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.”
