Who's My Triplet's Alpha Daddy? Novel

Chapter 47 Dec 18, 2025 POV: Lysander I sit in my conference room for approximately seventeen hours. Or maybe twenty minutes. Time has lost all meaning somewhere between professional disaster and personal catastrophe. Finally force myself to move. Drive home on autopilot through Denver traffic that barely registers. Park in my building's garage. Take the elevator to my floor while my brain replays Caroline's face when she realized I'd lied by omission. If I'd known who you were, I would've told you everything this morning. Christ. My penthouse is dark when I walk in.

I flip on lights, set down my keys, and notice Claire's coat on the hook by the door. She's here. In my apartment. Waited for me despite leaving the office hours ago. I find her in the kitchen. She's cooked dinner-actual dinner with multiple courses and coordinated sides that probably took hours. Set the table with the nice dishes I forgot I owned. Cleaned up the perpetual bachelor disaster I leave scattered across countertops. She's standing by the stove wearing one of my shirts, hair down, no makeup.

The version of Claire I usually see on lazy Sunday mornings when she stays over and we pretend we're a real couple with real feelings. "You cooked," I say brilliantly. "I cook when I'm processing." She doesn't look at me. Just plates food with mechanical precision. "Sit. We should eat." I sit. She serves. We eat in silence that's heavier than any conversation we've had in eighteen months. Finally she sets down her fork. "Tell me about her." No preamble. No dancing around it. Just direct question that cuts through my usual deflection.

"Caroline." I set down my own fork because pretending to eat is exhausting. "We met Sunday at the grocery store. Literal collision. She was shopping without a cart and crashed into me with organic produce." "Love at first sight over apples?" Her voice is flat. "I don't know what it was." Honesty feels like the only currency I have left. "She made me laugh. Made me try ridiculous lattes. Saw through my bullshit while admitting she had her own. It was just-different." "Different from me." Not a question. "Different from anything." I meet her eyes. "Claire, you've been there for me.

Through everything. Two years of emotional unavailability and distance and me being fundamentally incapable of giving you what you deserve." "I knew what I was getting into." She picks up her wine glass with hands that shake slightly. "You told me from the start you weren't over your past. That you were working through things. I chose to stay anyway." "Because you thought I'd eventually work through it." "Because I loved you." Present tense shifting to past in real-time.

"Because I thought maybe I could be enough if I was just patient enough, supportive enough, present enough." The knife that statement twists in my chest is entirely deserved. "You are enough." I'm leaning forward now, desperate for her to understand. "This isn't about you being inadequate. It's about me being fucked up in ways that don't respond to patience or support or presence." "It's about her." She sets down the wine glass with controlled precision. "You met someone who made you feel something I couldn't.

And instead of being honest about it, you kept both of us dangling while you figured out what you wanted." Direct hit. "Yeah. That's exactly what I did." She's quiet for a long moment. When she speaks again, her voice is smaller. "What's wrong with me? Why wasn't I enough?" "Nothing is wrong with you." I'm around the table now, kneeling by her chair so she has to look at me. "You're brilliant and kind and more patient than anyone deserves. You made my life work when I couldn't make it work myself.

You organized my chaos and asked for nothing in return except basic presence I couldn't even manage." Tears start falling and she doesn't wipe them away. "Then why her?" "Because she's a disaster." The truth comes out unfiltered. "Because she crashes into people with organic produce and orders fancy drinks and admits she's fucked up instead of pretending she has her shit together. Because with you, I always felt like I was supposed to be better than I am. With her, I could just be as broken as I actually am." "That's not fair." Her voice cracks. "I never asked you to be perfect." "No.

But you deserved perfection and I kept failing at providing it." I take her hands. "Claire, you've been the stable thing. The relationship that made sense on paper. The choice that was supposed to fix everything wrong with me." "But it didn't." "No." Raw honesty. "And that's not your fault. That's me being fundamentally unable to love someone who loves me back the right way." She pulls her hands away. Stands and I stand with her. We're facing each other in my kitchen where she just cooked me dinner because that's what she does-shows love through action even when I don't deserve it.

"I should go," she says. "Claire-" "No." She's already gathering her things. "I cooked you dinner. Set the table. Cleaned your disaster. Waited here because I thought maybe if I showed you what stability looks like, you'd realize it's what you want." Her voice breaks. "But you don't want stability. You want chaos. You want someone who matches your dysfunction instead of balancing it." I don't argue because she's completely right. She's at the door when she stops. Turns back. "I've been here through everything. Two years of you being emotionally unavailable.

Eighteen months of knowing you don't love me the way I love you. I accepted it all because I thought eventually you'd see me." Tears stream down her face. "But you never did. You saw the help I provided, the support I gave, the organization I brought to your chaos. But you never saw me." She leaves before I can respond. The door closes with finality that echoes through my too-quiet penthouse. I stand there in the wreckage. Dinner on the table that Claire cooked. The clean kitchen she scrubbed. The effort she put into one last attempt at making me see her. And I didn't. Couldn't.

Was too busy thinking about Caroline's laugh and ridiculous lattes and the spark that shouldn't exist with a human but somehow does. My phone buzzes. Text from Kieran: How's Colorado? I stare at it. At my brother who got the mate, the kids, the life I thought I wanted. Who would probably tell me I'm an idiot for destroying something stable chasing something impossible. I text back: Complicated. He responds immediately: Always is with you. Call if you need to talk. I won't call.

Can't explain that I just destroyed an eighteen-month relationship for a woman I've known five days who represents competition I should be fighting instead of flirting with. Can't admit that I see exactly what I'm doing and do it anyway because I'm fundamentally incapable of making good decisions. I walk to my bedroom. The one where Claire's stayed over dozens of times, where we had sex that was good but never great, where she tolerated my emotional unavailability with grace I never deserved. I collapse on the bed still wearing my work clothes. Stare at the ceiling.

Think about Caroline's face when she realized I'd lied by omission. Claire's face when she left. Two women. Two disasters. Both casualties of me being exactly who I am-chaotic playboy hiding vicious intelligence that sees every consequence and proceeds anyway. My phone buzzes. Text from Claire: I loved you. I hope you find whatever you're looking for. Even if it's not me. My chest does this thing where it forgets how to work properly. I type: I'm sorry. You deserved so much better. She doesn't respond. Won't respond. Because she's done being patient with someone who can't love her back.

And I'm alone in my penthouse with the wreckage of Wednesday's disasters and absolutely no idea how to fix any of it. My wolf is quiet. My conscience has nothing left to say. And I lie there thinking about Caroline's lips on my cheek ninety minutes before she walked into my conference room. Claire's hands cooking me dinner hours after I destroyed us. Two very different kinds of love. Both lost because I couldn't choose, couldn't commit, couldn't be anything except fundamentally fucked up. Tomorrow I'll figure out damage control.

Tonight I just lie here in the dark and accept that I'm exactly the disaster Caroline recognized over fancy lattes. The chaotic younger brother. The professional shadow. The man who sees the right choice and makes the wrong one with perfect clarity. And now I'm alone with that choice. Exactly as I deserve. Archer