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  “You must understand, Myriah, it wasn’t like he abandoned me. There was plenty of money, and plenty of time to figure myself out. I ended up in London because it suited me; enormous, anonymous, and self-interested. I could be whoever I needed to there, and at the end of it all, that’s what it gave me.”

  Myriah had decided less than twenty-four hours ago that she would have to keep some kind of distance between her and Halil. Whenever they touched, even if it was just their hands brushing gently, it sent a spike of heat through her. Distance, both physical and emotional, was going to be what she needed to get through this and to make the best decisions that she could for her girls. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that her emotions concerning Halil were too powerful by far; so strong they could lead her badly astray.

  When I was younger, the only person at stake was me, she thought. Now . . . now there is a lot more at stake, and I need to make sure that I keep that in mind, and that I don’t lose my head.

  “So . . . you came to London to, what, sow your wild oats?”

  If Halil caught the hidden sharp edge in her words, he didn’t respond to it. Instead, he only shrugged.

  “I’m sure that that’s what my father had in mind when he cut me loose for a while. I did it in other places. Met gorgeous women, did dangerous things that I could never have done at home. Then at some point, I got tired of it all, but I still didn’t want to come home. Instead, I needed to be away, and that was where London came in.”

  “And me?”

  Myriah didn’t know why she was doing this to herself. She didn’t know why she was putting herself in a position where the only answer was to be hurt over and over again. She had an idea of the kind of youth that Halil was talking about, and she could even see something of the kind when it came down to who she had known in London all those years ago.

  Could she really stand to hear him talk about her as if she were just . . . some treasured vacation memory, like a Ferris wheel or a pleasant stay in a hotel? There was also a chance he would have tried to stress her importance to him without realizing that his leaving her at the end was a greater statement of his care and concern for their relationship than any soft words could be.

  Myriah was ready to tell him to forget all about it, that she really didn’t want to know, but to her surprise, Halil smiled, a real smile, not like the guarded looks they had been exchanging for the last short while. He held out his hand, and Myriah, without hesitating for a single moment, reached out for it.

  She felt that jolt of electricity that could still surprise her when they touched. His hand was large and warm; she could feel the strength that coursed through him when she touched him. There were callouses as well, and she wondered where a man who was as wealthy as Halil got marks like that. His hand closed around hers, and she looked into his eyes.

  “You . . . were a surprise,” he said softly. “You were something that I could never have expected or planned on, and even if someone had told me to expect you or to plan for you, I never could have. One does not plan for the luck that brings someone like you into his life.”

  The words took her breath away, and for a moment, it made her want to believe in things that she had not believed in a great long while. Then she pulled herself in, because that way lay a broken heart, and she had already dealt with one of those over this man.

  She pulled back her hand, and though he looked disappointed, Halil allowed her to do so. Instead, he leaned back in his chair, hands calm on the armrests, and watched her with a clear eye.

  “You have questions still.”

  “I do. What called you back to Ealim?”

  He hesitated, and then nodded.

  “It is your right to know, as the mother of my children and as the woman who was . . . with me . . . at the time, I suppose. What I tell you cannot be told to anyone else, do you understand?”

  She blinked, and then nodded, mystified.

  “It was a kidnapping. I have no brothers or sisters, but I have a fair number of cousins, and until I have my own heirs, they are the closest to the throne. My younger cousin Naia had been married just a year before and produced a little boy. That little boy was stolen away from his cradle one night while the family was vacationing in Marrakech.”

  Involuntarily, Myriah shivered. It was every mother’s worst nightmare, and she wished all over again that she could hold her babies in this very instant, to make sure that they were truly all right.

  “We didn’t know at the time, of course, that it was their nanny’s sister. The woman was, unfortunately, not well mentally. She stole Naia’s baby because she was convinced that he was hers. We didn’t know that, so my father decided to treat it as an act of possible terrorism. He wanted all of us home and where we could be protected.”

  “That’s . . . why you had to leave so quickly.”

  “And without saying a word, yes. There may have been consequences if you had known . . . much of anything.”

  Myriah was still, but the whole time, it felt as if her mental history was rearranging itself. She had a vision of the way things were, but now it was like finding out the sky in the picture she had painted was really green, or seeing a cat start to bark angrily like a dog.

  Everything had changed, but one of the biggest things to change was Halil himself. It had only been three years, but he had matured so much. He was still tall and strong, still capable of taking her breath away with a kiss that she could sometimes feel tingling on her lips, but the truth was that the old Halil, the one who had fallen into bed with her one bright June day, would never have looked at her like this one did, never weighed her with such serious eyes.

  “I have answered all of your questions,” he said. “Will I have a turn to ask some of my own?”

  Myriah nodded, feeling an obscure feeling of relief. Right now, the last thing she could take was learning more. She could not assimilate more of what he was telling her into the way her world looked.

  “Of course. I imagine you have quite a few.”

  He laughed a little, a sound that was still capable of making her tingle with a soft and lush pleasure.

