shoulder. “You go home, you hear me? Just—just get out of here and—”
“Don’t lie to me, dammit. You’re carrying my brother’s child.”
The fight went out of her like air from a collapsing balloon. She sank down on the stained sofa and he sat down beside her, his eyes never leaving hers.
“What are you going to do?”
“Keep your voice down!”
“Faith.” Ted took her hand. “You have to tell me what you’re going to do.”
“I’m not getting rid of my baby,” she said, jerking her hand from his, “if that’s what you were thinking.”
“I don’t know what I’m thinking,” he said honestly. “Aren’t you still in high school?”
“So?”
“So, how can you hope to take care of a baby?”
“I’ll do what I have to do.”
“Meaning, you’ll quit school, take a job at the Burger Pit, have your baby and bring him home to this place.”
Faith felt her cheeks flame. “‘This place,”’ she said, trying to sound offended but knowing she probably only sounded defensive, “is my home.”
Ted was blunt. “Sure,” he said, “and that’s what you want for your baby, right? And for yourself?”
How she’d despised him that day! He’d forced her to see that cramped, ugly little room; to smell the stink of beer rising from the sagging furniture; to hear her father’s snores coming through the pressboard walls while he slept off a drunk.
Cole used to hold her in his arms and tell her he’d take her away from all this someday but Cole had lied. Now she sat beside his brother while he told her, in painfully bleak terms, that she’d never escape this life, that, worse still, her child would never escape it.
“Let me help you, Faith.”
“I don’t want Cameron charity.”
“I’m not talking about charity, I’m talking about doing the right thing for Cole’s child. What are you going to tell people, when they see that you’re pregnant?”
“I don’t have to tell them anything,” she said, even though it was a lie. Liberty wasn’t the kind of town where you could tell people to mind their own business.
“You mean, you’d rather keep your pride and let people play guessing games about who put that baby inside you?”
“They’ll do that anyway.”
Ted shifted closer to her. She could still remember the sound of the ancient springs in the sofa creaking as he did.
“You’re right,” he said softly. “That’s why I’m not offering you money.”
“Well, that’s something. I meant it when I said—”
“I want you to marry me, Faith.”
She’d gaped at him, certain he’d lost his mind. “Marry you?”
“That’s right.”
“Are you crazy? I don’t want to marry you. I don’t love you. I don’t even know you.”
“That makes two of us. I don’t love you or know you and, frankly, I don’t want to marry you, either.”
“Then, why…”
“For the child, that’s why. You owe him a decent life.” Ted took a long, dismissive look around the trailer before locking eyes with her again. “Unless you prefer this.”
“I grew up just fine without your big house and all your money,” she replied fiercely.
“Yes,” Ted said, “you did. But don’t you want your child to have more? Don’t you want him to be legitimate?” He leaned forward, reached for her hand. “Tell me you love that baby enough to let me do the right thing for you both.”
“You think what you’re suggesting is the right thing?” Faith tried to tug her hand from his again but he wouldn’t let her. “I’d sooner marry the devil than marry a Cameron.”
Thinking back, she knew she hadn’t quite pulled it off. Her words had tried for bravado but her voice had quavered with despair.
“Cole asked me to look after you,” Ted said quietly.
To this day, she hated herself for the way her foolish heart had jumped at those words.
“Did he?” she whispered, then answered her own question. “No. No, he didn’t. Cole doesn’t give a damn about me. He proved it by leaving without so much as a goodbye. He never even tried to get in touch with me, right after the night we’d—the night we’d—”
“Faith.” Ted stood up. “My brother did what he had to do.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, rising to her feet. She gave a quick laugh. “He certainly did.”
“And so will you, if you’re half the woman I think you are. You’ll marry me, take the Cameron name, raise your baby as a Cameron—”
“And what about you?” She stared at Ted in bewilderment. “Assuming I were to agree to such an insane thing—which I won’t—but if I did, what would happen to your life? I—I’d never live with you as a wife should. Never, no matter how—”
“I know that. And I wouldn’t expect it.” Ted cleared his throat. “I’m going to…I’m going to trust you with something. Something you should know.” He swallowed hard. “I’ve—I’ve never been interested in women. Not the way a man should be.”
The truth took a long moment to sink in. When it finally did, Faith stared at him, speechless.
“Nobody knows,” he’d said quickly, “not even Cole. And nobody ever will, not in Liberty. I’ll be an exemplary husband. And, I promise you, I’ll love Cole’s child as if it were my own. Just don’t make this baby pay for what you feel toward my brother.”
“I hate your brother,” she’d said, and despite everything, the enormity of the lie had clutched at her heart.
“But you don’t hate your baby.” Ted had flashed the gentle smile she’d come to know so well over the ensuing years. “You’ll be doing me a favor, letting me enjoy a child I’d never otherwise have. No, don’t say anything. At least agree to think it over.”
