Page 100 of Secret Triplets for Christmas

I also want you to know that I love you. I have loved you practically since the moment I met you. The guilt of betraying my brother, especially after the night we made love, was why I left. It was wrong, and I'm sorry.

I wonder if things had been different, if there would've been a place for you and me and the girls in this world. The four of you have done well without me, and I know that you will continue to do well.

I imagine you're going to feel like I've abandoned you again, but it's the only way I can keep you all safe, keep you away from the ugliness of my and Liam's lives.

Love always,

Oliver

Anger boileddeep in my gut. I crumpled up the paper.

"Is there a problem?" my father asked as he came back into the room. Mira followed him with Grayson.

"He's leaving again. After everything, he's leaving again."

My father frowned and Miranda stopped. “Grayson, go get your jammies on. I’ll be right there.” Grayson headed down the hall while Mira came over next to my dad. "What's wrong?"

"Oliver just wrote me a letter saying he's leaving us for our own good. Can you believe that?"

Miranda arched a brow. "Are you going to let him do that?"

What else could I do?

Miranda patted my father on the shoulder. "I bet you if you asked nicely, your dad would let you borrow his keys."

Of course. I had to go to him. I jumped up. "Can I, Dad?" If I were lucky, Oliver wasn't already on a plane heading back to California.

"What about the girls?" my father asked.

"You said you're staying here tonight. You can stay with them."

"It's the middle of the night, Lindsay."

"You’re the one who told me love was worth fighting for."

Twenty minutes later,I was at Oliver's hotel door, banging on it. It took a minute, but he finally opened it. The man looked exhausted and completely gutted. While part of me wanted to hug him, I let the anger lead as I muscled my way into his room.

I tossed the wadded-up letter at him. "What do you think you're doing?"

He let out a long sigh, trudging back to the living area of his suite and sagging onto the couch. "I told you. I'm leaving."

"You can't meet your daughters and then abandon them. I get it that you don't love me. Which, by the way, I wish you would stop saying. You didn't love me back then and you don't now. But your daughters—"

He looked up at me with heat in his eyes. "Don't tell me what I feel. Everything I said in that letter was true. I loved you. I still love you. But I’m bad for you and I'm bad for the girls."

"None of this is your fault, Oliver. It's Donovan's and Darcy’s fault. Even Liam's, but not yours."

He rubbed his hands over his face. I couldn't remember ever seeing anyone who looked so despondent.

"Do you know why Donovan and Darcy are dead?"

I shook my head. "No, but I don't care. If they were the ones behind all this, if they're the ones who took my baby, I don't care."

"They're dead because someone else in the crew killed them. Killed them and took the papers."

"So? They've got the papers. They have no reason to bother us."

"They do if the FBI is going to open a case. "

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