  “Oh, I certainly do. Let’s start simple. Tell me about the girls.”

  Myriah felt a twinge of guilt when she realized that the facts Halil knew about his daughters could likely be totaled up on one hand. He knew she had borne triplets, he knew they were girls, he knew that her sister Rose watched over them, and he knew they were somewhere around two years old.

  “They’re healthy. They were small when they first came out, but Dr. Rosins, who I went to see in the downtown Boston area during my pregnancy, told me that was normal. They were so small when they came out that I got this . . . this kind of terror for them, that they were so small and the world could hurt them so much.”

  She shivered remembering that day a little, but then she grinned.

  “And then they started yelling, all three of them, so loudly that the nurse put her hands over her ears for a moment. That was when I knew that they would be fighters, and that they would be together. Most people don’t even have that.”

  “That’s true,” Halil said with a smile. “I am sorry you were frightened, even if it was only for a moment.”

  “I think it’s natural. We were in Boston all alone. Rose was still in school then and hadn’t checked her messages to come . . .”

  “You were all alone?” There was something complicated in Halil’s voice, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

  She nodded. “It was fine, and we were all fine. Rose was there by the time I was ready to go home, and the extra pair of arms was important when we got the cab.”

  “I am glad your sister was there for you, and I am glad the girls are healthy. I was really asking about . . . well, their personalities. What are they like?”

  “Well, they’re still very young, but it really didn’t take all that long for their personalities to come out,” she said hesitantly. “At least, I didn’t think so. Leah’s one of the most
easy-going babies I’ve ever held, and everyone who she meets tells me the same. She wants to look at the world around her, and she wants to learn all about it. When she went to get her first shot, she cried a little when her sisters did, but she also wanted to look around at the doctor’s office, things like that. She was the first one to sleep train well, so I have a soft spot in my heart for the one who knocked all the crying off first and let me sleep.”

  “She sounds darling.”

  “Oh she is. I bet she’s going to crawl right into your arms and fall asleep.”

  From the look on Halil’s face, she could see that the thought struck him as something magical and wonderful. Well it was, but Leah would do it with just about anyone who sat still long enough. Myriah hid a smile. He could be charmed for a little longer, in any case.

  “Leah’s the youngest, and the next oldest is Mina, who was actually the last to be sleep trained. She is the noisiest of the lot too, always crying and yelling and talking a mile a minute. If there’s something going on, she wants more than anything to be in the very middle of it, and damn anyone who gets in her way. She’s our little explorer, and I’m not going to say our troublemaker, because the truth is that she is just very, very curious. She loves learning how things work, and she mostly learns by grabbing it, biting it, sticking it in her mouth, or smashing it against something else.”

  Halil looked startled.

  “That’s what my mother always said about me. I took things apart just so I could put them together again.”

  “Ah, then you are who I have to blame for all the broken gadgets,” said Myriah with a grin.

  “Bill me for them, please. I think you know I’m good for it. And Katie?”

  “Ah yes, Katie. Katie is the one who born first, and I have a feeling that she’s going to be like that for the rest of her life. She wants to learn everything first, she wants to know what’s going on. She wants to try everything, and she’s more determined about it than Mina. Mina picks things up and lets them go. Katie never ever lets things go until she is darned well ready to do so. I keep telling myself that it’s a trait that will serve her well when we’re not talking about toys and bedtimes and naps and foods that she hasn’t quite figured out yet.”

  Myriah laughed, a little self-consciously. “I’m going on, aren’t I? I’m sorry, I think it’s a mom thing. If you even get me started talking about the girls, I’ll just keep going, even after everyone around me is bored to tears . . .”

  Halil laughed, and even with everything that was going on between them, she found herself warmed by it.

  “Believe me, right now, you cannot tell me enough. When you speak about the triplets, it feels as if I am finally learning what sunlight is after all my years in the dark.”

  Myriah looked at him, and she could find no hint of dishonesty in his face. She wondered for a moment if things could possibly turn out for the best; could it be possible that this tumultuous change in all their lives would leave them better off rather than worse?

  “Have you never spent any time with children before?” she asked, and he shook his head.

  “To be honest, until I stood in the doorway at the penthouse and listened to you—”

  “Eavesdropped!”

  “All right, fine, eavesdropped, I never really thought about what it might mean to be a parent. My friends, some of them, have children, but beyond holding the odd baby, I never spent all that much time considering what children were actually like.”

  “Amazing, annoying, incredible, charming and creative, and at the same time, frustrating, reckless and downright weird. Sometimes they do things that you don’t understand, and sometimes, they do things that show you with such perfect and aching clarity what they are going to be like as adults.” Myriah said promptly, and Halil laughed.

  “That sounds like a lot,” he ventured, and she nodded.

  “It is. You know, the first six months to a year or so, it felt like I was just . . . keeping them alive. I was off of work, thank goodness, but so many afternoons it was just me and the girls, and I felt . . .”

