Billionaire Triplets Matchmakers

by Mia Caldwell

  “Let’s wait for my sister, a few more minutes,” Joan insisted.

  The bells over the door to the ship chimed, and Joan swung her head around hoping to see her sister. But it that customer leaving the shop with his purchases.

  Joan was about to give in and ask Senora de Cortez to look after Hunter while she went searching for her sister, or better yet get out her phone snap a picture of the outfit before taking Hunter to mount a search, when the door bells chimed again. This time it was Lissa.

  She hoisted Hunter into the air, turning him around, “Just in time, Lissa. Isn’t this outfit precious?” Joan watched her sister, waiting for her face to light up at the sight of her well-clad son, but Lissa wasn’t even looking her way. She stood in the doorway as if locked in place, her eyes fixed straight ahead, seeing nothing. Her face seemed drained of color. “Lissa?” Joan said, her voice thick with concern.

  Just then Philip de Cortez came out of nowhere, effusive as ever as he called out to Lissa. “Ah, Señora Torres, at last. Come in, por favor, come in.” He stopped short of kissing her on both cheeks, apparently surprised at her lack of response, but then he tried another tact. He waved both arms in Joan and Hunter’s direction, proudly displaying his accomplishment like a game show hostess revealing what was behind door number two. “You like? Is he not the most handsome baby in all of Barcelona?” He asked with obvious pride.

  Lissa’s gaze flickered, then moved slowly towards where de Cortez was pointing. Her eyes fell on Hunter and for a split-second, Joan caught a wisp of a smile. But, then it disappeared. As Joan watched, her sister’s face crumpled into terrible sadness. Her hands flew to her face, and then her knees buckled, and Lissa collapsed to the ground.

  “Lissa!” Joan shoved Hunter into Señor de Cortez’s arms and bolted to her sister’s side. Lissa had fallen to her knees, one hand gripping the doorframe for support. She was moaning and swaying. “Lissa, what’s wrong? Are you sick? Should I call a doctor?” Joan pressed as she and Señora de Cortez guided Lissa to the closest chair.

  “No, no,” Lissa said, weakly, but she was shaking, uncontrollably.

  “I’m calling 9-1-1, no that can’t be right, what’s the emergency number?” Joan said as she scrambled to take out her phone. Lissa stopped her, “No, please don’t. I’m not sick. I’ll be fine.”

  “Get her some water,” Lissa said to Señora de Cortez, who hurried to the back of the shop.

  Joan stared into her sister’s face. She wasn’t fine at all. She looked miserable. She looked like she’d seen a ghost. She was trembling, and tears slid down her cheeks. “Oh, Lissa, what’s happened?” Joan asked again, her heart breaking at the sight of her sister’s distress.

  Lissa pulled her sister close, as Señor de Cortez who was still holding Hunter, hovered close with concern. “I don’t want to talk about it in here,” she said in a low voice, followed by a hiccup.

  “Okay,” Joan promised.

  Señora de Cortez came back with a glass of water, handing it to Lissa, then she took a new box of cotton handkerchiefs from a shelf, ripped it open and pulled one out for Lissa to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. Lissa was already coming around, the tears stopping as she sat up and tried to regain her composure.

  Señor de Cortez still held Hunter, but the boy wanted his mother and he was starting to squirm and fuss. “You don’t a like the outfit?” Señor de Cortez asked.

  Joan shot him a dirty look. Couldn’t he see that this wasn’t about him? But Lissa was too kind a soul to allow Señor de Cortez the think that he was the cause of her pain. “No, no, of course not Phillipe, the clothing is wonderful. I’m better now. I just need to go home and rest.”

  Hunter was done being held by the little man. He wanted his mommy. He started to cry, then twisted and jerked in the small man’s arms, kicking as his cries got louder.

  “Help,” Señor de Cortez pleaded. Joan leaped up to get Hunter, but wasn’t quick enough. With his little legs flailing he stabbed himself with one of the pins and let out a howl of pain, then he started to bawl.

