“I can do whatever I like. I thought you understood that.”
“And I think you overestimate your power over him.”
“My emotional hold on him, you mean?” Alexandra Campbell shrugged. “Maybe.” Her eyes flashed. “But I’m Susanna’s mother. That gives me very special power.” Her voice hardened like steel. “Legal power that no one can contest.”
Jennifer felt herself go cold. “How can you do this? Don’t you have any feelings for Roarke? For Susanna?”
The other woman’s eyes were frigid. “I want you out of this house within the hour. You have no place here. I am Roarke Campbell’s wife.”
“No. You are not. Not any more.”
“More to the point, I am Susanna’s mother.”
“You’re not that either.”
Jennifer’s voice was whip-sharp. Alexandra Campbell paled for an instant, but she recovered quickly.
“I hate to disappoint you, but a divorce does not undo motherhood.”
“You’re not her mother,” Jennifer said. “You never were.”
The other woman stared at her. A muscle ticked in her eyelid.
“What—what nonsense is this?”
“It’s the truth, and you and I know it. Susanna’s not your child. You—you bought her.”
The Campbell woman stepped back. “You’re crazy. Crazy! I definitely want you out of my house. I don’t want a lunatic taking care of my—”
“Your lies won’t work,” Jennifer said. Hot, angry tears rose in her eyes. “Not with me.”
“Listen here, Ms. Hamilton—”
“My name isn’t Hamilton. It’s Winters. Jennifer Winters. I gave birth to a little girl on January sixteenth two and a half years ago at seven-thirty in the evening at Women’s Hospital in Chicago.”
Alexandra Campbell turned white. “You’re a liar!”
“My doctor said he’d arranged for my baby to be adopted.” Jennifer’s voice broke. “But he sold her. He sold her. To you. You bought my daughter so you could convince Roarke to take you back.”
“No,” Roarke’s ex said, but her voice was paper-thin.
“We both know the truth. You bought my child. Bought her! As if—as is she were something you saw in a store and decided you could use.”
“Such a fantastic story. Only one problem. Nobody will believe it.”
“You can’t hide the truth. Too many people know. Me. The doctor who betrayed me and my baby. The hospital. And if it comes to that, DNA tests.” Jennifer took a shaky breath. “The scam is over, Ms. Campbell. You’ve lost.”
The blonde felt behind her for a chair and collapsed into it. “How did you—how did you find out? About who had adopted the child?”
The child. Jennifer trembled with fury. Alexandra couldn’t even pretend to think of Susanna as hers.
“I hired a detective. I wanted to see my baby. That’s why I came to Puerto Rico.”
“And you met Roarke how?”
“I—I went looking for him. I had his name. The name of the man who’d adopted my little girl…”
“And when you found him, your worked your way into his life.”