Roarke's Kingdom

by Sandra Marton

  Her tears made his face a blur, but she could see him looking at her, waiting as if for some special message. Then, slowly, he put the papers into the envelope and jammed it into his pocket.

  “Goodbye, Jennifer,” he said hoarsely.

  She nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

  He was at the door when she saw the check still lying on the floor.

  “Wait,” she cried as she snatched it up and went after him.

  Roarke turned quickly. “What is it?”

  She held out her hand. “You forgot this.”

  He looked from the check to her face.

  “Too late,” he said. “You signed the agreement; I’m not going to up the price now.”

  “I don’t want your money.”

  His hands knotted into fists. “If you’re thinking of fighting that document, I assure you it’s legal and binding.”

  “Your attorneys would know more about that than I would. I’m only telling you that I never sold my daughter in the first place, and I’m not about to do it now.”

  “Jesus. You almost sound as if that’s true.”

  “It is true.”

  His mouth twisted. “All right, let’s have it all out in the open. You don’t want money? What, then? Stocks? Property in the islands? What is it you want?”

  What did she want?

  It was such a simple question, but the answer to it was beyond possibility.

  She wanted everything.

  Her pride.

  Her child.

  And, most of all, Roarke’s love.

  A miracle. That was what she wanted.

  Jennifer’s glance slipped past Roarke to the window and the flowers nodding on the ledge outside.

  The flowers had endured despite the fate predicted for them. But that had not been a miracle.

  It had been survival.

  She was a survivor too. Hadn’t she proved that time and time again? She’d lost Roarke. Lost her child. Maybe she could, at least, recover her honor.

  “Well?” Roarke was watching her impatiently, his hands on his hips. “What is it you want now?”

  She took a steadying breath. “I want my self-respect,” she said quietly.

  He laughed. “Amazing. You’re just full of touching sentiments today.” His face hardened. “I can’t help you. You gave that up when you gave away your child.”

  “No.” She snapped out the word, hurling it at him like a stone. “I never gave her away, not the way you mean. I loved my baby despite the fact that I—I despised her father.”

  His expression darkened. “I’m not really interested in hearing about your tawdry little affair. You did what you did, and you paid the price.”

  “Yes.” Her eyes met his. “I did. I was—I was just a fool, that’s all. I thought Craig cared for me when all he wanted was to use me.”

  Roarke’s eyes were cold; for a second, she wanted to retreat into silence and let him walk off without hearing the rest. But she had gone too far to stop now. She turned slowly and walked to the window. Maybe if she didn’t have to watch the hatred in his eyes she could summon the strength to finish what she’d begun.

  “I was raped,” she said flatly. “Date-raped, I guess you’d call it. When I found out I was pregnant…” She paused, fought for control. “My mother was sick. She was dying. I was all she had. How could I tell her that I was repeating the pattern of her own life?”

  “What a story,” Roarke said sarcastically. “You ought to write it up and sell it to Hollywood.”

  “And there was the child I was carrying to consider. I had no money. No future. What could I offer her? I’d been raised like that. No father. A mother who spent her days scraping by. I didn’t want to condemn my baby to that kind of existence.”

  “What you mean is, you realized you were carrying valuable cargo.”

  Jennifer spun around. He had come up close behind her.

  “Damn you,” she sobbed. Her hand flew through the air and she slapped him. He caught her wrist and she hissed and struggled against his grasp. “You don’t understand anything. You have no idea what it’s like to live in the real world and to have to make decisions you know will haunt you forever.”

  “That sounds good, but how about the truth? Ronald offered the perfect out. You could tell yourself you were doing the right thing while you picked up more money than you’d ever dreamed of.”

  “You idiot!” Jennifer’s voice shook, not with despair but with anger. “I told you, I never even knew money changed hands until Alexandra told me. That was between her and Dr. Ronald.”

