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"My problem?" She laughed. "He's my son. I love him. Is that beyond you to comprehend?"
"I considered throwing you into the street," Cole said calmly. "It's where you belong. But I can see that the boy loves you. And that you love him, in your own way. So I'm going to let you stay around, Faith. You can continue to be his mother."
"You're crazy." Faith whirled away and from him. "You aren't God! You can't `let' me continue to be my son's-"
"I'll do whatever is best for my brother's child." Cole turned her toward him. "I don't just have money. I have friends. Powerful friends. They'd all agree that you're unfit to raise Peter."
"You're bluffing," she said breathlessly. "You couldn't-"
"You think so?" He smiled tightly. "Then call my bluff. See which of us comes out the winner. Me-or the woman who slept with me, then with my brother. Who got what she wanted and then drove my brother into another woman's arms.,
"You don't know how ridiculous that is!"
"Ted died on the road to Atlanta. The whole town knows why he was there, Faith, that you'd denied him the pleasure of your bed."
Faith laughed. She couldn't help it. Nothing was funny but the laughter rose in her throat in one long hysterical wave and burst free. Cole's eyes turned to chips of green ice.
"Go on. Laugh. But I promise, you'll lose the boy...unless you cooperate."
"Ah." She twisted free of his hands. "Here we go. The big bribe. `Sleep with me, Faith, and I won't take your child from you.' Did I get that right?"
"Not quite." Cole's eyes locked onto hers. "I'm not asking you to sleep with me, baby. I'm telling you that you're going to become my wife."
CHAPTER SEVEN
FAITH looked at him as if he'd just told her he believed in flying saucers.
Cole cursed himself for being a fool. He'd intended to lead up to the idea, not drop it on her all at once.
He'd spent the past hours trying to figure out what to do about Peter. Offer to pay the boy's tuition at some classy boarding school? That would get him away from Faith's influence, all right, but the thought of sending such a little kid off to face the unknown made him uneasy. He wanted to help the boy, not hurt him.
He'd considered moving Faith and Peter out of Liberty to a place where he could keep an eye on them. New York, maybe, where his main offices were located. He'd find them an apartment, pay the bills, get the boy into a good private day school. Then he'd thought about the things Faith might do to fill her time. He'd phoned Jergen, who said she hadn't taken any lovers he'd heard of, but in a big city, without a man to ride herd on her, who knew what she'd do? Not that he gave a damn, personally. It was Peter who mattered, and he didn't want Peter raised in such an atmosphere.
Still, he had to do something. It was too late to walk up to Ted, put his arms around him and say he was sorry for the years of cold silence. There were times he thought his brother had been the only reason he'd made it through the first eighteen years of life. Ted had always been there for him. He could be there now, for Ted's kid. But how?
He'd sat in that bar, drinking beer, trying and trying to come up with a solution when some guy, already half in the bag, climbed onto the next stool and started whining about the difficulties of keeping a woman in line.
"A man's got to be on his toes," the guy had said, knocking back a whiskey. "Can't trust a woman to do the right thing unless he's watchin' her twenty-four hours a day. Can't even trust her to do the right thing with a kid."
That was when he began thinking about taking Peter away from Faith and raising the kid himself. What were the chances a court would let him do that? Zero to none, probably, but he had an office full of high-priced legal talent on retainer. Let the lawyers earn their bread wrestling with the problem. Not that a court battle would really provide a solution. The boy would still be living with his mother. She'd be his primary influence.
"Men ain't go no rights anymore," the guy on the next stool grumbled. "And thass dead wrong. A boy needs his dad to keep an eye on things."
"Yeah," Cole had agreed, even though his old man being around hadn't done him any good. But it didn't have to be that way. Ted had influenced Peter. You could see it in the way the boy behaved. He was a nice kid. But those days were over. Faith was in charge, now. Faith, not the boy's father. Not the boy's paternal flesh and blood.
It all added up. Peter needed a father. Faith needed a man to straighten things out in her life. Who could do any of it better than he? He shared Peter's blood. He knew Faith was a scheming bitch behind that angelic exterior.
Cole had tossed a ten-dollar bill on the bar, clapped the guy beside him on the back and told him to have the next one on him. He'd gotten into the Jag and while he drove to the house, he'd told himself there had to be some other way-and then he'd listened to Faith talk about Peter's life...
