Page 56 of Silver Fox's Secret Triplets
"I didn't have a choice. A pediatrician came to examine Sammy—she thinks it's RSV, but we won't know for sure without tests." Ivy's voice cracked slightly. "I've been trying to keep his fever down, but it's been hours and nothing's working."
I watched her rock Elena gently, the automatic motion of a mother comforting her child. The little girl's eyes were heavy with sleep, but she kept glancing at me with wary curiosity.
Something shifted in her expression. "Duncan, I need to tell you something. I should have told you a long time ago."
My stomach clenched. Here it comes, I thought. The other shoe dropping. The secret she'd been keeping that would explain everything.
She walked to the bed and carefully placed Elena next to her siblings, tucking the blanket around her small form. When she turned back to me, her hands were shaking.
"The children," she started, then stopped. "They're mine. All three of them."
I felt the words hit me with stunning force, but I kept my expression neutral. "I can see that."
"No, Duncan. You don't understand." She wrapped her arms around herself, and I could see tears gathering in her eyes. "They're yours too."
The room went completely silent except for the sound of my own heartbeat roaring in my ears. I stared at her, waiting for the words to make sense, waiting for my brain to process what she'd just said.
"What did you say?"
"They're your children." The words came out in a rush now, as if she'd been holding them back for so long, they couldn't be contained anymore. "The night we were together, I got pregnant. I found out and I left Boston, and I was so scared and ashamed that I never told anyone. Not my parents, not you, not anyone."
I turned away from her, my legs carrying me to the hotel window without conscious thought. The city lights blurred together as I gripped the windowsill, my knuckles white with the force of my grip.
Three years. She'd been raising my children for three years, and I'd known nothing about it.
"Duncan, please say something," she whispered behind me.
I couldn't speak, couldn't think. Every interaction we'd had over the past six weeks was suddenly reframed in my mind. Every careful professional boundary we'd maintained. Every moment I'd wondered why she seemed so familiar, why I felt drawn to her in ways I couldn't explain.
The little boy on the bed coughed again, and I found myself really looking at him for the first time. Even flushed with fever, I could see the resemblance—the shape of his eyes, the stubborn set of his jaw. The same features I saw in the mirror every morning.
"How old are they?" I asked, my voice sounding strange and distant. It was more than three years ago that we were together. Almost four now… My brain just wouldn’t calculate the math.
"They just turned three in September."
Three years old. Three years of birthdays and first words and bedtime stories that I'd missed. Three years of her handling everything alone while I'd been none the wiser.
"Why didn't you tell me?" I turned back to face her, and she flinched at whatever she saw in my expression.
"I was twenty when it happened, Duncan. Twenty and terrified and convinced that you'd only stay with me out of pity or obligation." Tears were streaming down her face now. "I knew what people would say—that I was trying to trap you or get money from you. I couldn't bear the thought of you looking at me that way. The idea that I'd just be another scandal that dragged your name through the mud."
"So you decided to lie to me instead."
"I decided to protect them. And myself." Her voice grew stronger, more defiant. "I was barely more than a child myself, and I did what I thought was best."
I looked at the three sleeping figures on the bed, trying to reconcile this new reality with everything I thought I knew. These were my children. My blood. My responsibility. And I'd been completely absent from their lives.
"Do they know?" I asked.
She shook her head. "They're too young to understand. They know they don't have a daddy who lives with us, but they've never asked direct questions."
The weight of what she'd stolen from me was crushing. Not just the years with my children, but the choice to be their father. She'd made that decision for me, decided I wasn't worthy of knowing they existed.
"You lied to me every single day," I said, my voice low and controlled. "Every conversation we had, every meeting, every moment we spent together. You looked me in the eye and lied."
"I know." She was crying openly now, her shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs. "I know, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Duncan."
I felt something cold and familiar settling in my chest—the same feeling I'd had when Miranda had betrayed me, when I'd realized how thoroughly I'd been played. But this was worse. This was three years of deception, three children who should have known their father.