She’d thought it over, trying to concentrate on the logic of it instead of on the pain of her broken heart. Then, one morning her mother found her retching into the toilet. She whispered the question Faith had feared for weeks, and Faith nodded her assent.
“Your father mustn’t know,” her mother had said, trembling. “You’ll have to do something, Faith, but not in this town. You’ll have to do it far away from here.”
A day later, she’d phoned Ted and accepted his proposition.
They’d been married at Town Hall while her mother stood by sniffling into a fistful of tissues. Ted put a thin platinum band on her finger, kissed her cheek and moved her into his house. He sent Cole a letter telling him about the marriage, but Cole never replied. And Isaiah never said a word to her, right up until his death.
Neither did anyone else in town, but she saw their knowing smiles. When she began to show, their smiles grew more obvious. She knew people were counting the months and assuming she’d managed to snare a Cameron in the oldest way possible.
“Don’t mind those busybodies,” Ted would say when she’d come home from the market or the library with her face red and her temper high. “Just go on with your life.”
She had. And, once Peter was born, her days were filled with the sweet joy of caring for him. He was the love of her life, the one good thing Cole had given her, and when Ted suggested finding Cole to tell him he had a son, Faith’s “no” was adamant. Cole hadn’t wanted her; why would he want to know he had a son?
“I don’t ever want him to know about Peter,” she’d said. “Promise me that, Ted.”
Ted had promised, though reluctantly. “It’s wrong,” he’d say. “A man has the right to know he’s a father.”
Now, turning onto Main Street and pulling into the lot behind Sam Jergen’s law office, Faith thought again, as she had so often in the past, that fathering a child was easy. Raising one was the hard part although the truth was, Ted hadn’t been all that involved in raising Peter. He had his own life but he’d always been good to her and to her son. Thanks to that goodness, she could look forward to a fresh start for the two of them.
Damn. There was a car, a shiny black Jaguar, parked under the only shade tree. It gave her a jolt to see it, considering the memories swirling through her head. When Cole daydreamed about their future, he used to say that someday he’d trade his Harley for a Jaguar…
She shut off the engine.
Why was she wasting time thinking about Cole this morning? The past was dead. The future was all that mattered.
The day was heating up. She could feel the asphalt give under her shoes as she walked across the parking lot. A merciful blast of frigid air enveloped her as she stepped inside the marble foyer of the old building. Five to nine, said the big clock on the wall. She was right on time.
The cool air evaporated as she made her way up the steps to the third floor and down the corridor to Sam Jergen’s office. Faith could feel her hair curling, her blouse wilting. She paused outside the office, wiped her hand down her skirt, tugged at her jacket, patted her hair…
“Just stop it,” she said under her breath, and she opened the door and stepped inside.
The empty reception area was hot, almost airless. Faith glanced at her watch. It was precisely nine o’clock. Where was the iron-jawed secretary who normally sat at the desk?
“Hello?” she said, after a couple of minutes crept past.
There was no reply. Faith sat down on the sofa, put her purse in her lap and folded her hands over it. She looked at her watch again, frowned and got to her feet.
“Hello?” she said again, in a louder voice.
A sound drifted down the short corridor that led to the inner offices. Laughter? Yes, that was what it was, a peal of feminine laughter. Faith looked around, huffed out a breath and started down the hall.
She could hear voices now, though she couldn’t make out the words. A man and a woman were talking. The woman was Jergen’s secretary. Faith had spoken with her enough times lately to know that. But the man wasn’t Sam Jergen. He was younger, and his voice was deeper, huskier, maybe even a little sexy…
Goose bumps prickled her arms under the silk blouse. She jerked to a stop. Something in the way the man sounded was familiar.
The woman laughed again, and so did the man. Faith began to tremble. She turned on her heel, started back down the corridor. Obviously, she’d made a mistake. Come on the wrong day, maybe, or at the wrong time…
“Mrs. Cameron?”
Whatever, she’d go home, call and ask when she was supposed to have shown up for this meeting…
“Mrs. Cameron?”
Faith stumbled to a halt. She was breathing hard and her pulse was racing, which was silly.
“Yes?” she said brightly, and turned toward the secretary. “I’m awfully sorry to have bothered you. I’m afraid I’ve showed up at the wrong—” The other woman was looking at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Actually, I—I just remembered something I have to—to—”
Faith fell silent. The open door to Jergen’s private office was just ahead. She could see a man standing near the windows. He was tall, well over six feet; his hair was a sun-streaked brown, perhaps a little longer than it should have been, and curled just over his collar. He was wearing a pale gray suit that surely had been tailored to his wide-shouldered, leanly muscled frame. His feet were slightly spread and his hands were in his trouser pockets.
