had never been a person who argued. She had spent her life being accommodating. She had spent her girlhood trying to please a man who could not be pleased and jumping to do his will in the rare moments when he even noticed her. She had never had anything or anyone who truly belonged to her in any real sense. So yes, she had donated her eggs to Trish and been happy to do so. Chloe was worth the hurt of knowing she could never call the little girl her own. But now here was this man, trying to stare her down, trying to force her yet again to give in and be good, to do the easy thing as she had always done.
Somewhere there was a child, a baby, who through accident had come from her body, Jackie thought. A child she would never even have the chance to see the way she saw Chloe.
She stared up at Steven Rollins.
“You think you have the right to do this.”
For a moment his eyelids flickered. Then it was as if his whole body turned to steel. “I know I have the right. Suzy is mine. You didn’t even know about her. I didn’t have to come here.”
Jackie studied the rigid line of his jaw. “But you would have had to live with the fear that someday I might find out.”
“Yes.” He bit the word off, and she understood that it was hard for him to admit as much to her. It was obvious that his child meant a great deal to him.
“How old?”
“What?” A muscle twitched in his jaw. He shook his head.
“How old is…is Suzy?”
He hesitated, as if even sharing that much was too much. “She’s one.”
“A baby. Still a baby.” With all the things that came with a baby—smiles and giggles and soft skin and a baby powder scent. Unconditional love and acceptance of those who cared for her. Sweetness. Innocence. A child who wouldn’t exist if not for those eggs she had donated. A part of herself. Jackie almost closed her eyes, the longing was so overwhelming.
“You’ll sign?” Steven Rollins’s strong voice broke into her thoughts and she looked at him. For a moment she thought she saw a flash of fear and pain in his eyes.
He had lived with his baby for a whole year. She was precious to him. She was, in fact, his and his alone. Suzy Rollins was out of reach for the woman who had unwittingly helped to give her life. Suzy would never know Jackie, and that was the way it had to be.
An unexpected pain sliced through Jackie. She knew she had to sign the papers. And she would.
“Have you come far? Where do you live?”
“I don’t see how that has anything to do with anything.”
“Please.” Her voice caught, and she hated that sign of weakness. She’d spent so much time learning to disguise her weaknesses.
But Steven Rollins seemed to soften at her tone. “I live on a ranch. Around Claxton.”
“Not that far.”
“No.”
A tiny hope filled Jackie’s soul. “I understand why you want me to sign, Mr. Rollins. I would do the same.” To have to share a loved one could be horrible and very difficult. “I don’t expect you to share your daughter with a stranger, especially one who didn’t even know of her existence before today.”
The man relaxed even more. A small smile turned his face heartbreakingly handsome, making Jackie’s breathing kick up a notch. No doubt he’d had a beautiful wife.
“Thank you, Ms. Hammond. You’ll sign then?” He held out his hand, a conciliatory gesture.
“Yes, but I have a condition.”
Immediately his hand stilled. He pulled back. “What kind of a condition?”
“I want to meet her.”
“What do you mean, you want to meet her?”
His tone was thunderous. Jackie should have been shaking in her shoes. Under other circumstances, she would have been, but for some reason she wasn’t as scared of Steven Rollins as she should have been. Maybe because he seemed to genuinely care for his daughter.
And the truth was that she wasn’t completely sure what she had meant by her words. She just knew that she did mean them. She had given up one child, and it had been much more difficult than she could ever have believed possible. Never once had she gotten to hold that baby as if it were her own. But fate and happenstance had combined to give her one more chance.
Jackie wanted that chance desperately.
“I meant what I said, Mr. Rollins. You just told me that your daughter was conceived from eggs that came from my body. There’s a part of me in her. That’s something I don’t take lightly. I’m not asking to be a lasting part of her life, you understand. I know there’s no possibility of that, but I…I just can’t sign a paper and never once have a glimpse of her. I want the chance to see her.”
“Impossible. You can’t do it.”
Oh, she had heard those words so many times in her life. And she had often believed them.
But this time a child was involved.
“I can do it, Mr. Rollins.”
He studied her carefully, slowly, maddeningly. Jackie almost held her breath as his gaze drifted over her, as if looking for flaws, missing nothing. She felt suddenly awkward and naked in her boxy gray suit. In that moment he was a man looking over a woman. And she was a woman reacting in the most physical way, her body and skin prickling with heightened awareness, Jackie was horrified to realize. No doubt the man was merely trying to intimidate her. And so, with great difficulty, she managed to sidestep her body’s reaction.
“We’ll see about your demands,” he finally said. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
Jackie was pretty sure that he was going to come back armed with plenty of legal advice. And he would look her over again.
The legal advice didn’t scare her…too much. The look—she didn’t want to think about that look—was too intimate.
“I’ll let you know my terms then,” she agreed. “I’ll have them in writing.”
He gave her a curt nod. She almost missed the look that lurked in the back of his eyes, but just before he turned, she saw it. Fear?
She held out her hand to his retreating back. She should just leave it alone.
“Mr. Rollins?”
He turned on one heel.
“I’m assuming it will take a certain amount of money to make you go away,” he told her with an unmistakable trace of derision.
Slowly she shook her head. “I’m not interested in money. And I don’t mean to be difficult, but I can’t just leave this alone. We’re talking about a child. A baby.”
“I know,” he said. His voice was tight, the emotion
