The Billionaire's Troublesome Triplets - Holly Rayner Page 0,58

fervently.

Lucas returned to his chair to check his email. He let out a harsh laugh. “Oh, man,” he said.

“What?” Elise asked.

“It’s from my father.”

“Did you tell him about the babies being born?”

“I did, actually,” Lucas said. “But that’s not what he wants to talk about. He emailed me to tell me that Quadra-Well just declared bankruptcy.”

“Seriously?” Elise said. “That’s what he wants to talk to you about today?”

“You know what he’s like,” Lucas said. “I tanked a company. Nothing is more important than that.”

“You didn’t tank Quadra-Well,” Elise said. “If they’re declaring bankruptcy, it’s because of all those lawsuits that were filed against them, right? They had to settle with dozens of people who used that contraceptive. And you were the one who tried to warn them not to start selling it too early.”

“Yeah, I was,” Lucas said. “But I was also the one who issued a public statement about the fact that my children were conceived while I was using it, which caused the sales to plummet. Maybe they could have afforded all those payouts if the thing had sold the way they’d expected it to. I think that was the original plan.”

“You don’t seriously feel bad for them, do you?” Elise asked.

“No,” Lucas assured her. “They got what they deserved. I’m just glad that all the people who used Androcyl and got pregnant got some kind of financial recompense. And I’m glad I got out of Quadra-Well when I did so that I wouldn’t have anything to do with this.” He sighed. “I swear, I don’t know how those people look at themselves in the mirror every day.”

“Is your father angry with you?” Elise asked.

“Yes,” Lucas said. He shoved his phone back in his pocket. “But I don’t care. If he isn’t interested in our children, he doesn’t have anything to say that I need to hear today.”

A few days later, Elise and the babies were given permission to leave the hospital.

“Are you nervous?” she asked Lucas as they carefully arranged Marco, Sofia, and Angelo in the car seats they’d picked out a few weeks ago.

“I’m terrified,” Lucas said.

“At least these car seats are top of the line,” Elise said. “I don’t know what I would have done if I’d had to buy the economy versions.”

“Well, you wouldn’t have had to do that,” Lucas said. “I was always going to pay for whatever the babies needed. I would have bought you any car seats you wanted. You know that. Even if you had decided you never wanted to see me again.”

“I know,” she said. “I feel stupid, now, that I didn’t want to accept your money. I don’t know what I was thinking. What could be more important than making sure the babies have the best of everything?”

“You wanted to prove that you were capable of doing this yourself,” Lucas said. “I can understand that. I feel the same way about taking help from my father.”

“Except that your father isn’t very nice to you,” Elise said. “And you are nice to me.”

“Well, I wasn’t that great to you at first,” Lucas said. “But you were right about one thing. You could have done this on your own. You could have managed with the economy car seats. You’d have done the research to make sure you picked safe ones. You would have been a good mother, with or without the money. I don’t have any doubt about that.”

Elise finished strapping the babies in and turned to face him. She wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face in his chest, and he kissed the crown of her head gently.

“Just drive slow, okay?” she said.

“You got it.”

It was the most nerve-racking drive of Elise’s life. She spent the whole time looking over her shoulder, anxious that every bump in the road might be jostling the babies. By the time they pulled up outside the mansion, she felt as exhausted from nerves as if she had run the whole way home.

Lucas let out a sigh of relief. “Let’s not do that again any time soon.”

“Hopefully it’ll get easier,” Elise said. Right now it felt so wrong and strange to have the babies outside her body, where she couldn’t protect them, that she couldn’t quite relax.

“It will,” Lucas said. “Let’s get them inside. It’s cold out here.”

They released the babies from their car seats. Elise passed the two boys to Lucas, who carefully balanced one in each arm. Then she picked up Sofia and they made their way inside.

The nursery