His stance was casual but something about it suggested that he knew he owned the world.
Faith’s heartbeat slowed to a sluggish crawl. She forced her eyes from the man to Jergen’s secretary.
“Why don’t I come back later?” she said in a breathless voice that didn’t sound a bit like her own. “Say, at ten? Or this afternoon? I mean, I thought I had a nine o’clock appointment but obviously—”
“You do. Mr. Jergen had to step out for a minute. He asked you to wait for him in his office.”
“No! I can wait in the reception area—”
The woman took her arm. Faith wanted to grab for the wall and hang on but the secretary drew her forward, through the door and into the office.
“No,” she said again, but it was too late. The man turned from the window and looked at her.
“Hello, Faith,” Cole said.
And everything went black.
CHAPTER TWO
COLE had wondered how Faith would react when she saw him.
He’d thought about it through the long flight home—not that Georgia was home anymore. He had offices in Caracas, London and New York, a condo in Aspen and a penthouse in New York but when the news of Ted’s death reached him, he was deep in the Orinoco basin. It had taken him more than a week just to get back to civilization.
She was such a clever actress. Who knew what routine she’d try and pull?
He’d imagined her offering a cool smile and a handshake.
Hello, Cole, she’d say, as if he’d never left. As if there’d never been anything between them. As if they’d never made love on a soft summer night.
Or she might try the ingénue act again. He’d fallen for it years ago. So had his brother. Why wouldn’t she stick with something that had been successful? Sweet Faith. Innocent Faith. Oh yeah. That had always worked.
Maybe she’d play the grieving widow. Stare at him through big eyes, weep as if her heart were breaking. Actually, he’d doubted she’d be foolish enough to try that. She had to realize that he, of all men, would know she didn’t have a heart.
A swoon was the last thing he’d figured but that was exactly what she did. Looked at him, rolled up her eyes and went down in a heap. Cole cursed, moved fast, and caught her just before she hit the floor.
“Get some cold water,” he snapped at Sam Jergen’s secretary.
The woman flew down the hall. Cole headed in the other direction, elbowed open the conference room door and unceremoniously deposited Faith on the couch. He looked at her dispassionately and wondered if he might have walked past her on the street. The girl he’d known had lived her life in shorts and T-shirts. The woman he was looking at was dressed in designer silk.
“I suppose you know all about your brother’s marriage,” Jergen had said carefully, when the call had finally reached him. “That he and Faith Davenport…”
“Yes,” Cole had said, interrupting the man. Surely, the lawyer hadn’t phoned to give him old news. “I know all of that. Why are you calling me, Mr. Jergen?”
There’d been a long silence over the satellite phone. “Your brother’s been in an accident,” Jergen had finally said. “I’m afraid it was a bad one. He was driving to Atlanta. It was dark and the rain was heavy…”
It was funny, what adversity could do to a man. Nine years of rage had disappeared in a heartbeat. This was Ted, his brother. And Cole loved him.
“What hospital is he in?” he’d demanded, glancing at his watch. “I can be in the States by—”
“He’s not in a hospital,” Jergen had said softly. “He’s gone.”
Ted, gone? That couldn’t be. “No,” Cole had whispered, “God, no…” And then his heart had almost stopped beating. “Faith? Is she…?” His hand had tightened around the phone. “Tell me what happened to her. Is she—did she—”
“She’s fine,” Jergen had replied, and then his voice flattened and he said that Faith hadn’t been in the car. “Ted made the trip to Atlanta once a month and he always made it alone.”
“Always alone? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We can talk about all of that when you get here,” the lawyer had said.
“We’ll talk about it now,” Cole had said coldly, and, finally Jergen had obliged.
“Your brother was seeing somebody on the side,” he’d said bluntly. “Nobody faulted him for it. That wife of his was cold as ice. She never showed him the, uh, the warmth a man’s entitled to in a marriage.”
Jergen told him about the separate bedrooms, about the lack of outward affection between Faith and his brother. Ted’s housekeeper had found the situation appalling and hadn’t hesitated to describe it to practically everyone in town.
“That sister-in-law of yours is some piece of work,” Sam Jergen had continued. “Hooked your brother by getting him to think he’d put a bun in the oven.”
“You mean, she said she was pregnant?”
“Come on, Cole. You don’t think your brother would have married her otherwise, do you? Then, after she was elbow-deep in Cameron money, she showed him just what she thought of him.”
“He had her sign a prenup, didn’t he?”
Jergen had laughed. “Woman got him to the altar in the first place by doing away with your brother’s ability to think. No, there wasn’t a prenuptial agreement. Worse still, he wrote a will leaving her everything. Well, you get the house but all the rest is hers.”
“Wills can be broken,” Cole had said with grim determination.
He’d come to Liberty to do just that. He knew he shouldn’t have hated Ted for marrying Faith. She was the one; she’d played them both for fools and now, she thought it was payoff time.
