Page 8 of The Billionaire's Instant Triplets

Tristan tilted his laptop partially closed and got to his feet. As he walked down the hall and through the dining room to the kitchen, he couldn’t help noticing that the house was still eerily silent. Worry began to creep in — until he heard a soft rumble of voices from the living room. He peered around the corner and spotted Ria on the couch, the triplets tucked under blankets on either side of her. They were watching, rapt, as she read aloud from an oversized picture book with a drawing of a duck in rain boots on the front.

“And then,” Ria read, her voice soft and melodic and completely captivating to the children, “Mr. Duck said…”

“Quack, quack, quack!” the toddlers chorused eagerly.

“That’s right!” Ria smiled down at them. “Then Mr. Duck got hungry. He waddled to the store, waddle, waddle, waddle. He waddled right through a puddle! Mr. Duck looked down at his boots and said…”

“Quack, quack, quack!”

“Exactly!”

Tristan ducked back into the dining room as Ria read on. He had the strange feeling that he’d intruded on a private moment, even though this was his home, and the triplets were his niece and nephews — and his kids. Something about the way Ria’s hair had escaped from behind her ear as she’d turned the page and the way her eyes had lit up with joy when the toddlers replied with the appropriate duck sound had caught in Tristan’s chest. And the triplets had looked so peaceful…

They were definitely better off with Ria while he worked. He wouldn’t bother them.

He slipped into the kitchen, where he grabbed one of his packaged kale salads and a protein shake. On the way back to his office, he was tempted to poke his head into the living room again to see if Ria and the triplets were still reading, but he didn’t. Tristan had work to do. Lots of it. It was better that he left Ria to her job.

For the rest of the evening, Tristan sat in his office, working, his noise-canceling headphones firmly on his ears. A few times, he was tempted to look out again to see what was going on, but since Ria hadn’t come to bang on his door demanding that he explain why his children were so unruly and none of the triplets had come crying to find him, Tristan had to assume that it was going well. The best thing he could do for himself and for the kids was to work, make sure his company stayed afloat, and slowly get their lives back on track.

Tristan kept working, focused and without stopping for more than a quick cup of matcha, until he heard the crash.

CHAPTER5

RIA

“And this little piggy went home!” Ria gently tapped Jamie’s littlest toe, and the boy broke into peals of laughter as though Ria had just told the world’s funniest joke. That was what Ria loved about this age. They might cry easily, but they laughed easily, too.

The triplets were sitting in their high chairs, waiting for the soup Ria had made to cool enough for them to eat it. To keep them entertained, she’d removed their socks and was going through each triplet one by one, singing a song about five little piggies and tapping their tiny toes.

The first hour or so with the triplets had been a mess. She’d had her hands more than full trying to keep the three of them entertained, get them changed, and feed them lunch. And she’d been more than a little annoyed with Tristan for running off before he’d even told her the kids’ names.

Yet eventually, Ria had gotten on top of things, as she always did. After that, the afternoon had gone by in a blur. The triplets had eaten their lunch (grilled cheese sandwiches and apples, no fancy French cooking required), taken naps, played with their toys, done some coloring, run around the yard to burn off energy, done makeshift sensory stations with buckets of water on the front porch, and were now happily awaiting their dinner.

Sure, the house was strewn with toys and there had been a few tears (only from the kids, so far), but everything was under control. The more time Ria spent with these kids, the more she liked them. They were adorable, funny, playful, and clearly very attached to each other. Jamie seemed like the leader of the group and often tried to cause mischief to make his siblings laugh. Jacob and Jasmine were quieter, but Ria could already tell that they had unique personalities as well.

The more time Ria spent with them, the more she also saw how badly this little family needed her. The triplets still weren’t potty-trained, as far as she could tell, even though it was high time to start. They had little in the way of a routine. And they seemed more hyperactive and prone to tears than most kids their age, which could be a sign that they were having trouble adjusting to something.

The timer Ria had set on her phone went off, and she went to dish up bowls of the pea soup she’d made for the triplets’ dinner. She added bread to each bowl then set the dishes on each child’s tray. They dug in enthusiastically, with about half the soup making it into their mouths and the other half falling to the floor, smearing across their cheeks, or landing in their hair. Ria laughed as Jasmine put a dot of soup in the center of her forehead and grinned at Ria as though she was a comedian on stage. Ria grinned back.

The kids were so friendly — and so different from their father, based on the brief, confusing, rather unsatisfying meeting she’d had with him. As the day wore on, Ria kept expecting Tristan to turn up, his urgent meeting finished, with an apologetic smile. Yet he didn’t make an appearance, even for the triplets’ dinner.

After dinner, she considered going to find him. He would surely know that his kids were about to go to sleep. Wouldn’t he? Yet Ria didn’t know where his office was, or if he was even still at home. It was enough of a struggle to find the bathroom upstairs, where she ran water, added some bubbles and bath toys, and plopped each of the joyfully wiggling toddlers into the tub. Soon, they were splashing happily, covered in soap. Ria sang them a few songs, tickled their tummies, and blew bubbles onto their little heads before rinsing them each clean and wrapping them in matching towels.

“Stowy?” Jacob asked hopefully. Already, Ria was more able to tell them apart — the kids looked very similar, but Jacob tended to be a little more reserved, while Jamie was always “on.” As the only girl, Jasmine was, of course, the easiest to identify.

“Of course,” Ria told him, toweling him off.

Jamie jumped into a rambling monologue that was part baby talk, part English, and part wild gestures. He seemed to be describing a story about a squirrel that he wanted to read tonight, but it was hard to be sure. Ria listened patiently as she toweled the other two kids off.

“Let’s find your bedrooms, shall we?” she asked.

“Not sweepy.” Jasmine glared adorably, and Ria smiled.

“Good, because we aren’t sleeping yet. First we’ll have a story, then a song, then sleep.”

“Hmm.” Jasmine still didn’t look entirely pleased, but she wasn’t protesting, either.

Ria led the way down the hall, gently pushing open each door she passed. There was a neatly made guest bedroom, perhaps hers, a clearly lived-in bedroom with white sheets on a large bed that must be Tristan’s, a closet, and finally a bedroom with three small beds and a maelstrom of toys that must be the triplets’. Ria had spent most of the day with the kids either outside or in the downstairs playroom, so she hadn’t seen this room yet. The kids clearly had a lot of toys and no organization system, but that was a problem for tomorrow.

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