  His face bore a look of cool disbelief. She jerked her hand from his. She wanted to slap him again, but what good would it do? Instead, she tore the check in half. In half again. She kept tearing it until the tiny pieces lay on the floor like flakes of snow.

  “There,” she said fiercely. “That’s what I think of your money, Roarke Campbell. And if you don’t believe me, you can—you—”

  Sobs burst from her throat. She buried her face in her hands, weeping as she had not permitted herself to weep since she’d left him.

  “If you didn’t want money from me, why did you come to Puerto Rico?” His hands clasped hers, pulling them away from her face. “And why did you worm your way into my life if not to blackmail me?”

  “I told you. I came because I was going crazy wondering if my baby was all right. I didn’t even know Susanna was mine until you told me the story of her birth that last night.”

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  “At this point, I don’t give a damn what you believe! Ask Dr. Ronald. Or ask Alexandra—if you can ever get her to speak the truth.”

  “It’s going to be tough to ask her anything. I sent her packing half an hour after you left Isla de la Pantera.”

  “But I thought—”

  “You thought wrong. And now that I know the truth about Susanna, I don’t plan on ever seeing Alexandra again.” His gaze swept over Jennifer’s face. “All right,” he said slowly, “let’s assume, for the moment, that you came to Puerto Rico only to see Susanna. How were you going to manage that?”

  “I knew where the man who’d adopted her worked. I figured I’d find him, follow him home and—and at least get a glimpse of his wife. And of my—my baby.”

  In the silence, she heard the rasp of Roarke’s indrawn breath.

  “So you came to Campbell Enterprises looking for me?”

  “Not for you. I mean, yes, for you. But I thought you were someone else. I’d hired a private detective and he gave me a photo of a man who wore glasses, who had thinning hair…”

  “Tennyson,” he said, “my comptroller.”

  “I was shocked when you told me you were Roarke Campbell. By the time we reached Isla de la Pantera, I was sure I was on a wild-goose chase.” She swallowed dryly. “And then I saw Susu.”

  “And you saw a resemblance.” Roarke’s voice roughened. “I saw it, but I thought it was just—just some special magic that you and Susu should both have soft dark curls and eyes like bits of the sky.”

  “I didn’t see it, no. At least, I didn’t let myself see it.” Her voice softened. “But I had to be sure, so I asked Constancia if Susu was yours—”

  “And she said she was.”

  Jennifer nodded. “Susanna was yours. I had no reason to think otherwise. But I fell in love with Susanna anyway, just because—because she’s Susanna. And somewhere along the way, I decided it had been wrong for me to go looking for my baby. I had no right to search for her, or even to—to ache for her…”

  Roarke clasped her her shoulders. “Giving her up must have been agony,” he said softly.

  “There’s no way to describe it. But I didn’t see any choice. The life I could have given her, my mother’s illness…” She shook her head. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

  His arms closed around her.

  She told herself not to react.

  Then he whispered her name. “Jen,” he
said softly.

  No one else had ever called her that and somehow the sound of his special name for her, the feel of his embrace, were her undoing.

  She began to weep.

  He groaned, brought her head to his chest and stroked her hair.

  “Don’t,” he whispered. “Sweetheart, don’t cry.”

  “When you told me where and when Susanna was born, I knew I had to tell you the truth.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I started to. Endless times, but I kept—I kept losing courage. And then that night, in San Juan. You told me about Susanna’s birth. I knew I had to tell you then—but Constancia phoned. She said Alexandra was on the island.”

  “And you decided you’d lost your chance to tell me the truth.”

  Jennifer nodded.

  “I confronted Alexandra. She admitted what she’d done and then she said Go on, tell Roarke everything—but she knew I couldn’t, even though it would have ended her hold on you.”

  “Because you didn’t want to hurt Susanna.”

  “It was partly that, but by then I knew you well enough to be sure you wouldn’t have turned away from Susanna if you knew the truth. It was—it was what the truth might have done to you. I couldn’t put that kind of knife in your heart.”