No way.
Faith had never been fit to be Ted’s wife. She wasn’t fit to be his widow. And that meant she sure as hell wasn’t fit to claim a dime of Ted’s estate. He’d fight her for every penny, win and give it to charity. Burn it. Anything, rather than see his brother’s widow get her hands on the money—and she probably knew it. No wonder she’d fainted at the sight of him.
She was still lying on the couch where he’d put her, as limp as a rag doll.
Jergen’s secretary skidded into the conference room, holding a tall glass of iced water and a wet towel.
“Is there anything else I can do, Mr. Cameron?”
Cole shook his head. “The lady fainted, that’s all.”
“Shouldn’t she have come around by now?”
He squatted down beside the couch. He was wondering the same thing. Faith’s face was shockingly white; he could see the swift beat of her pulse in her throat. Sweat beaded on her forehead. He looked at the heavy black silk suit and the cream-colored blouse, and muttered an oath under his breath.
“Damned fool woman, to dress like a nun on a day as hot as this.”
Somewhere in the outer office, a telephone rang and rang. “The phone,” Jergen’s secretary blurted.
Faith moaned softly.
“She’s coming around now. Go on. Do whatever you have to do. I’ll deal with this.” Cole wiped Faith’s face with the wet cloth as Jergen’s secretary shut the door behind her. “Faith.” He leaned closer. “Faith, open your eyes.”
Color was stealing back into her face. Cole hesitated, then began unbuttoning her jacket. He undid the top buttons of the blouse, too. Then he slipped his arm beneath her shoulders, lifted her toward him and worked the jacket off. She sighed and her head fell against his shoulder.
He felt the whisper of her breath against his throat and suddenly he remembered the last time he’d held her like this. It was the night they’d made love. Afterward, she lay curled in the curve of his arm, her breath warming his skin.
Abruptly, he pulled his arm out from under her and she fell back against the cushions.
“Faith,” he said sharply, “come on, Faith. If this is for my benefit…”
Cole’s voice faded away. Why had he opened her jacket? The blouse clung damply to her flesh. He could see the soft, lacy outline of her bra. In the old days, her bras had been plain white cotton but then, she hadn’t needed adornment. She was all the adornment a man could take. The first time he’d un-hooked her bra, the roundness of her breasts, the soft pink of her nipples, had almost made him lose control.
All these years, and suddenly he could remember the feel of her silky flesh in his palms, the taste of it on his tongue…
Dammit.
Cole shot to his feet. What the hell was he doing? He’d hated this woman far longer than he’d wanted her. She’d lied, cheated, seduced him and then Ted. She was the reason his brother had died on a rain-slick road and yet here he was, remembering things that had been lies…and turning hard as a rock, just the same.
No wonder she’d trapped Ted in her web. He’d have been pathetically easy, smart when it came to books and numbers but naive about women, shy to the point of avoidance. What chance would the poor bastard have had when a woman with the face of an angel and the instincts of a whore turned her wiles on him?
“Faith,” he said sharply, and as he did, she opened her eyes. They were blank at first but when they focused on him he saw fear splinter in their blue depths. She was right to be afraid, Cole thought, and shot her a quick, mocking smile. “Nice to see you again, baby. But you didn’t have to give me such a memorable welcome.”
Faith struggled to sit up. She moved too fast and the color began to seep from her face. Cole eased her back against the cushions. He didn’t want her to faint again. How could he enjoy what was coming if she ended up playing the scene like a heroine in a Victorian melodrama?
“Take it easy or you’ll black out again.”
“Black out?”
Her voice was small and shaky. Another minute, she’d have him feeling sorry for her.
“Yeah.” He took the glass from the table and handed it to her. “Black out, as in faint. Here. Drink this.”
“What is it?” she said, giving the liquid a wary look.
“Water.” Another quick smile that wasn’t quite a smile curved his mouth. “Arsenic’s too easy to trace.”
Anger flickered across her face like heat lightning and disappeared as quickly. She took the glass and drank half of the contents.
“Thank you,” she said stiffly.
“Don’t thank me, thank Sam’s secretary.” Cole folded his arms. “Do you want a doctor?”
Faith shook her head. A mistake, she knew, as soon as she did it. The room whirled but she sat up anyway, swung her feet to the floor and put the glass on the table.
“I’m fine,” she lied.
“There’s a damp towel, too, if you want it.”
“I said, I’m fine.”
She wasn’t. And she didn’t want a damp towel, she wanted to get on her feet. Cole would still tower over her but at least that would take away some of his advantage. She just didn’t know if she could manage that without falling down again—and yet, why was she so surprised to see him? Her husband was dead. Cole hadn’t bothered returning for the funeral but this was different. This was all about the disposition of the Cameron estate.
