His accusation hit a nerve. Erin winced. “You’re free. Jazzy’s free. There’s nothing to stop y’all from—”
“Big Mama would disown me if I married Jazzy. I’d have nothing. Not a dime to my name. I’d have to give up a fortune. I’m not willing to do that.”
“Then you don’t love Jazzy as much as you profess to love her.”
“What do you know about it? I love her. I’ve loved her since we were teenagers. And just because Big Mama is forcing me to marry Laura doesn’t mean I’m giving up Jazzy.”
“Did you spend the night with Jazzy?”
“I went by to see her.”
“And she turned you away.”
“You’re wrong. She didn’t…” With his mug surrounded by both hands, Jamie leaned forward and held it between his spread thighs. He glanced at Erin. “She didn’t let me stay, so I found a more willing lady, who shall remain nameless. After all, I don’t kiss and tell. You might want to remember that for future reference.”
“I don’t think so.”
Erin sipped on her coffee, finishing it off quickly. Why was Jamie really here? Why was he using her as a sounding board? As his mother confessor? It wasn’t as if they were friends. She didn’t even like him, and she wouldn’t give him the time of day if he wasn’t Jim’s grandson. Unless he was a complete fool—which he wasn’t—he had to know that she’d never have sex with him. Even if she wasn’t in love with Big Jim, she wouldn’t be crazy enough to become involved with Jamie. Any way you looked at it, he was bad news.
Jamie placed his cup on a coaster atop the cocktail table, then stood and went straight to Erin. Before she realized his intent, he dropped to his knees in front of her, grabbed her by the back of her neck and hauled her forward, just far enough to kiss her. He took her mouth demandingly. For a millisecond she froze, shocked by the unexpected assault. Then total awareness hit her. Her empty mug slipped out of her hand and hit the wooden floor with a splintering crash. She slipped her hand between their bodies and gave him a hard shove. He reeled backward and fell flat on his butt.
He looked up at her and grinned. “Now tell me that wasn’t better than what you get from the old man.”
“Your grandfather is twice the man you are—in every way. Now, get your sorry ass up off my floor and leave. I don’t know what sort of game you’re playing with me this morning, but I’m not interested. If I thought for one minute that I could help you…for Jim’s sake, I would. But I think you’re beyond help.”
Jamie jumped to his feet like a jack-in-the-box. “Walk me to the door, darlin’.”
“You know the way out.”
“How about a good-bye kiss?”
“How about getting the hell out of my sight?”
“Now, sweet thing, don’t be that way.”
“Leave. Now!”
He winked at her, then sauntered out of the living room. She followed him and stood several feet away as he opened the front door. Before he left, he turned to her and said, “I’m going to accidently mention to my grandfather that I was with you this morning, sharing coffee, kissing…”
“You bastard!”
“I’d like to be able to tell the old son of a bitch that I’d screwed you, but I can imply as much and he might believe me. After all, if he asks you if I was here this morning, you won’t lie to him, will you?”
Whistling as he walked toward his Mercedes, Jamie acted like a man who didn’t have a care in the world, as if there weren’t dozens of women who’d like to put a stake through his black heart. After getting inside the car, he lowered the window and blew Erin a kiss. As he backed out of the drive, she heard him laughing.
She should probably call Jim and tell him what had happened. Forewarn him. She wouldn’t even bother if it wasn’t for the fact that because of the difference in their ages, Jim wasn’t as confident about their relationship as she was. God damn it, she hated to relay this incident to Jim, knowing how upset he’d be with Jamie. The boy, who should have been Jim’s pride and joy, was an utter disappointment to him. A part of Erin wished she was still young enough to give Jim a child, even if at seventy-five he might not live to see the child grow up. But she was past the age of motherhood and Jim would probably laugh at the notion. Too bad he didn’t have other grandchildren, at least one worthy of a man like Big Jim Upton.
For about the hundredth time since she left Chattanooga at daybreak that morning, Reve Sorrell asked herself why the hell she was doing this. Why did she feel compelled to come to Cherokee Pointe in search of a woman she’d never met? It wasn’t as if she needed any more relatives. Since her mother died this past summer, cousins by the dozens had come out of the woodwork, all with an interest in the vast Sorrell fortune she’d inherited. One rather ungentlemanly cousin of her father’s had actually had the balls to sue her, on the grounds that she was only Spencer and Lesley Sorrell’s adopted child. The case had never gotten off the ground, since Reve’s lawyer had convinced her cousin’s lawyer that they’d be laughed out of court.
As she drove slowly along Main Street, she searched the faces of the citizens scurrying to and fro in the small downtown area. She had grown up in Chattanooga, a mid-size city, with just the right amount of hustle and bustle not to have remained a sleepy Southern town and yet not so large as to have lost its old-fashioned charm. She still lived in her parents’ home on Lookout Mountain, in an old and prestigious neighborhood. Although not the Sorrells’ biological child, she’d still been raised with their beliefs, traditions, and social snobbery. She was, in all but blood, a true Sorrell. And there wasn’t a day that went by she didn’t thank God for her good fortune.
As an infant of only weeks, she’d been blessed the day she was placed with the Sorrells. Her parents hadn’t told her she was adopted until she was six, and in the telling, they’d made her feel very special and greatly loved. When at fourteen she’d asked them a lot of questions about her true parentage, they swore they knew nothing about her birth parents. It wasn’t until she’d been awarded her bachelor’s degree from UT that her then widowed mother told her she’d been found in a Dumpster in Sevierville, thrown away like trash when she was little more than a newborn.
It wasn’t as if she had come to Cherokee Pointe today on a whim or that she’d simply taken Jamie Upton’s word that she had a look-alike in this small mountain town. She’d met Jamie at a Christmas party late last year when he’d been visiting friends in Chattanooga. He’d done his best to charm her, and he had almost succeeded. She’d found the man utterly irresistible.
But once she’d discovered that he’d been fascinated by her because she resembled his teenage sweetheart, her common sense kicked into play. And if there was one thing Reve Sorrell was known for, it was her common sense. Never a playgirl, always a serious student as well as an obedient daughter and a lady who had been accused by many men of being an ice queen, Reve prided herself on not allowing emotions to rule her. She was an admitted control freak. Of course, knowing Jamie Upton for the charming scoundrel he was didn’t mean she might not look him up while she was in the area. After all, hadn’t he invited her to come for a visit and stay with his family on their estate outside town?
“I know a girl who could be your twin,” Jamie had told her. “You should come to Cherokee Pointe and meet Jasmine. She’d get a kick of meeting her look-alike.”
Reve had hired a private investigation agency to compile a report on Jasmine Talbot. She and the woman were the same age, although their birthdays were almost a week apart; but then her parents hadn’t known her exact birth date. And Jazzy, as her friends called her, had been raised by an aunt, an old woman