  “Poor baby!” Joan said as she scooped him away from Señor de Cortez., and took him back to the high table so she could get him out of the dangerous clothes. The shop owners wife assisted and within seconds Hunter was out of the outfit and no longer in danger of being stabbed. Joan searched his body quickly for the source of his crying fit but found only a tiny red mark, which thankfully hadn’t drawn blood. She kissed it better, then walked him around the shop, speaking soothing words and rocking him in her arms.

  Eventually the crying stopped and she put him back into his regular clothes. Joan placed him back in his stroller and gave him his favorite toy - a bedraggled stuffed rabbit named Wabby. She looked at her charge. Hunter would be okay. She wasn’t as sure as sure about her sister.

  Lissa hadn’t moved from the chair. Señor de Cortez hovered over her, wringing his hands, looking like a man who’d never seen so much misery in his life. A knot formed in the pit of Joan’s stomach. Lissa didn’t want to talk about it in the small shop. Was it because something bad had happened to her, after Joan abandoned her? Had she been mugged back in that empty alley?

  Joan rolled Hunter’s stroller close to the chair and sat on the armrest, leaning close to her sister and giving her another reassuring hug.

  Señora de Cortez appeared from the back again, this time holding a silver tray with four glasses of amber liquid. Lissa picked up a glass and downed the contents in one go. Philip followed suit, as did Señora de Cortez. When the tray with the last glass was placed in front of Joan, she reached for the glass, without thought. Her mouth salivated and her stomach relaxed with the anticipation of the soothing heat, and the freedom from pain that it would bring. The tips of her fingers grazed the glass.

  A hand slapped at Joan’s wrist, and Lissa’s alarmed voice rang in her ears, pulling her back to her senses. “No. Stop! Joan.What are you doing?”

  Joan jerked her hand away from the glass, as if from a hot flame.

  “Excuse me,” Joan sputtered as she jumped off the edge of the chair and stumbled away from the alcoholic temptation. She was unable to breathe, her heart hammering in her chest. She leaned heavily over a credenza, hands outstretched to keep her upright. Her head was swimming, she felt dizzy, and a wave of nausea rose inside her at the realization of what she’d almost let happen.

  Behind her, as she tried to get a grip, tried to slow her breathing, Lissa was whispering urgent words to Señora de Cortez. Joan glanced up as Señora de Cortez scurried out of the room, taking the tray of temptation with her. Joan’s face heated with embarrassment, but no one spoke of the incident as she came back and they wrapped up their business with the de Cortez Fine Clothing and Tailoring store. The clothing would be delivered to the Torres house no later than Thursday afternoon and the entire household would be heading out to the country first thing Friday morning to prepare for the Saturday wedding.

  By the time, they finally left the shop, Joan saw that Lissa’s face was starting to lose color again. “Here, let’s sit over there,” Joan said as she walked her sister across the single car lane and into the wide pedestrian walkway ran the length of the famous street. She steered Lissa to an open bench under an acacia tree and parked Hunter’s stroller close by.

  “You calling Javier?” Lissa asked, weakly.

  “Not until you tell me what happened to you. What happened? Were you mugged or something?” Joan’s voice cracked. If her sister was mugged because she’d abandoned her in that secluded walkway, she’d never forgive herself.

  “Mugged? Oh, no. Nothing like that. It was...” Lissa closed up again.

  “Come on sis, tell me.”

  “I saw mom. I mean, obviously, it wasn’t her, just someone who looked just like her, and I tried to follow her, but then she disappeared into the crowded market, and I got lost trying to find the woman so that I could get a better look and make sure it wasn’t her. But, I never saw her again.”

  “Oh, I’m so
sorry... that had to be difficult.”

  “But that wasn’t the reason I was upset,” Lissa continued. “I started to think about her, and....” Lissa got that look in her eyes again, the look of utter sadness.

