Who's My Triplet's Alpha Daddy? Novel

Chapter 65 Dec 18, 2025 POV: Lysander Caroline texts me Wednesday with a proposal that should come with warning labels: Aspen this weekend. Just us, no work, no Denver, no complications. I need to know if this is real or if we're just really good at office romance. I stare at the message for three minutes, thumb hovering over the keyboard. Every functioning brain cell screams that this is a spectacularly bad idea. But my body's already packing. I'll pick you up Friday at 2. Her response is immediate: I'll drive. You're too responsible. Someone needs to be chaotic.

Friday afternoon she shows up at my place in jeans and an oversized sweater that probably costs more than my rent but looks like cozy girlfriend material. Hair loose, minimal makeup, playing music so loud my neighbors probably filed noise complaints before we even left the parking garage. "This is my road trip playlist!" she shouts over what sounds like early 2000s pop punk having an identity crisis. "I know it's objectively terrible but it's MY terrible and I'm owning it!" She sings off-key to every song.

Her hand finds my thigh somewhere around mile forty and stays there, thumb tracing absent patterns that make focusing on anything else monumentally difficult. This is Caroline without armor. Relaxed in ways I've never seen, laughing at her own jokes, completely unselfconscious about belting out lyrics she's definitely getting wrong. "Okay so confession time." She turns down the music slightly. "I maybe stalked your Spotify and built this playlist based on your guilty pleasure songs.

The ones you listen to at 2 AM when you think no one's paying attention." "That's either romantic or deeply creepy." "Both! I contain multitudes." She grins. "Also you have excellent taste in terrible music. The Fray? Dashboard Confessional? Emotional 2000s boy energy. I see you." The resort is the kind of expensive that doesn't advertise prices because if you have to ask, you can't afford it. Our suite has a fireplace, mountain views, and a bed that dominates the space with obvious intention. "I may have upgraded us," Caroline admits, dropping her bag.

"The regular rooms were fine but I wanted-" She gestures vaguely at the fireplace, the view, the general expensive intimacy of it all. "This. Us having space to actually be people instead of business partners pretending we don't want to tear each other's clothes off during board meetings." That night, after dinner at some restaurant where the portions are tiny and the wine list requires a sommelier to decode, we end up tangled on the couch by the fire. She initiates sex but it's different from before.

Slower, more deliberate, both of us completely present instead of using pleasure as escape velocity from complicated feelings. "Look at me," she whispers when I close my eyes. "I want you here. Actually here." So I am. Watch her face as she moves above me, see the vulnerability she's offering, feel the shift from physical satisfaction to something that might actually be intimacy if we're brave enough to name it. Afterward, wrapped in sheets and firelight that makes her skin glow gold, she traces my collarbone with careful fingers.

"I need to tell you something about my father." My body tenses automatically. Every instinct screaming that whatever comes next changes everything. "Okay." "He's been pushing me to move faster with the integration. Wants full merger within six months instead of the three-year timeline we agreed." She's not looking at me, focusing on her fingers tracing patterns on my chest like she's reading braille. "Says Colorado is the foundation for Western expansion but we need complete control to execute properly." "That wasn't the deal." My voice comes out harder than intended. "I know.

I keep telling him that. But he's-" She stops, starts again. "He's got connections that want this done quickly. People who invested in Montgomery's expansion based on promises of rapid growth. Important people." "What kind of connections?" She hesitates. "Investors. Some from old family money. They hunt-" She stops abruptly, and I feel her entire body go tense against mine. "They hunt what?" My wolf is suddenly very interested in this conversation. "Deals." She laughs but it sounds forced, manufactured. "Hunting acquisitions, market share, that whole corporate predator thing.

You know how old money types are-everything's a game, everything's about the kill." The explanation feels rehearsed. Practiced in front of mirrors with different inflections until she found the one that sounds most casual. "Caroline-" But she's already kissing me again, rolling on top of me with deliberate distraction. Her mouth moves down my throat, lower, using her body to redirect from uncomfortable truths with the kind of strategic precision that would be impressive if it wasn't so obvious. I let her.

Because I'm a coward and because her mouth is doing things that make thinking about hunter families and rapid acquisitions monumentally difficult. Sunday morning we're driving back to Denver through mountain passes that look like postcards. She's been quiet for the last forty miles, unusual for someone who fills silence the way most people breathe. "I'm falling in love with you," she says suddenly. The words hit me sideways. I turn to look at her but she keeps her eyes on the road, hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel.

"Which terrifies me because you're still hung up on your assistant and I'm not sure you can actually commit to anyone." Her voice stays carefully level. "Including me." "I'm not hung up on Claire-" "You are though." She glances at me briefly before returning to the road. "I see how you look at her. How you light up when she walks in the room even though you're actively trying not to. How you check your phone hoping it's her texting even when I'm right there." My throat goes tight. "That's not-" "Lysander." She says my name like a period at the end of a sentence. "I'm asking you to choose.

For real, not in some abstract future way. Because I can't keep being one of two options. Either I'm what you want or I'm not." "It's not that simple-" "It's exactly that simple." Her voice climbs slightly. "You love her or you love me. You can't love us both. And even if you could, I refuse to be half of someone's heart." "Caroline-" "No. Don't." She cuts me off with surgical precision. "Don't tell me you need more time. Don't tell me it's complicated.

Don't give me some corporate negotiation speech about finding middle ground." She pulls off at a scenic overlook, puts the car in park, finally looks at me directly. "I went to Aspen with you because I wanted to believe this was real. That we were building something instead of just having really good sex with occasional emotional moments." Her eyes are bright with tears she refuses to let fall. "But you're not building anything with me. You're keeping options open while pretending you're not." "That's not fair-" "Life's not fair.

I learned that when my mom died and my dad became a workaholic who measures love in acquisitions and market share." She wipes her eyes angrily. "But I also learned I'm worth more than being someone's backup plan." The ultimatum hangs between us like a blade. "So here's what's happening." Her voice goes firm, controlled. "You're going to figure out what you actually want. Not what's convenient, not what makes business sense, not what keeps everyone happy. What you want." She starts the car again, pulls back onto the highway. "And then you're going to choose. Claire or me.

One woman, complete commitment, no hedging." "And if I can't choose?" "Then you've chosen." She turns up the music, conversation clearly over. "Just not me." We drive the rest of the way in silence punctuated by aggressively cheerful pop songs that feel like ironic commentary on my entire life. She drops me at my apartment without coming up. No kiss goodbye, just a wave that could mean anything. I stand in my parking lot watching her drive away and realize I just spent a weekend falling deeper for a woman who's giving me an expiration date. My phone buzzes.

Claire: Need to talk about the Riverside contracts. Tomorrow work? Two women. Two completely different futures. One choice I'm apparently constitutionally incapable of making. And absolutely no idea how to fix any of it. Archer