Triplets Under The Tree

“I don’t remember you.” He cocked his head as if puzzled. “Did I sell you this house?”

She shook her head. “I...uh, live here with the owners.”

The Malibu mansion was actually part of the babies’ estate. She hadn’t wanted to move them from their parents’ house and, according to the terms of Vanessa’s and Antonio’s wills, Caitlyn got to make all the decisions for the children.

“I remember a red-haired woman. Beautiful.” His expression turned hard and slightly desperate. “Who is she?”

“Vanessa,” Caitlyn responded without thinking. She shouldn’t be so free with information. “Who are you?” she demanded.

“I don’t know,” he said between clenched teeth. “I remember flashes, incomplete pictures, and none of it makes sense. Tell me who I am.”

Oh, my God. “You don’t know who you are?” People didn’t really get amnesia the way they did in movies. Did they?

Hand to her mouth, she evaluated this dirty, disheveled man wearing simple cotton pants rolled at the ankles and a torn cotton shirt. It couldn’t be true. Antonio was dead.

If Antonio wasn’t dead, where had he been since the plane crash? If he’d really lost his memory, it could explain why he’d been missing all this time.

But not why he’d suddenly shown up over a year later. Maybe he was one of those con men who preyed on grieving family members, and loss of memory was a convenient out to avoid incriminatory questions that would prove his identity, yet he couldn’t answer.

But he’d known the Christmas tree was in the wrong place. What if he was telling the truth?

Her heart latched on to the idea and wouldn’t let go.

Because— Oh, goodness. She’d always been half in love with her sister’s husband and it all came rushing back. The guilt. The despondency at being passed over for the lush, gorgeous older Hopewell sister, the one who always got everything her heart desired. The covert sidelong glances at Antonio’s profile during family dinners. Fantasies about what it would be like if he’d married her instead of Vanessa. The secret thrill at carrying Antonio’s babies because Vanessa couldn’t, and harboring secret dreams of Antonio falling at her feet, begging Caitlyn to be the mother of his children instead.

Okay, and she’d had a few secret dreams that involved some...carnal scenarios, like how Antonio’s skin would feel against hers. What it would be like to kiss him. And love him in every sense of the word.

For the past six years, Caitlyn had lived with an almost biblical sense of shame, in a “thou shalt not covet thy sister’s husband” kind of way. But she couldn’t help it—Antonio had a wickedly sexy warrior’s body and an enigmatic, watchful gaze that sliced through her when he turned it in her direction. Oh, she had it bad, and she’d never fully reconciled because it was intertwined with guilt—maybe she’d wished her sister ill and that was why the plane had crashed.

The guilt crushed down on her anew.

Tersely, he shook his head and that was when she noticed the scar bisecting his temple, which forked up into his dark, shaggy hair. On second thought, this man looked nothing like Antonio. With hard lines around his mouth, he was sharper, more angular, with shadows in his dark eyes that spoke of nightmares better left unexplained.

“I can’t remem—you called me Antonio.” Something vulnerable welled up in his gaze and then he winced. “Antonio Cavallari. Tell me. Is that my name?”

She hadn’t mentioned Antonio’s last name.

He could have learned the name of her children’s father from anywhere. Los Angeles County tax records. From the millions of internet stories about the death of the former UFC champion and subsequent founder of the billion-dollar enterprise called Falco Fight Club after his career ended. Vanessa had had her own share of fame as an actress, playing the home-wrecking vixen everyone loved to hate on a popular nighttime drama. Her red hair had been part of her trademark look, and when she’d died, the internet had exploded with the news. Her sister’s picture popped up now and again even a year later, so knowing about the color of Vanessa’s hair wasn’t terribly conclusive, either.

He could have pumped the next-door neighbor for information, for that matter.

Caitlyn refused to put her children in danger under any circumstances.

Sweeping him with a glance, she took as much of his measure as she could. But there was no calculation. No suggestion of shrewdness. Just confusion and a hint of the man who’d married her sister six years ago.