A sense of unease inched the length of her spine. Would he fight her for the money? Ted had been convinced Cole wouldn’t want it. She didn’t want it, either. She’d told Ted that but he’d said that money belonged to Peter. To her son. Her son, and Cole’s…
Cole’s son.
Oh, God.
She’d stopped thinking of Peter that way years ago, but here was a walking, talking reminder of the truth. She saw a copy of her son’s eyes in Cole’s face, the same hair falling over Cole’s forehead. Her son was only a little boy but already, he held his head the way Cole did. And there was the same tiny indentation in his chin, that same fullness to his mouth…
“Put your head down.”
“I’m—I’m fine.”
“The hell you are,” Cole said sharply. “Put your head down and take a couple of deep breaths.”
Gradually, the room stopped spinning. She lifted her head slowly. Cole was squatting in front of her, his hands cupping her shoulders.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.” She pulled back. “What are you doing here, Cole?”
Slowly, he rose to his feet. “Making women swoon at the sight of me,” he said, with a cool smile.
“It’s the heat.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what happens when you wear black on a hot day. Or am I supposed to think you’re in mourning for my brother?” His mouth thinned. “The way I hear it, you wore pink to his funeral.”
“What would you know about it? You didn’t even bother coming home.”
“I didn’t know Ted was—that there’d been an accident until weeks after it happened.”
“No, of course not.”
“It’s the truth, dammit! I was in the field and…”
And Jergen’s message had to find him, first, but why tell that to Faith? He didn’t owe her anything but what she deserved.
“…and whatever scheme you were up to then was more important.” Faith stood up. The floor tilted slightly and she gave herself time to recover by smoothing down her skirt. “Not that it matters now.”
“Oh, it matters.” Cole folded his arms over his chest. “After all, today’s payoff time.”
“Payoff time?”
“Sure. Finding out how much the Cameron estate is worth.” His smile was all teeth. “Big doings, huh, baby?”
“And that’s the reason you showed up, isn’t it? To stake your claim?”
“Yes. Exactly. I’m here to claim what’s mine.” He let his eyes move over her with slow insolence. “You might want to button your jacket before we meet with Sam Jergen.”
She looked down at herself, then at him. He saw the soft rush of pink rise to her cheeks and he gave her a slow, knowing smile.
“I opened it after you passed out. You were warm. Warm, and wet.” Deliberately, he dropped his voice to a whisper. “That’s what you were always best at, baby. Being warm and wet for me.”
She bunched her hands into fists and he knew she wanted to hit him but she wasn’t a fool. This was her big moment. Faith wasn’t going to show what she was all about this morning. He saw her fingers shake as she closed the buttons but when she spoke, she sounded calm.
“It’s difficult to believe you and Ted were brothers. He was a gentleman.”
“That’s why you were able to fool him into marrying you.”
The cool facade dented. “I didn’t fool him into anything.”
“Sure you did.” Cole caught her wrist as she started past him. “I’d never have fallen for that trick.”
“Let go of me, please.”
“It’s the oldest game in the world.”
“Let go, Cole.”
“Telling a man he’s made you pregnant—”
Faith swung toward him. “That’s not the way it was!”
“—and after he’s done the right thing, married you and given you his name, you bat your eyes and say, whoops, sorry, I made a minor miscalculation—”
“What?”
“But Ted was a good guy. He was too decent to say, okay, the joke’s over and I want a divorce.”
She stared at Cole in amazement. Yes, she’d made Ted promise not to tell Cole about her child but was it possible he still didn’t know?
“‘Pregnant? Let me see a lab test,’ another guy would have said, but not Ted. How’d you work it, Faith? It couldn’t have been easy, first luring him into bed, then making him think you were having his baby—”
“Damn you! You know it all, don’t you?” Her voice trembled with rage; her eyes glittered with it. “But that’s not the way it was. I didn’t…” Faith stopped herself in midsentence. Why tell him more than she had to? “He said—he wanted to marry me.”
Cole’s hand tightened on her wrist. “What’d you think, huh? That maybe my old man would change his mind about a slut like you if he thought Ted was going to give him a grandson?”
“Let go of me!”
“You can’t run away, Faith. Not yet.” Cole grinned. “It’s payoff time, remember? The will. Don’t you want to know what you’re getting?”
She wrenched her hand free and this time he let her. “I hate to disappoint you,” she said softly, “but I already know. Ted told me.”
“Did he,” he said, but she knew it wasn’t a question.
“I never wanted the Cameron money.”
“Of course not.” Cole’s eyes narrowed. “Money wasn’t why you married my brother.”
I married your brother because I was pregnant with your child. The words were on the tip of her tongue but Cole would never know that. He never had to know she had a child at all. All she had to do was get through the next hour. He’d leave Liberty and she’d never have to see him again.