  She hesitated, because she wasn’t sure that she had ever spoken of any of this before with anyone, not even Rose.

  Halil only tilted his head to one side, and the expression on his face promised her no judgment, no harm.

  “I felt trapped,” she said at last. “I wondered what the hell I had gotten in to, and I thought about all the fun I used to have. Most of my friends had disappeared by then, and even if the ones who were left were incredible, it wasn’t as if they could stay by my side all the time, telling me that I was doing the right thing, that I wasn’t messing everything up at once.”

  “I’m sorry. That sounds like it must have been terrible for you.”

  “I didn’t get it as badly as some women did,” she admitted. “I knew of one woman who could barely do anything besides get out of bed for a while. I wasn’t that bad. but I was tired and stressed with three little lives that I was entirely responsible for. And then . . .”

  “And then . . . ?”

  “And then one day, I looked down, and realized that Leah, Mina, and Katie were all real people, just small ones. For some reason, despite actually giving birth to them and taking care of them for more than six months, that hadn’t really sunk in yet. Instead of crying about things that I had to care for, I saw that they were gorgeous little humans that I got to raise, to shape, and to love.”

  She shrugged, feeling a little self-conscious.

  “That sounds dumb, doesn’t it? Like I should have been able to see how wonderful and perfect they were right off the bat . . .”

  Halil shook his head.

  “No. That sounds as natural as anything else, and honestly, I’m only sorry that you did not have the help you needed. It makes sense to me. That sounds like a dark time for you.”

  For some silly reason, Myriah felt tears prickling at her eyes. It had been a dark time. Some of the days were dark, and some nights, when it seemed like one of her girls was always keeping up a steady howl of discomfort, never seemed to end.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, and he leaned forward, taking her hand.

  “No. Never thank me for simply being a person. That’s what any compassionate person would believe. I listen to you talk about the triplets, and I listen to how you would defend them from all the world, even from me, and no matter how you got here, no one should say that you were wrong to feel dismayed or depressed.”

  Myriah finally had to look away, her heart beating a quick tattoo onto her chest.

  “I think you are going to love them,” she said softly, and Halil’s face lit up in a brilliant smile.

  Chapter Nine

  Myriah

  A sleek black car met them at the private airfield where they landed, and Myriah looked on, bemused, as Halil made a perfunctory check in with a gate agent to verify his passport. She shook her head when she thought about what it took to get through security at the airport on a normal day.

  “It’s good to be the sheikh, I guess,” she said, and he flashed her a smile.

  “I would hope so. I would hardly want to show up to meet my daughters looking like a beggar.”

  Despite her repeated cautions to herself to go slow, to make sure that Halil was good for her daughters, Myriah couldn’t help but laugh.

  “You’re a brand-new person,” she said dryly. “Right now, that and some sweet rice pudding is going to be enough to impress them. Especially if for Katie, you’re willing to wear the pudding.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, Katie has this thing where she gets a little food and splats it on you when you’re not looking. I think it’s just motor control experimentation, but Rose thinks the kid’s going to be an artist.”

  Halil laughed, opening the car door for her.

  “I have a feeling that I am completely unready for who I am about to meet.”

  She looked at him challengingly.

  “Ready to go running back to the high life a
t the palace?” she asked, and he grinned at her.

  “Absolutely not.”

  ***

  Halil

  Halil wasn’t sure what to expect when they finally arrived at Myriah’s home. He knew what he feared. He was afraid that he would find her and his daughters living in poverty, with broken windows and filthy carpeting. He was afraid that he would have to find a situation where he had to pull them out immediately, no matter what Myriah protested. It was something that had been hovering at the back of his mind for days now, and he knew that very little would stop him if that was what he found.

  Instead, the driver transported them to a quiet neighborhood in a Boston suburb, finally stopping at a residence in a bank of classic brownstone townhouses. The neighborhood was not particularly wealthy, but there were children outside playing in the narrow yards, and the street was well kept up.

  Myriah saw him looking around, and grinned at him.

  “It’s fine, I promise. I inherited this place from my great aunt. It’s safe.”

  She had always been able to do that, Halil thought as he followed her to the door. She had always been able to read his mind and then laugh at him for what she found. Wound their daughters have the same ability?

  Halil could tell that Myriah was tense, but there was something that changed about her as soon as they were in the house and the door locked behind him. There was something gentle on her face, something that she had not allowed to appear before, and for some reason, he wanted to do nothing more than to take her into his arms.

  The townhouse was plain but tidy, the furniture dull but sturdy. There was the smell of something sweet in the air, and then Halil could hear a sound not unlike a stampede.

  “Mama, Mama!”

  It would have been incredible to hear that in one voice, let alone three. There was a thunder of small feet, and then three little girls were spilling out into the living room, all falling over themselves and rushing straight to Myriah.

  With a laugh, Myriah dropped to her knees, opening her arms and gathering her babies close.

  “Oh my little sweeties, it’s so good to see you! I missed you so much!”