“Yes. Antonio Cavallari.” Her eyelids fluttered closed for a beat. What if she was wrong? What if she just wanted him to be Antonio for all the wrong reasons and became the victim of an elaborate fraud? Or worse—the victim of assault?

All at once, he sagged against the door frame, babbling in a foreign language. Stricken, she stared at him. She’d never heard Antonio speak anything other than English.

Her stomach clenched. Blood tests. Dental records. Doctors’ exams. There had to be a thousand ways to prove someone’s identity. But what was she supposed to do? Tell him to come back with proof?

Then his face went white and he pitched to his knees with a feeble curse, landing heavily on the woven welcome mat.

It was a fitting condemnation. Welcoming, she was not.

Throat tight with concern, she blurted out, “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“Tired. Hungry,” he stated simply, eyes closed and head lolling to one side. “I walked from the docks.”

“The docks?” Her eyes went wide. “The ones near Long Beach? That’s, like, fifty miles!”

“No identification,” he said hoarsely. “No money.”

The man couldn’t even stand and, good grief, Caitlyn had certainly spent enough time in the company of actors to spot one—his weakened state was real.

“Come inside,” she told him before she thought better of it. “Rest. And drink some water. Then we can sort this out.”

It wasn’t as if she was alone. Brigitte and Rosa, the housekeeper, were both upstairs. He might be Antonio, but that didn’t make him automatically harmless, and who knew what his mental state was? But if he couldn’t stand, he couldn’t threaten anyone, let alone three women armed with cell phones and easy access to Francesco’s top-dollar chef’s knives.

He didn’t even seem to register that she’d spoken, let alone acknowledge what he’d surely been after the whole time—an invitation inside. For a man who could be trying to scam her, he certainly wasn’t chomping at the bit to gain entrance to her home.

Hesitating, she wondered if she should help him to his feet, but the thought of touching him had her hyperventilating. Either he was a strange man, or he was a most familiar one, and neither one gave her an ounce of comfort. Heat feathered across her cheeks as her chaste sensibilities warred with the practicality of helping someone in need.

He swayed and nearly toppled over, forcing her decision.

No way around it. She knelt and grabbed his arm, then slung it across her shoulders. The weight was strange and, oddly, a little exhilarating. The touch of a man was alien, though, no doubt—she hadn’t gone on a date in over two years. Her mind went blank as he slumped against her.

Looping her own arm around his waist, she pushed up with her legs, grateful for the core strength she’d developed through rigorous Pilates, both before and after the babies were born.

Gracious. He smelled like three-day-old fish and other pungencies she hesitated to identify—and she’d have sworn babies produced the worst stench in the world.

The man hobbled along with her across the threshold, thankfully revived enough to do so under his own power. When she paused in front of the pristine eggshell-colored suede sofa in the formal living area, he immediately dropped vertically onto the cushions without hesitation. Groaning, he covered his eyes with his arm.

“Water,” he murmured and lay still as death.

And now for the second dilemma. Leave him unattended while she fetched a glassful from the wet bar across the foyer in Antonio’s study? It wasn’t that far, and she was being silly worrying about a near comatose man posing some sort of threat. She dashed across the marble at breakneck pace, filled the glass at the small stainless-steel sink and dashed back without spilling it, thankfully.

“Here it is,” she said to alert him she’d returned.

The arm over his eyes moved up, sweeping the long, shaggy mane away from his forehead. Blearily he peered at her through bloodshot eyes, and without the hair obscuring his face, he looked totally different. Exactly like Antonio, the man she’d secretly studied, pined over, fantasized about for years. She gasped.

“I won’t hurt you,” he muttered as he sat up, pain etching deeper lines into his face. “Just want water.”

She handed it to him, unable to tear her gaze from his face, even as chunks of matted hair fell back over his forehead. Regardless of her immense guilt over his presumed identity, she couldn’t go on arguing with herself over it. There was one way to settle this matter right now.

“Do you think you’re Antonio?” she asked as he drank deeply from the glass.

“I...” He glanced up at her, his gaze full of emotions she couldn’t name, but those dark, mysterious eyes held her captive. “I don’t remember. That’s why I’m here. I want to know.”