“Believe what you like,” she said. “It doesn’t matter to me. Nothing about you matters to me. I came here to see Sam Jergen, not to be insulted.”
Cole could feel his anger growing. She was playing at being a lady. She looked the part, even sounded it, but he knew exactly what she was.
“Damn you,” he growled, grabbing her shoulders and pushing her back against the wall. “The worst part of this is trying to figure out how the hell Ted and I could have been such fools.”
“Take your hands off me!”
“There was a time you wanted my hands all over you.”
“Stop it.”
“What’s the problem, baby? Don’t you like being reminded of how things used to be?”
“You—you bastard!”
Cole laughed. “Scratch the surface and find the truth. The lady bit is only skin deep.”
“Let go of me. Let go, or so help me, I’ll—”
“What? What will you do?”
His hands slid from her shoulders to her wrists. She winced and he knew he was hurting her but he didn’t care. She’d hurt him far worse, not that it mattered anymore. He’d been over her for a long time, purged himself of the memory of her scent and taste in the arms of a hundred other women. What he couldn’t get past was knowing that she’d made him hate his brother for so many years, and for what? There wasn’t a way in hell she’d ever been worth the pain she’d caused.
“What did you figure, Faith? That maybe, if you were lucky, I’d never come back? That way, you’d get it all. The name, the money…”
She was crying now, tears he knew were supposed to melt his heart and turn him to clay in her hands. She’d wept in his arms that night he’d made love to her.
“Don’t, sweetheart,” he’d whispered, feeling clumsy and helpless, afraid he’d hurt her, and she’d kissed him and said she was crying because she was so happy, because of how it felt to belong to him, at last.
“I didn’t want any of it. Not the name, not the money…”
“Sure you didn’t.” Cole clasped her face, forced it up to his. “You married my brother because you fell head over heels in love with him. Oh, yeah. I’ll just bet you did.”
“I told you. I don’t give a damn what you believe—”
“Did you sleep with him right away? Or did you tease him, the way you teased me?” He gave a quick laugh. “You were some actress, baby. You had me thinking that waiting was my idea, not yours.”
“I was a fool to have gotten involved with you. Everybody said you were no good. I should have believed them!”
“That’s why you and I made such a good pair. Neither of us was worth a damn.”
“I hate you, Cole Cameron. And I’m glad you came back because I’ve waited years and years to tell you that. I hate you, hate you, hate—”
Cole drove his hands into her hair, knotted the silky curls in his fingers. “That’s not what you said that last night.”
“Don’t do this. Don’t—”
“‘Touch me,’ you said. ‘Kiss me,’ you said. ‘Make love to me,’ you said—”
“I was young.” She was panting now, struggling wildly against him, conscious of the hardness and strength of his body, of his scent, his heat. “And I was foolish. I thought you were special, that you—”
“You thought I was your ticket out. Tell me, were you really a virgin, Faith? Or was it all make-believe, the way you blushed as I undressed you, the way you trembled in my arms?”
“I wish I’d never met you. I wish—”
“You were good, I’ll give you that.” His arms went around her and he pulled her tightly against him so that she could feel what she’d done to him. It was her fault that even the memory of that night could still turn him hard as stone. “You on your back, me inside you—” His gaze dropped to her parted lips, then lifted to her eyes. “Do you remember, Faith? How it felt when I moved against you? How it was to taste yourself on my mouth?”
A sob broke from her throat. “I hope there’s a special place in hell for you.”
“There probably is. And you can bet you’ll be there with me.” His hands tightened in her hair and he urged her head up. “Faith,” he said thickly, and suddenly it was that night all over again, he could feel the need twisting inside him, feel the heat building in his blood…
Dammit! What was he doing? Cole let go of her, swung away, opened the door—and almost walked into Sam Jergen.
“There you are,” the lawyer said. “You folks all right? My secretary said…” His voice faded as he looked from Cole to Faith. “Well,” he said, and cleared his throat, “maybe we ought to take a break for a minute or two.”
“No,” Cole said.
“No,” Faith said, in the same breath. “Just get this over with.” She turned toward Jergen. Her heart felt as if it were trying to beat its way out of her breast but she forced a polite smile to her lips. “You should have told me we weren’t going to be meeting alone.”
“The will concerns you both, Mrs. Cameron. I thought it would save time if we discussed the provisions together.”
“Discuss them, then, but this is all a technicality. I’m familiar with the terms of my late husband’s will.”
“I see.” Jergen ran a finger under his collar. “All its terms?”
“Of course.”
The lawyer heaved a relieved sigh. “Well, that disposes of that. But there are other factors…”
“What other factors?” She thought of Peter, waiting at home. “I have things to do.”
“What she means,” Cole said lazily, “is she wants to know exactly how much she inherits.” He smiled. “Am I right?”
