Free The Billionaire's Triplets (A Steamy Contemporary Romance Novel) by Mia Caldwell Page A

was no risk to her. If he found out, she’d already established that she hadn’t known why Lissa was in the hospital.
    The news of the children had given her a moment of concern. Julio was a conventionally honorable man. If Lissa was carrying his child, he might feel an urge to be noble, to run to her side and claim his heir. There was, however, another way to play those same cards. Willa might use the information as a way of creating a wedge that she could drive between them and permanently sever the tenuous connection, the memory of love, between them, at least from Julio’s point of view, and that was all she cared about. That would require perfect timing, and she’d been waiting for… She hadn’t been sure what she was waiting for, but this morning, lying naked in Julio’s bed, she felt that she now had the lever she’d needed to make sure that when the avalanche of emotions happened, she could direct its flow.
    It all came back to sex. They’d made love, and that cemented the relationship. She intended to play that cool, not be clingy or act like she was a schoolgirl. Willa Gruber was not a romantic heroine, but a strong woman, and she would let him know that she was there for him, that he could have her when he wanted her, make him feel that he satisfied her sexually, but that nothing else had changed.
    That was a lie, of course. Much had changed. She was a step closer to her goal. She had aroused his passion, let him come inside her. No matter how you looked at relationships, those things altered the way people saw each other—she’d staked a claim on him that was real despite her never uttering adoring phrases or saying “I love you.”
    As she lay beside him, running her hands over his muscular chest, she sensed a bit of remorse in him. Perhaps he regretted that he’d have to acknowledge her personal claim, but that would pass. It might even be him recalling that other woman. She’d do whatever it took to supplant those memories. It angered her that after fucking her, he could still feel something for the American woman, that he’d recall her after their night together. It was time to drag out the biggest guns in her arsenal, but she needed to pace herself, not make it seem like she’d been holding things back from him.
    She thought about seducing him, distracting him, making him think she needed him, but he sat up and looked at her. “We better get moving. We have a full day ahead of us,” he said.
    “Yes, of course,” she said. It would be a mistake to let her professionalism slip now. She needed to reassure him that having Willa as his lover didn’t mean losing Willa as his assistant. Keeping him focused on her while worming her way further into his business and personal lives was the challenge.
    She called room service and ordered a large breakfast of eggs Benedict, juice, and coffee. When they finished, he went to shower. Willa slipped on one of his tee shirts and went to the couch. Her briefcase was still on the coffee table, and she got out her laptop and flipped it on. She found the email from the investigator and copied it into a new email, editing out the parts about the rehab rumor. The investigator had been thorough and mentioned that Tina Peters was the source of it. Julio didn’t need to know that, just as he didn’t need to know that the information about Lissa’s pregnancy came in the same email. She created a new one with just the information the man had gotten from the hospital and sent it down to the hotel’s business office. Then she picked up the house phone and called the concierge.
    “This is Mr. Torres’s assistant. I just sent a file to your server. Please print it out and bring it to his suite immediately.”
    When Julio came out of the shower, she went into the bathroom to take hers, enjoying the steamy warmth and his smells enveloping her. Things were moving along well, and she stood under the hot water and let herself speculate over the way he’d take the news.