Page 5 of Silver Fox's Secret Triplets
"Actually, I'm calling because we're running short on time to process the paperwork. She's already cleared our background checks and comes highly recommended. I can email you the placement confirmation if you'd like to review it before Monday."
I rubbed my temples, feeling the familiar tension that preceded most mornings these days. "Fine. Send whatever you need me to sign."
"Perfect. I'll have that to you within the hour. Her name is Ivy Whitmore, and she'll be there Monday at eight a.m. sharp."
The name stopped me cold.
I stared at the phone in my hand, certain I'd misheard. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that name?"
"Ivy Whitmore. W-H-I-T-M-O-R-E. Is there a problem?"
The room seemed to tilt around me. Three years. Three years since I'd heard that name, since I'd allowed myself to think about auburn hair and hazel eyes and the way she'd whispered my name in the darkness of my apartment.
Three years since she'd disappeared from my life without explanation or goodbye.
"Mr. Walsh? Are you still there?"
"Yes." My voice sounded steady despite the chaos in my head. "Yes, I'm here. Monday at eight. I'll watch for the email."
I hung up before she could ask any more questions, before I could change my mind and tell her to find someone else. Anyone else.
Ivy Whitmore.
I opened my laptop and navigated to the temp agency's website, searching for her profile or placement information. Nothing. No photograph, no resume, no details beyond her name and start date. For all I knew, it could be a different Ivy Whitmore—a stranger who happened to share a name with the woman who'd haunted my thoughts for three years.
But I knew it wasn't.
Deep in my gut, I knew it was her. The same woman who'd kissed me in the rain outside her father's charity gala. The same woman who'd spent one night in my bed and then vanished from my life as completely as if she'd never existed.
William Henry Whitmore's daughter.
The daughter I'd promised never to touch, never to pursue, never to see as anything other than his child. The promise I'd broken spectacularly and paid for every day since.
I stood and walked to the window, staring out at the harbor where morning traffic was beginning to build on the waterfront. Somewhere in this city, Ivy was preparing to walk back into my life. The question was whether she knew where she'd be working or if Monday morning would be as much of a shock to her as this phone call had been to me.
Either way, I had four days to prepare myself for seeing her again.
Four days to figure out how to face the woman I'd never stopped thinking about, despite every rational reason to forget her.
Four days to decide whether this was the universe's way of telling me that some chapters couldn't be closed until they were properly finished.
3
IVY
The morning air in Boston carried a chill that hadn't existed in Bar Harbor. I stood at the kitchen counter, watching steam rise from my coffee cup while the triplets ate their cereal at the breakfast table. Sammy had managed to get more milk on his shirt than in his mouth, while Chrissy methodically arranged her cheerios into perfect rows. Elena sat quietly between them, her hazel eyes—so startlingly familiar when I caught them in certain light—focused on the spoon in her small hands.
Three years. Three years I had kept them safe from this world, from these complications, from the questions that would inevitably come. Now we were back in the house where I had grown up, surrounded by the suffocating elegance of my mother's interior decorator and my father's need to control every detail of our lives.
The doorbell rang at exactly 8:30. Lauren had always been punctual, even in high school when we had shared study sessions and whispered secrets about boys we thought we might marry someday. I opened the front door to find her standing onthe steps, her blonde hair pulled back in the same neat ponytail she had worn at seventeen, her smile warm but cautious.
"Ivy." She stepped forward and wrapped me in a hug that felt both familiar and foreign. "God, you look exactly the same."
I didn't. Three years of sleepless nights and single motherhood had carved lines around my eyes that hadn't been there when I left Boston. My body had changed, my perspective had shifted, and the girl she remembered had been buried under layers of responsibility and secrets I couldn't share with anyone.
"Thank you for doing this," I said, stepping back to let her into the foyer. "I know it's short notice."
"Are you kidding? I've been dying to meet them." Lauren's eyes lit up as the triplets appeared at the bottom of the staircase, peering through the banister rails. "Hi there."
