“Twice—No. Three times what you gave me the last time.”
He nodded. “I’ll write you a check. And then you’re leaving. I want you out of here, fast.”
“That’s fine with me. I’ll be gone first thing in the morning.” The glittering eyes swept from him to Jennifer, then back again. “I didn’t think you’d be caught by such a mouse,” she said with an ugly laugh. “But then, I never did understand your tastes, did I?”
Roarke strode into the library. He was back a couple of minutes later with a check in his hand. His ex took it, looked at it, then smiled.
“Thank you, darling. This should do me—for a while.”
Jennifer stood beside Roarke, watching as Alexandra Campbell climbed the stairs and vanished from view. Long minutes passed, and then Roarke turned to Jennifer and gathered her to him, holding her so tightly that she could barely breathe.
“You can’t imagine how I hate her,” he said.
Jennifer shuddered.
She could.
Except, if it were possible, she hated Alexandra even more.
* * *
Hours later, in the first moments of dawn, Jennifer sat up carefully in bed.
Roarke lay asleep beside her, his arm curved protectively across her hips. He had finally fallen asleep, but not even sleep had erased the deep furrows from between his brows.
She had not intended to share his bed, not with Alexandra in a room only a few doors down the hall. But Roarke’s need for her had burned in his eyes.
“Please, sweetheart,” he’d said. “I have to hold you tonight.”
How could she have denied him when being in his arms was what she ached for too?
And so she had gone to him willingly, curling tightly into his embrace, listening to the beat of his heart and the rasp of his breath until finally she’d felt his tension slip away.
But sleep had eluded her.
There was too much to think about, too much to anguish over, and now she rose quietly and slipped into his robe.
She had to think. To plan.
To decide what to do.
She stepped into the silent hallway and closed the door after her.
She, she alone, could wipe away the power Alexandra Campbell held over Roarke and Susanna.
All she had to do was tell Roarke the truth about his daughter, and his former wife’s hold on him would be eliminated forever.
And, at first, lying in the dark, safe in the shelter of her lover’s arms, Jennifer had been certain that was what she’d do.
Except—except if she did, she would break his heart.
In one horrendous moment, she would not only tell him the awful truth about herself, she would also destroy everything he’d believed in for the past years.
How could she tell him that the child he adored wasn’t his?
Jennifer padded barefoot s to the nursery.
There had to be an answer. Maybe, in the silence of Susu’s room, she could find it.