Dina looked into her grandmother’s eyes.
“You worry for nothing,” her grandmother said softly. “You have a strength she never had, your mother. You are confident where she was hesitant. Strength in a man is not a bad thing. It is only weakness that can be devoured by strength. You have none.”
Dina would like to believe that, but her confidence level was at an all-time low at the moment. Living with Connor, being around him nonstop, was going to be the kind of temptation she had always avoided. And that knowledge only made her feel even more uneasy about this whole thing.
“Now,” her grandmother said as she stood up, “help me finish packing for the niños. It’s time to face your fear and conquer it.”
“Right. Conquer my fear.” Dina stood up, too, and looked at the pile of baby clothes still waiting to be folded. She had a feeling, though, as she started working again, that Connor King wasn’t an easy man to conquer.
* * *
Of course his house was amazing. Set amid lush gardens and heavy greenery, it was a ranch-style home built of brick and stone and glass and looked as though it had simply grown organically where it stood.
Dina was speechless from the moment she entered through the double front doors. Polished oak floors, beautiful furnishings from the gleaming tables to the paintings on the taupe-painted walls to the gray marble fireplace that dominated one wall of the massive great room. It was there they settled the kids down to play and that Dina could take a moment to admire the room. Overstuffed furniture stood in silent invitation to curl up and relax. Books and magazines were stacked on the oak tables and a set of French doors opened onto a stone patio that fed down into a green lawn overlooking the ocean. One entire wall was glass, providing a view that was simply breathtaking, especially at the moment, with sunset spilling across the sea in a path of gold and red and staining the sky in shades of rose and gold and violet.
She did a slow turn, taking it all in and silently wishing she didn’t feel like a peasant invited to the castle. The whole house smelled like fresh flowers and lemon polish. And though she hated to admit it, her entire bungalow would fit nicely into the great room.
The kids were at her feet, spread out on a wide rug that probably cost more than her car, with toys that were so new, she and Connor had had to pry them out of their packaging. Two nut-brown leather couches faced each other across a wide coffee table of distressed wood. Club chairs in varying shades of green and blue were scattered around the wide room in conversational groups and the wall of glass seemed to bring the outside in.
A housekeeper named Louise, a woman of about fifty, with graying dark hair and bright, curious blue eyes, had brought out tall glasses of iced tea along with a plate of cookies and three sippy cups of milk for the triplets. It was perfect, damn it.
“Think you’ll be able to tough it out here?”
She turned to look at Connor, sprawled on one of the couches, looking exactly what he was...lord of the manor.
“Enjoying this, are you?”
“Being comfortable?” he asked. “After time spent on your couch? Oh, yeah.”
She sighed because she couldn’t really blame him. “Your house is beautiful.”
He laughed shortly. “How much did that hurt?”
“A lot,” Dina admitted. “I admit, I was hoping to find that you lived in some soulless, white everywhere modern nightmare—”
“Ooh, careful there. You just described my brother Colt’s house.”
“Really?”
He shrugged. “I never liked it. Felt cold to me, but he thought it looked clean. His wife and kids are currently dirtying it up for him.”
“Right. Well, anyway. This house is beautiful, but you have to know that I feel like you maneuvered me into this move, and I don’t like it.”
“I did, and you don’t have to.” Connor straightened up in the chair, braced his elbows on his knees and slapped his hands together. “I want my kids, Dina. You come with them.”
“For now,” she said.
He lifted one shoulder. “Now’s what we’re dealing with, right?”
Yes, but what happened later? A week, two weeks, three? The longer they stayed in this house, the more solid footing Connor would have for a custody suit. And Dina wasn’t an idiot. She knew he expected to take the kids from her. That thought made her heart ache, but a split second later, something clicked in her brain.
All along, she’d been thinking that Connor had the upper hand. And in a lot of ways, he did. But the reality of actually living with three babies who demanded plenty of attention was something he hadn’t experienced yet. She smiled as she realized that staying here might actually work in her favor after all.
She knew that Connor had only been interested in being a part-time father before Elena and Jackie were killed. Now, it was his own sense of duty and honor—and the realization that he’d been lied to—that had him scrambling to take charge of the triplets.
But what if once he had what he wanted he didn’t want it anymore? What if the day-to-day dealings with three babies showed him that he wasn’t ready for fatherhood? This could turn out to be the best thing she could have done. Living here, letting him take charge of the kids, might just prove to him once and for all that the trips were better off with her.
She smiled to herself at the thought and relaxed for the first time since their kiss the night before.
“Why are you smiling?” he asked, voice colored with suspicion.
“No reason,” she said. Meeting his gaze, she felt something inside her tremble and felt suddenly uncomfortable. But then, she wasn’t comfortable with a lot lately. That kiss they’d shared had been overwhelming and the feelings it engendered were still with her. Along with anxiety. She’d never let a man get close enough to her to make her anxious about her feelings.
Looking across the room at Connor, she stared into his ice-blue eyes and knew that this man was dangerous. Not just to her guardianship of the babies, but to her.
“Louise has your room ready,” he was saying. “It’s upstairs, next to the babies’ room. Mine’s across the hall.”
“Handy,” she murmured.
“Isn’t it?” He smiled and her stomach spun unsteadily.
“What’s the matter, Dina?” he asked. “Don’t trust yourself with me?”
Exactly, but she couldn’t really admit to that.
“I think I can manage to restrain myself,” she said, scooping Sadie off the floor and onto her hip.
“Wanna bet?” Connor stood up, grabbed the other two kids and held them while he looked into her eyes. A smile curved his mouth and something inside her flipped over in response.
Oh, yeah. This was not good.
* * *
A week later, Connor was a man on the edge.
Who would have guessed that three babies could take over a house in so little time? There were toys everywhere, forgotten sippy cups under the couch, and stains on half of his shirts. The three of them were a force of nature.
Connor was exhausted.
And it wasn’t just the triplets wearing him down, either. It was the knowledge that Dina was just across the hall from him, every night. It was imagining her showering, naked and wet, with water streaming along her honey-colored skin. It was the images of her floating through his mind, stretched out on the four-poster bed in her room, wearing nothing more than a welcoming smile as she held her arms out to him. It was remembering the taste of her so