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
