“Don’t look now,” she said to David out of the side of her mouth, “but your harem is curious.”
He laughed as he ushered her into his private office and closed the door. “That’s what Jenna calls them, too. I call ’em my bodyguards. I feel very safe when they’re around.”
“They keep the wild women away from you, huh?”
He grinned. “They won’t even let me do surgery on one. They send the wild ones to my partners. I get the old farts and battleaxes.”
Her heart lightened to see him so basically unchanged. She could understand his office staff being protective of him; David was one of the good guys. She knew beyond a shadow of doubt that he was completely faithful to his wife, that no flirtatious nurse or patient had a chance with him, because she knew him. He threw himself heart and soul into his work and into his family. Whatever wonderful happened in his life, he deserved it.
There was a small grouping of photographs on his desk. Knowing what she’d see, she walked around to look at them. One was of a pretty redhead with an infectious grin, who had to be Jenna because there was another candid photo of the same woman and David with their arms around each other, hamming it up for the camera. There was a small heart-shaped frame that contained a photo of a plump toddler with smooth, shiny hair, holding a doll by its hair and looking like a little doll herself in a long lace dress. Another shot was of Jenna holding a baby and looking radiant, and Milla assumed that was their newest addition. “They’re gorgeous,” she said honestly, and she smiled because she was happy for him. “What are their names?”
“The little princess is Cameron Rose, called Cammy, and the baby is William Gage. We plan to call him Liam, but he hasn’t quite grown into the name yet. For some reason, Cammy calls him Dot.”
Milla snorted with laughter; then, while she was still smiling, she couldn’t hold it in any longer and said, “I found him. I found Justin.”
David’s legs visibly wobbled, and he sat down hard in one of his visitors chairs. He stared at her, pale with shock and unable to say anything. Slowly, tears welled in his eyes and trickled down his cheeks. His lips trembled and he finally choked out, “You’re sure?”
Milla bit her lower lip, fighting her own tears, and nodded. “We broke the smuggling ring. The woman who falsified the birth certificates kept detailed records, I suppose for either protection or blackmail.”
“Is he—” He gulped and fought back a sob, but his voice was thin and shaky as he asked the parent’s universal question: “Is he okay?”
Milla nodded again; then David lunged toward her and somehow they were clinging to each other as they both wept, his body heaving with sobs. She tried to comfort him, patting his shoulder, his hair, saying, “It’s okay. He’s fine. He’s safe,” but she was crying, too, so she didn’t know how much he understood of what she was trying to say. Then he did what she’d done, and burst into uncontrolled laughter. He alternated between laughter and sobs, swinging her around, releasing her to wipe his face, then grabbing her again.
“I can’t believe it,” he kept saying. “My God. All these years . . .”
Finally Milla pulled herself away from him. “I have pictures,” she said, fumbling with her briefcase in her eagerness to show him. “I took them yesterday.”
She pulled out the snapshots she’d taken, and handed them to David. He looked at the first one and froze, his expression that of a starving man as he stared at his son. His hands were trembling as he looked at each photograph in turn, then went through them again. Delight began breaking through, like the sun on a stormy day. “He looks like me,” he said triumphantly.
She burst out laughing at such blatant maleness. “Dummy, he’s always looked like you, from the day he was born. Don’t you remember what Susanna—” She broke off abruptly, remembering that he didn’t know about Susanna.
He was still staring at the pictures. “She said I’d cloned myself.”
“She was in on it,” Milla blurted.
David looked up, shocked. “What?”
“She’s the one who told the smugglers about Justin, and that I went to the market several days a week. They were waiting for me. They had an order for a blond baby boy.”
“But . . . why?” His voice was full of bewilderment that a woman he had considered a friend would do such a thing.
“Money,” Milla said bitterly. “It was all about money.”
His right hand tightened into a fist. “The fucking bitch. There was a reward! I’d have given her everything I had to get him back!”
“The reward didn’t come near matching what they’d charged the adoptive parents for him.”
“He was sold? What kind of people would buy a baby they knew was—”
“They didn’t know,” Milla said quickly. “Don’t blame them. They were totally in the dark.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the lawyer who brokered the deal didn’t know. It was a slick operation, with falsified birth certificates and legal documents from the fake mothers. The people who adopted the babies all thought it was legal.”
“Where is he?” David asked. “Who adopted him?”
“Their names are Lee and Rhonda Winborn. They live in Charlotte, North Carolina. I’ve checked them out, and they’re good people. Honest, upstanding. They named him Zachary.”
“His name is Justin,” David said fiercely. Still clutching the pictures, he sat down at his desk and looked at them again, examining every detail of Justin’s face. “I didn’t believe you’d ever find him,” he said absently, as if to himself. “I thought you were breaking your heart in a worthless cause.”