“Okay. That’s it.” Faith headed toward the door. She knew she was making a mistake, letting her emotions take over, but too much was happening. The shock of seeing Cole again. The anger he could still stir in her. His conceit in thinking he could still make her respond to him…and the horror of knowing that maybe, oh maybe, he was right. “Seeing us together may have suited you, Mr. Jergen, but I don’t want any part of it. You can call me when you’re free.”
“From bereaved widow to outraged client.” Cole clapped his hands in slow cadence. “What a performance.”
She whirled toward him. “Listen, you no good son of a—”
“Mrs. Cameron. Mr. Cameron.” Jergen held up his hands. “Please. Calm down.”
“The lady’s in a hurry, Sam.” Cole looked at Faith. He was still smiling, but what she saw in his eyes made her breath catch. “So let’s cut to the bottom line. Hold off on counting your money, baby.”
“You’re insulting, do you know that?”
“You’re not getting it. Not one penny.” He folded his arms, rocked back a little on his heels. “I intend to fight my brother’s will in court.”
Faith stared at the man she’d once thought she loved, the man she hated with every bone in her body. You don’t have to fight it, she wanted to say. You can have the money, every cent…But there was Peter to consider, and the new life she had to make for him.
“Mr. Jergen?” she said softly, her eyes locked to Cole’s face. “Can he do that?”
“He can do whatever he wishes, Mrs. Cameron. But—”
“Forget the ‘but,’ Jergen.” Cole unfolded his arms and came slowly toward her. She wanted to back away but she knew what a mistake it would be to show him any sign of weakness. “I’m going to fight it, and I don’t care if it means the estate is tied up in litigation forever. That would suit me just fine. Watching you spend whatever money you already stole on court battles for the next umpteen years would be a pleasure.”
“Mr. Cameron. Please. If you’d let me speak—”
“Jergen, when I want your legal advice…” Cole let out a breath. “All right. What is it?”
The lawyer looked from one of them to the other. “There’s nothing to fight in court,” he said softly. “What I’ve been trying to tell you is that there isn’t any money left to inherit.”
CHAPTER THREE
FAITH stared at Sam Jergen. He had his finger inside his shirt collar again and from the look on his face, she knew he wanted to be anywhere but in this office.
“I don’t understand,” she said carefully. “What do you mean, there’s no money?”
“I mean exactly what I said, Mrs. Cameron. The money is gone. Well, unless you want to count maybe two thousand dollars that’s in your husband’s checking account…”
“That’s impossible!” Cole’s voice was whip-sharp. “You’ve made a mistake.”
“I wish I had. Unfortunately, the facts speak for themselves.” Jergen lifted a large file box from the floor and placed it on the conference table. “Here are all Ted’s bank and brokerage statements. I’ve been through them I don’t know how many times, alone at first and then with an accountant. Your brother’s accountant, in fact. You’re more than welcome to have your people go through the documents, too.”
Faith looked at Cole. His people? As stunned as she was, that almost made her laugh. Such a lofty phrase for a man who’d left town on a motorcycle and had probably returned on the bus, and never mind the expensive-looking suit. For all she knew, he’d talked some woman into buying it for him. Those were the only “people” he’d have dancing attendance on him.
“They can work here,” Jergen said, holding out his arms in a gesture that made it clear he was offering the entire suite of offices. “Naturally, I’ll put my staff at your disposal.”
“Yes,” Cole said. His voice was low, filled with authority as well as warning. “You will. But I want answers now.”
The lawyer’s string tie rode up and down as he swallowed. “Well, it’s a complicated story, sir…”
“Simplify it, then.” Cole’s smile was quick and chill. “You can do that, can’t you?”
Jergen blanched. “Yes. Certainly, sir.”
Sir? Faith looked from one man to the other. What was going on here? She was the sole beneficiary to Ted’s estate but Sam Jergen was treating Cole with deference and ignoring her. That was how it had gone since he’d entered the office.
“Unless you know the answer, my sweet sister-in-law.”
It took a few seconds before she realized Cole was talking to her. She looked at him. “Answer to what?” She blinked. “Are you asking me about the money?”
He leaned toward her, that chilly smile angling across his mouth again, and slapped his hands down on either side of the file box. The sounds, flat as gunshots, startled her, and she jerked back.
“That’s right,” he said softly, “I’m asking you, Faith. What happened?”
“How would I know? Ted handled the accounts. I didn’t have anything to do with those things.”
“You make it sound as if you weren’t interested in ‘those things,’ but we both know how wrong that is.” Cole narrowed his eyes at her. “You’ve had plenty of time to get your hands on my brother’s funds.”
“Are you accusing me of theft?”
“I’m accusing you of being one clever piece of work, baby. If you’ve been playing games with Ted’s money—”
“Your money. Isn’t that what you mean? You just said you were going to fight me in court.”
