Who's My Triplet's Alpha Daddy? Novel

Chapter 73 Dec 27, 2025 POV: Lysander Valentine's Day approaches and Denver explodes with romantic bullshit that feels personally targeted. Every restaurant has special menus designed to make single people feel inadequate. Every store drowns in red and pink merchandising that screams "you're alone and we're going to rub it in." Every radio station plays love songs that make me want to drive off a cliff just to end the auditory torture.

I'm working late Friday-actively avoiding the holiday by burying myself in contract revisions that don't care about my relationship status-when there's a knock on my office door. Caroline stands there in a red dress that should be illegal in professional settings, holding two coffees, looking exactly like everything I gave up and can't stop wanting despite my best efforts. "Hi." Her voice is tentative, lacking the usual sunshine brightness. "I know I said I never wanted to see you again.

But I was in town for a deposition and thought-fuck, I don't know what I thought." My brain short-circuits. "You look good." Understatement of the century. She looks devastating in ways that make my chest hurt and my wolf sit up with interest it absolutely should not have. "You look terrible." She comes in, sets one coffee on my desk with the careful precision of someone who's rehearsed this moment. "Honey lavender latte. Because you're predictable and I'm a masochist who remembered your order." "I thought you blocked me." "I did. For two months.

Then I unblocked you last week and stalked your social media because apparently I hate myself." She sits in the chair across from my desk. "Your profiles are depressingly empty. No posts, no photos, no indication you're doing anything except working yourself to death." "Been busy with the restructuring." "Right. Restructuring." She takes a sip of her coffee, watches me over the rim. "How's that going? The company you chose over me-is it everything you hoped?" The bitterness in her voice is deserved and lands with precision. "I'm sorry. For how I ended things.

For letting my family make that decision instead of making it myself." The words taste inadequate but they're all I have. "But you agree with the decision." Not a question, just observation delivered with that sharp intelligence that made me fall for her. "You think choosing the company was right." I want to lie. Want to tell her I regret everything, that I should have chosen her, that Magnus was wrong and love matters more than quarterly projections. But I'm tired of lying. Tired of corporate speak and emotional deflection and pretending I'm fine when I'm drowning. "I don't know.

The company's stable. We're growing again. I proved I could build something independently without my family's empire propping me up." I meet her eyes. "But it doesn't feel like winning." Something shifts in her expression. Goes soft around the edges in ways I remember from Aspen. "No. It doesn't." We sit in loaded silence before she speaks again, and her voice loses the brightness completely. "My father's sick. Actually sick this time, not using it as leverage or manipulating negotiations. Cancer. Stage four." Her voice stays level but I hear the fear underneath. "He has maybe six months.

Less if the treatment doesn't work." "Caroline-" "That's why I'm in Denver. Settling his affairs, closing out remaining business, making sure everything's in order for when he-" She stops, can't finish. "The deposition was just an excuse. I could've sent an associate. But I thought seeing you would help. Remind me why I'm angry, why walking away was right." "Did it work?" "No." She stands abruptly, moves to my window with that restless energy. "It just reminded me what I lost.

Which makes this harder because I'm supposed to hate you and I can't quite manage it." I stand too, moving closer but not touching because touching feels dangerous. "What are you really doing here?" She turns and her eyes are bright with unshed tears that she's too proud to let fall. "I'm here because it's Valentine's Day and I'm alone and you're alone and we're both miserable about it." She laughs without humor. "I'm here because I'm weak and nostalgic and thought maybe one night of pretending things were different wouldn't destroy me completely." "Caroline-" She kisses me.

Desperate, hungry, tasting like coffee and regret and months of trying to move on unsuccessfully. I respond automatically-hands in her hair, pulling her closer, my body remembering hers with cellular accuracy. "This is stupid," she gasps against my mouth. "Monumentally." "We're going to regret this." "Absolutely." But neither of us stops. We barely make it to the couch. Clothes hit the floor with urgent efficiency that would be impressive if we weren't both emotionally wrecked. She's on top of me, controlling the pace, and it's different from before.

More intense, more desperate, both of us trying to fuck away months of hurt and loneliness with physical connection that won't fix anything. "This doesn't fix anything," she gasps between kisses, reading my mind. "I know." "We're still done. Still a terrible idea that should come with warning labels." "I know." Her hands fist in my hair. "You're still choosing your company over me." "I know." "And I'm still leaving tomorrow. Going back to LA. Back to my life that doesn't include you." "I know." But neither of us stops.

She moves above me with determination, chasing release that's as much emotional as physical. When she comes, my name tears from her throat with something that sounds suspiciously close to grief. I follow her over, hands gripping her hips hard enough to leave marks, knowing this is the last time and unable to make it mean less because of it. Afterward, wrapped in my suit jacket because her dress is somewhere across the room, she traces patterns on my chest with careful fingers. "We can't do this again." "No." "I'm still angry at you. For choosing wrong.

For not fighting for us when it mattered." Her voice cracks slightly. "For proving my father right about you." "You should be angry. I deserve that." "But God, I missed you." The confession comes out raw, unfiltered. "Missed this. Missed feeling like someone actually sees me instead of just Robert Montgomery's daughter or the girl who's too much or too loud or too everything." I pull her closer, breathing her in-that expensive perfume mixed with sex and something uniquely Caroline that my body recognizes with painful clarity. "I see you." The words are inadequate but true. "Always saw you.

That was never the problem." "The problem was you saw me and still chose corporate independence over having me in your life." She shifts, presses her face against my neck. "Which I respect, actually. I do. Your family legacy matters. The company matters. I just wish I'd mattered more." "You did matter-" "Not enough." She cuts me off with brutal honesty. "I mattered, but not enough to risk everything for. Which is fine. I'm fine with it. I just wish it didn't hurt this much." We fall into charged silence. Her breathing evens out, body going heavy against mine, exhaustion claiming her.

I should wake her up. Should send her back to her hotel or wherever she's staying. Should maintain boundaries that protect us both from further damage. Instead I pull the throw blanket from the couch back, cover us both, let her sleep tangled around me. One night of pretending things are different. One night where I'm not the guy who chose wrong and she's not the girl whose father is dying. Just us, broken and tangled together on my office couch while Valentine's Day marketing mocks us from the street below. Tomorrow she goes back to LA.

Tomorrow I go back to running a company that feels hollow. Tomorrow we resume being people who made smart strategic choices that destroyed us. But tonight, for a few hours, we pretend we're not completely broken. My phone buzzes on my desk. Text from Claire: Need to talk tomorrow. Important. I silence it. Tomorrow's problems can wait. Tonight I'm holding the woman I chose to lose, pretending it doesn't feel exactly right and completely wrong simultaneously. And wondering if there's a world where I could've had everything instead of nothing. Probably not.

But pretending feels better than accepting that truth. Archer