The Billionaire's Triplets (A Steamy Contemporary Romance Novel) Read Free Page A

execution, but she had no serious hope that the babies would come to term, or however close they got, before some overeager do-gooder would decide that she HAD to know.
    Lissa liked surprises. She also liked that refusing to learn the sex annoyed people who made other people’s business their own. She was getting her fair share of surprises. First her lover had disappeared, more or less. At any rate he’d become unreachable. The triplets were the next surprise—they counted as two, in fact. First, there had been finding out that she was pregnant, and then learning that happiness came in threes, at least in her case.
    “I always thought I might have several children,” she told her sister, Joan. “I just didn’t expect they’d all come the same day.”
    “You never do things the way other people do,” Joan said. “It’s endearing.”
    The discomfort didn’t bother her as much as she expected. Having her hands ripped from the day-to-day events in her life, being unable to take part in her business, bothered her more. She didn’t care that much about doing the routine things, but that was how you monitored your business. Now she had to run it by remote. She couldn’t grow it that way, but at least she needed to keep it afloat until she could get back to it.
    So it was boredom that made her smile when she saw Tina Peters opening her door. She was delighted to see her…and she didn’t even like Tina all that much.
    “Tina! Come in, sit down, bring me up to date.”
    Tina was an elegant blonde, carefully coiffed, well dressed in a business suit that was very feminine and all business, and a face that was all smiles, most of which Lissa thought were fake. They looked phony as a three-dollar bill.
    Tina took a chair. “You relax, Lissa. Things are under control.”
    The smiles and assurances made Lissa uneasy. You didn’t hire people because you wanted friends, but to grow the business, to make it run smoothly. She knew Tina to be a hard but capable woman. She was efficient. Being honestly friendly wasn’t her thing. She hadn’t paid it much attention before, but now she was seeing Tina the way her clients did. Tina was trying to impress her, and the smiley show was unsettling. Serious clients weren’t fooled by smiles any more than she was.
    “Great, good news. But what things are under control?”
    “Everything.”
    “That’s not an answer, Tina. I need specifics. What are you controlling? Which accounts are you working on? I don’t want assurances, I want—I need—details: tedious, picky, nagging, and niggling details.”
    “Tomorrow I have a meeting with Tom Acker about a project in Europe.”
    “Tina, that is a generalization… What project? Where in Europe? Where are you meeting him? What’s our role?”
    Tina scowled. “You are supposed to be taking it easy.”
    “And how can I do that when I have no information? How do I relax when I don’t know what’s going on?”
    “You’re impossible to please, Lissa. I’m running things in your place and they are going smoothly. Do you want me to do that or prepare reports and make presentations to you? I can’t realistically do both. If you insist on running things from a hospital bed…” she cocked her head, “with your head below your womb, apparently, then you need someone else.”
    “Look, Tina, I’m not trying to micromanage you. I do appreciate what you are doing. You’ve stepped up and are keeping the business going. It’s just that I can’t put my mind on pause for three months. I don’t know how. I’m stuck here all day with no connection to the world but the visits you and my sister make. I need juicy business problems to tackle. It’s my body that’s confined to bed, not my brain.”
    Tina sighed. “Okay. I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you something to work on. Acker’s proposal needs work. I’ll messenger over what he’s given me and my notes, and I’d appreciate any ideas you have. Tomorrow we are just meeting to