“Damn right, as soon as I figure out how you did this.”
“Well,” Jergen said cautiously, “that’s not exactly—”
“Stay out of this, Jergen. This is a private matter.”
“But—but…” Jergen cleared his throat. “You’re wrong, sir. Mrs. Cameron had no involvement in what happened.”
Cole stood up straight and folded his arms over his chest. “Prove it.”
“If you’ll just look at this…” The lawyer plucked a folder from the file case. Cole snatched it from him and began reading.
“I’m the one you should explain things to,” Faith started to say, but when she saw the look that transformed Cole’s face, her anger faded. “What is that?” she said softly.
Cole shook his head, went on reading. Then, slowly, he raised his head and stared at the attorney.
“What the hell…?”
“I know,” Jergen muttered. “Incredible, isn’t it?”
“What?” Faith said. “What’s incredible?”
Neither man answered. Jergen folded his hands behind him and rose up and down on his toes. Cole walked to the window and tilted the folder into the sunlight, as if that might help him make better sense out of the pages inside it.
“Why?” He swung toward the lawyer. “Jergen? Explain it to me.”
“I can’t, sir. All I can do is show you the dates and the figures but if you mean, explain how your brother got himself into such a mess…I can’t do that.”
“What are you talking about?” Faith stared from one man to the other. She knew they’d all but forgotten her existence just as she knew that whatever was happening in this office threatened all her dreams for Peter’s happiness. “What’s in that folder, Mr. Jergen?”
“It’s rather complicated, Mrs. Cameron. All you need to know is—”
“All you need to know,” she said calmly, even though she was trembling inside, “is that taking that tone with me is a mistake. I am your client. You work for me, not for Cole Cameron, or have you forgotten that?” She strode to Cole and grabbed the folder. She expected resistance but he let her take it, even smiled a little when she did.
“Read it and weep, baby.”
She opened the folder and stared blindly at the first page. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Cole hitch a hip onto the window ledge and fold his arms. He looked amused, as if what was about to happen would be entertaining. She wanted to fling something in his arrogant face. Everything in her yearned to tell him what he could do with the folder as well as the money but that was her pride whispering in her ear and pride meant nothing. It hadn’t, not for years.
Peter was the only thing that mattered. Thinking of him, concentrating on how much she loved him, gave her the focus she needed. Faith stared at the page until it stopped being a blur. Columns of numbers jumped out at her. Purchases. Sales. Balances. It went on for page after page, the balances getting smaller and smaller, the accounts closing down. Finally, she looked up, seeking help from Jergen, but Cole had moved. He was standing directly in front of her, and his frigid eyes locked onto hers.
“Cole?” She held the papers out toward him. Her hand trembled. “What is this?”
“Your future,” he said, almost gently. “Look at the last line.”
She did. Total balance, seven hundred eighty-two dollars and…
“Those are your assets, darling.” His voice was a purr. “The payoff. Not quite what you’d been expecting, is it?”
He was standing too close, invading her space. She knew it was deliberate, that he meant to throw her off balance, and he was succeeding. She didn’t like having him so near, didn’t want to smell the scent of his cologne, something elusive that went with the expensive suit. Tiny lines radiated out from the corners of his eyes. The years had bruised him, as she knew they’d bruised her. She was worn down by gossip, exhausted by deceitful slurs but he—he had become harder and more dangerously masculine than ever, watching her with a little smile she longed to slap from his face.
A chill raced through her blood. She took a step back and fought to keep her tone steady.
“I’d like an explanation, Mr. Jergen. Is this supposed to be all that remains of my husband’s estate?”
“Late husband,” Cole said. “Ted’s not around to play your games anymore.”
“Mr. Jergen,” Faith said, ignoring Cole, “surely there are other assets. What happened to them?”
“It’s complicated.” Jergen patted her arm. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Faith—”
“Then simplify it,” she said, jerking away from him. “And please remember that my name is Mrs. Cameron.”
She heard Cole laugh but she didn’t care. She was tired of being patronized and she kept her eyes on the lawyer until he flushed.
“As you wish, Mrs. Cameron. In brief, your husband lost everything in the market.”
“What market? Stocks, you mean? But Ted wasn’t a gambler.”
“No. He was a prudent investor—at least, he was until a couple of years ago. Then he began buying technology IPOs. Initial public offerings, Mrs. Cameron, in a sector where people were making fortunes overnight.”
“Go on.” Faith folded her arms. Maybe that would keep anyone from noticing that her heart was trying to pound its way out of her chest. “He invested lots of money and made lots of money. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, if your stocks keep escalating in value, or if you sell out in time. Your late husband made some errors in judgment. His stocks fell, but he kept buying. I suppose he thought he’d recoup. And—”
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