  Roarke smiled a little. “It did hurt, at first. But then I thought, hell, biology isn’t the only thing that makes for parenthood. Even I’m not fool enough to think that.”

  “Then—your love for Susu hasn’t changed?”

  “I told you it hadn’t.” He hesitated, then cupped her face and raised it until he was looking into her eyes. “I love her even more.”

  “Yes. You said you did. I’m so glad—”

  “Don’t you want to know why?” He smiled as he traced the outline of her mouth with his thumb. “I love her even more,” he said softly, “because she’s a part of you.”

  Jennifer stated at him, wanting to believe him.

  Afraid to believe him.

  “I love you,” Roarke said. “I’ve never stopped loving you.”

  “How?” she whispered, her eyes searching his. “How could you love me when you thought—when you believed me capable of—”

  “Forgive me for that.” He kissed her eyelids, her temples, her mouth. “I don’t think I ever believed it, not in my heart. No matter what Alexandra told me, what Ronald said, my heart kept reminding me of what I really knew about you, that you were generous and loving and kind. The trouble is, I’m not a man who’s used to listening to his heart. You changed that, sweetheart. You changed everything about me.” He kissed her again, his mouth lingering on hers. “Tell me you love me still,” he said. “Tell me I didn’t kill your love when I sent you away that night.”

  “You broke my heart,” she said, with the honesty he adored. “But I still loved you. I’ll always love you. Always.”

  He silenced her again with a long, sweet kiss. Then he took the envelope that held the waiver she’d signed.

  “There’s just one problem. This document…”

  “I told you I’d never try and take Susu from you. Don’t you believe me?”

  “That’s the point, sweetheart. I do believe you—but you’re her mother.” He frowned, but there was a glint in his eyes. “And I’m her father. There has to be a different kind of document, something that would ensure that each of us plays an equal role in our little girl’s life.”

  Jennifer held her breath. “Is there a document like that?” she said softly.

  Roarke grinned as tore the envelope in half. “It’s called a marriage license.” His grin faded. “Marry me,” he said softly. “Be my wife as well as Susanna’s mother.”

  A warm summer breeze drifted through the open window over the pansies’ soft velvet petals. Jennifer saw their heads dip as if in agreement and her heart swelled with joy.

  “Jen. Will you be my wife?”

  She laughed. “Yes,” she said, looping her arms around Roarke’s neck, “oh, yes, yes, yes.”

  “We’ll get married in San Juan. There’s a beautiful place on the beach—”

  “Can we get married on Isla de la Pantera? Would you be happy with that?”

  “I’ll be happy with anything, sweetheart, as long as you’re beside me.”

  Jennifer smiled. “Always,” she whispered.

  The pansies smiled too.

  If they could have spoken, they’d have said that they’d always believed in happy endings.

  About the Author

  Sandra Marton is a multi-award winning, USA Today Bestselling author with millions of books in print all around the world.

  Sandra’s fans have always loved her stories of billionaires who have no idea they’re looking for love…until they find it. The book you’ve just read, Roarke’s Kingdom—revised and rewritten in this brand new edition—was a bestseller in the USA and abroad.

  Sandra’s latest books are not always about billionaires, but they’re definitely always about strong, sexy, gorgeous Alpha heroes and the independent-minded women who know how to tame them.

  The Wilde Sisters:

  The Prince of Pleasure (prequel to The Wildes)

  Emily: Sex & Sensibility

  Jaimie: Fire & Ice

  Lissa: Sugar & Spice

  In Wilde Country:

  Two Hot Novellas (Wilde by Choice and On the Wilde Side)

  Pride

  Passion

  And readers just can’t get enough of Sandra’s latest, steamiest series

  S.T.U.D. (Special Tactical Units Division)

  Power, Book One

  Privilege, Book Two

  And coming this summer, Renegade

  You can find out more about Sandra and her books by visiting her website.

  She’d love to see you there!

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  About the Author