Triplets Under The Tree. Kat Cantrell

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       One

      Los Angeles, California

      At precisely 4:47 a.m., Caitlyn bolted awake, as she did every morning. The babies had started sleeping through the night, thank the good Lord, but despite that, their feeding time had ingrained itself into her body in some kind of whacked-out mommy alarm clock.

      No one had warned her of that. Just as no one had warned her that triplets weren’t three times the effort and nail-biting worry of one baby, but more like a zillion times.

      But they also came with a zillion times the awe and adoration.

      Caitlyn picked up the video monitor from her nightstand and watched her darlings sleep in their individual cribs. Antonio Junior sighed and flopped a fist back and forth as if he knew his mother was watching, but Leon and Annabelle slept like rocks. It was a genetic trait they shared with Vanessa, their biological mother, along with her red hair. Antonio had hair the color of a starless night, like his father.

      And if he grew up to be half as hypnotically gorgeous as his father, she’d be beating the women off her son with a Louisville Slugger.

      No matter how hard she tried, Caitlyn couldn’t go back to sleep. Exhaustion was a condition she’d learned to live with and, maddeningly, it had nothing to do with how much sleep she got. Having fatherless eight-month-old triplets wreaked havoc on her sanity, and in the hours before dawn, all the questions and doubts and fears crowded into her mind.

      Should she be doing more to meet an eligible man? Like what? Hang out in bars wearing a vomit-stained shirt, where she could chat up a few victims. “Hey, baby, have you ever fantasized about going all night long with triplets? Because I’ve got a proposition for you!”

      No, the eligible men of Los Angeles were pretty safe from Caitlyn Hopewell, that was for sure. Even without the ready-made family, her relationship rules scared away most men: you didn’t sleep with a man unless you were in love and there was a ring on your finger. Period. It was an absolute that had carried her through college and into adulthood, especially as she’d witnessed what passed for her sister Vanessa’s criteria for getting naked with someone—he’d bought her jewelry or could get her further in her career. Caitlyn didn’t want that for herself. And that pretty much guaranteed she’d stay single.

      But how could she ever be enough for three children when, no matter how much she loved them, she wasn’t supposed to be their mother? When she’d agreed to be Vanessa’s surrogate, Caitlyn had planned on a nine-month commitment, not a lifetime. But fate had had different plans.

      Caitlyn rolled from the king-size bed she still hadn’t grown used to despite sleeping in it for over a year. Might as well get started on the day at—she squinted at her phone—6:05 a.m. Threading her dark mess of curls through a ponytail holder, she threw on some yoga pants and a top, determined to get in at least twenty minutes of Pilates before Leon awoke.

      She spread out her mat on the hardwood floor close to the glass wall overlooking the Malibu coastline, her favorite spot for tranquility. There was a full gym on the first floor of Antonio and Vanessa’s mansion, but she couldn’t bear to use it. Not yet. It had too much of Antonio stamped all over it, what with the mixed martial arts memorabilia hanging from the walls and the regulation ring in the center.

      One day she’d clean it out, but as much as she hated the reminders of Antonio, she couldn’t lose the priceless link to him. She hadn’t removed any of Vanessa’s things from the house, either, but had put a good bit away, where she couldn’t see it every day.

      Fifteen minutes later, her firstborn yowled through the monitor and Caitlyn dashed to the nursery across the hall from her bedroom before he woke up his brother and sister.

      “There’s my precious,” she crooned and scooped up the gorgeous little bundle from his crib.

      Like clockwork, he was always the first of the three to demand breakfast, and Caitlyn tried to spend alone time with each of her kids while feeding them. Brigitte, the babies’ au pair, thought she was certifiable for breast-feeding triplets, but Caitlyn didn’t mind. She loved bonding with the babies, and nobody ever saw her naked anyway; it was worth the potential hit to her figure to give the babies a leg up in the nutrition department.

      The morning passed in a blur of babies and baths, and just as Caitlyn was about to return a phone call to her lawyer that she’d missed somewhere along the way, someone pounded on the front door.

      Delivery guy, she hoped. She’d had to order a new car seat and it could not get here fast enough. Annabelle had christened hers in such a way that no bleach in existence could make it usable again and, honestly, Caitlyn had given up trying. There had to be some benefits to having custodial control of her children’s billion-dollar inheritance.

      “Brigitte? Can you get that?” Caitlyn called, but the girl didn’t respond. Probably dealing with one of the kids, which was what she got paid well to do.

      With СКАЧАТЬ