AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"Couldn't you sleep?" She came toward him, a beautiful witch who'd destroyed his brother's life and come within a heartbeat of doing the same thing to his. "I woke up and you were gone." She lay her hands against his naked chest, tipped her face up to him and smiled. "Come back to bed, darling."
Darling. Just a little while ago, he'd have given his soul to hear that word on her lips. Now he knew it for what it was, a lie like all her others, meant to chain everything that he was to her.
"Cole?" Her smile dimmed. "What's the matter?" "Why should anything be the matter?"
"I don't know. You just you look so strange..."
"You don't." He clasped her wrists, his fingers like manacles around them. "You look the same as you always do, Faith. Beautiful, innocent and guileless. So guileless."
"Cole." Her tongue snaked out, moistened her lips. She gave a quick little laugh. "You're scaring me."
"Am I?" He smiled thinly, tightened his grasp on her wrists. "I'll bet you weren't afraid of my brother."
"Of course not. Why would I have been afraid of Ted?" She tried to tug her hands free. "Cole, let go."
"He had to do the right thing," he said roughly. She winced; he knew his fingers must be biting into her wrists but he didn't give a damn. "Was that his idea, Faith? Or is that what you told him?"
"Told who?" She grimaced. "You're hurting me." "No, baby. Hurting people is your thing, not mine." "Dammit, what is this?"
"What a pathetic pair the Cameron brothers were, Faith. Both of us, drooling over you and almost tripping over our feet in our desperate rush to do the right thing."
Her face whitened. "What are you talking about?"
He jerked his head toward the desk. "I've been going through my brother's papers."
"Ted's..." She looked at the desk, then at him. "And and what did you find?"
He smiled tightly. "Oh, baby," he said softly, "you should see those eyes of yours. Big and beautiful-and terrified." He tugged her closer, ignoring the little cry she made. "I found it all, Faith, everything I needed to know the truth."
"The truth..."
She stared at him in horror. Possibilities tumbled through her mind. What had he found? A copy of Peter's birth certificate that Ted hadn't mentioned? A picture of Ted and-and someone else? She'd stumbled across a photo, once, innocent enough, of Ted and a man with their arms around each other's shoulders, but Ted had blushed and apologized and said it would never happen again. Would Cole know what he was looking at, even if he discovered such a picture?
"What truth?" she whispered.
"Come on, baby. The act is finished. I can almost see those wheels turning. What lie are you gonna come up with, now?"
Peter, she thought frantically, this had to be about Peter. Otherwise, why would Cole be looking at her with such hatred in his eyes?
"All right." She hesitated, trying to find a way to explain things to him. How desperate she'd been. How alone. "I swear, I was going to tell you. I just-I wanted to wait until the morning."
"Of course you did," Cole said silkily. "Morning's when the payoff was due. When I was going to phone my lawyer and tell him to rip up the prenup."
She jerked back as if he'd struck her. "How can you think that of me? I don't want your money. I told you that. I never wanted-"
"It must have been rough, thinking you'd landed a Cameron and then having him slip out of your greedy little fingers at the last minute."
Faith blinked. "What?"
"There you were, all ready for the big payoff."
"I don't understand-"
"Sure you do." Cole smiled. "You wanted a Cameron. Well hell, Faith, I wanted the trailer park queen."
Her face went white. "No. You said-you said you loved me..."
"A kid that age will say anything to get into a girl's pants." The pain in her eyes filled him with pleasure. It was long past time someone returned the favor, showed Faith Davenport what it was like to see your dreams ripped in pieces. "I'd been planning to leave Liberty for months." That lie came easily, too. "The morning after the prom seemed just right. The only thing was, I'd figured I'd have to work a little bit harder to get between your legs. Sort of a farewell present from you to me, you know?"
Faith had stopped struggling to free her hands. She stood very still, tears spilling from her eyes.
"Last night," she whispered, "last night you said-you said you loved me..."
"Sure. Can you think of an easier way to take that stupid prenup of yours and stuff it down your throat?" He grinned. "It's called revenge, Faith. Revenge for me, for my brother, for the woman who managed to make my brother happy despite you."
