Triplets Under The Tree

“Technically, no. When you were declared dead, it passed to your heirs.”

“You mean Vanessa’s?” Seemed as if his wife’s sister had made out pretty well after the plane crash. “Are you the only heir? Because I’m not dead and I want my money back.”

It was the only way he could launch a search for the other two missing passengers.

“Oh.” She stared at him, her sea-glass-blue eyes wide with guilt and a myriad of other emotions he suddenly wished to understand.

Because looking into her eyes made him feel something. Something good and beautiful and he didn’t want to stop drowning in her gaze.

“You don’t remember, do you?” she asked. “Oh, my gosh. I’ve been rambling and you don’t even know about the babies.”

Blood rushed from his head so fast, his ears popped.

“Babies?” he croaked. Surely she didn’t mean babies, plural, as in more than one? As in his babies?

“Triplets.” She shot him a misty smile that heightened her ethereal beauty. Which he wished he could appreciate, but there was no way, not with the bomb she’d just dropped. “And by some miracle, they still have a father. You. Would you like to meet them?”

“I...” A father. He had children? Three of them, apparently. “They’re really mine?” Stupid question, but this was beyond—he shook his head. “How old are they? Do they remember me?”

“Oh, no, they weren’t born yet when you went to Thailand.”

He frowned. “But you said Vanessa died in the plane crash. Is she not their mother?”

Had he cheated on his wife with another woman? Catholic-school lessons from his youth blasted through his mind instantly. Infidelity was wrong.

“She’s not,” Caitlyn refuted definitively. “I am.”

Guilt and shame cramped his gut as he eyed Caitlyn. He’d cheated on his wife with his sister-in-law? The thought was reprehensible.

But it explained the instant visceral reaction he had to her.

Her delicate, refined beauty didn’t match the obvious lushness of the redhead he’d married. Maybe that was the point. He really preferred a dark-haired, more classically attractive woman like Caitlyn if he’d fathered children with her.

“Were we having an affair?” he asked bluntly. And would he have a serious fight to regain control of his money now that his mistress had her hooks into it?

Pink spread across her cheeks in a gorgeous blush, and a foreign heaviness filled his chest, spreading to heat his lower half. Though he couldn’t recall having made love to her before, he had no trouble recognizing the raw, carnal attraction to Caitlyn. Obviously, she was precisely the woman he preferred, judging by his body’s unfiltered reaction.

“Of course not!” She wouldn’t meet his gaze, and her blush deepened. “You were married to my sister and I would never—well, I mean, I did meet you first and, okay, maybe I thought about...but then I introduced you to Vanessa. That was that. You were hers. Not that I blame you—”

“Caitlyn.”

Her name alone caused that strange fullness in his chest. He’d like to say it again. Whisper it to her as he learned what she tasted like.

She glanced up, finally silenced, and he would very much like to understand why her self-conscious babbling had caused the corners of his mouth to turn up. It was evident from the way she nervously twisted her fingers together that she had no concept of how to lie. They’d never been involved. He’d stake his life on it.

He cleared his raspy throat. “How did the children come to be, then?”

“Oh. I was your surrogate. Yours and Vanessa’s. The children are a hundred percent your DNA, grown in my womb.” She wrinkled her nose. “That sounds so scientific. Vanessa couldn’t conceive, so I volunteered to carry the baby. Granted, I didn’t know three eggs were going to take.”

She laughed and he somehow found the energy to be charmed by her light spirit. “So Vanessa and I, we were happy?”

If only he could remember her. Remember if they’d laughed together as he vaguely sensed that lovers should. Had they dreamed together of the babies on the way, planning for their family? Had she cried out in her last moments, grief stricken that she’d never hold her children?

“Madly in love.” Caitlyn sighed happily. “It was a grand story. Falco and the Vixen. The media adored you guys. I’ll go ask Brigitte, the au pair, to bring down the babies.”

Reality overwhelmed him.

“Wait.” Panicked all of a sudden, he clamped down on her arm before she could rise. “I can’t... They don’t know me.”

He was a father. But so far from a father, he couldn’t fathom the idea of three helpless infants under his care. What if he broke one? What if he scared them? How did you handle a baby? How did you handle three?

“Five minutes,” she said calmly. “Say hello. See them and count their fingers and toes. Then I’ll have Brigitte take them away. They’ll get used to you, I promise.”

But would he get used to them? “Five minutes. And then I’d like to clean up. Eat.”

Breathe. Get his bearings. Figure out how to be Antonio Cavallari again before he had to figure out how to be Antonio Cavallari plus three.

“Of course. I’m sorry, I should have thought of that.” Dismay curved her mouth downward.

“There is no protocol when the dead come back to life,” he countered drily and smiled. Apparently he’d found a sense of humor along with his home.

His head spun as Caitlyn disappeared upstairs to retrieve the babies and Brigitte, whoever that was. A few minutes later, she returned, followed by a young blonde girl pushing a three-seated carriage. Everything faded away as he saw his children.

Three little heads rested against the cushions, with three sets of eyes and three mouths. Wonder and awe crushed his heart as he drank in the sight of these creatures he’d had a hand in creating.

“They’re really mine?” he whispered.

“Really, really,” Caitlyn confirmed at normal volume, her tone slightly amused.

She picked up the one from the first seat and held him in the crook of her arm, angling the baby to face him. The blue outfit meant this was his son, didn’t it?

“This is Leon.” Her mouth quirked. “He’s named after my father. I guess it’s too late to ask if that’s okay, but I thought it was a nice tribute to Vanessa’s role in his heritage.”

“It’s fine.”

Antonio was still whispering, but his voice caught in his throat and he couldn’t have uttered another sound as his son mewled like a hungry cat, his gaze sharp and bright as he cocked his head as if contemplating the secrets of the universe.

His son. Leon.

Such a simple concept, procreating. People did it every day in all corners of the world. Wilipo had fourteen children and as far as Antonio could tell, never thought it particularly miraculous.

But it was.

This little person with the short baby-fine red hair was his child.

“You can say hello,” Caitlyn reminded him.

“Hello.” His son didn’t acknowledge that Antonio had spoken, preferring to bury his head in Caitlyn’s shoulder. Had he said the wrong thing? Maybe his voice was too scratchy.