  Joan took her sister’s hand, her voice as steady, calm, reassuring as she could make it. “Lissa. It’s okay, just tell me.”

  Silent tears ran down Lissa’s cheeks. “Seeing mother’s doppelganger made me realize something. Mom’s really dead, and I’m never going to see her again. And she’s never going to meet her grandbabies or my husband. She’s never going to know how happy I am.” On those last words, Lissa burst into a wail of grief. Joan wrapped her arms tightly around her sister, rocking her as, letting the pain flood out of her body in a river of tears.

  When the crying jag finally ended, Joan wiped tears off her sister’s face and said sarcastically, “Yeah, mom’s sure missing out on how happy you are.” She was hoping to be funny, and it worked. Because Lissa snorted, a very un-Lissa like thing to do.

  When they’d finished laughing, they agreed to stay in La Rambla for a short while longer and talk things through over coffees.

  Chapter Two

  “THAT ONE?” LISSA SUGGESTED as they came upon the first café. There were seats available in the patio, and somehow sitting outside on that beautiful Mediterranean morning seemed like preferably to being stuck inside some dark café.

  Shortly after they settled in a waiter came and took their orders for pastry and coffee, but by that time Hunter was starting to cry. The server, a prissy young college aged man, gave them a withering look as if his café didn’t serve crying babies. Joan felt defensive. “He’s hungry. Just bring me some hot water and some ice water as well, and a big glass and a spoon, and he’ll be good as gold.” The waiter stared at Joan, uncomprehendingly, so Lissa translated.

  The server returned soon after with the requisite liquids, and Joan got to work quickly, handing Hunter the bottle as he grasped for it. A moment later he was sucking greedily.

  While Hunter ate, the two sisters fell into a comfortable silence. Lissa’s phone rang, but she didn’t even reach for her handbag.

  “You’re not going to answer that?”

  Lissa pulled out her phone after it finished ringing, the powered it off.

  “Whatever it is, it can wait.”

  Their hot coffees and pastries arrived. Little by little, while they ate, they began to speak of their mother. They talked about her in familiar stories, the way loved ones did when they’d gathered to say goodbye to the recently dear departed, but it had been almost two years since their mother had disappeared and was presumed to be dead.

  They talked of their earliest childhood memories of their mother.

  Joan was too young to remember her when they’d lived with their father, but Lissa remembered him and explained again how their mother had fallen for a humble hardware store clerk, and how he’d died from a heart attack when Joan was barely two years old, and Lissa had just turned five. Lissa told Joan how their mother had held down two and three jobs at a time, put herself through secretarial school, then sold everything and moved them to New York where she’d found a job at an advertising agency.

  Joan knew the rest of the story after that. Their mother had parlayed her secretarial career into a man-catching net and had married one man after another, wealthier than before after each divorce. By the end of the third marriage, she’d earned enough from her settlements to stop needing to marry any man. By then, Lissa was off to college and her dear mother, Annabelle Edwards, dedicated her life to turning Joan into a supermodel.

  “You were like her doll. I used to be so jealous,” Lissa admitted.

  “You were jealous of me? I was jealous of you. She was always talking about how smart you were, how you would go to college and take over the world. She held you up on a pedestal. She told me that since I wasn’t very smart, that I had to use the assets God gave me, namely my pretty face.”

  “She didn’t think you were stupid,” Lissa said, trying to soothe her sister.

  “Well, it sure sounded like that to me. I never even finished high school,” Joan said, sadly. “I was only sixteen when she took me to Paris. Why would she do that if she didn’t think I was nothing more than a pretty face?”

  “But, Joan, you’ve got this all wrong. It’s like your trying to say that she twisted your arm, that she wanted you to be a model more than you did. That’s not how I remembered things. You were the one who wanted to be a model. Don’t you remember? She was just helping you fulfill your dream.”

  “Here you go again, always on her side, never on mine,” Joan said as she crossed her arms and tightened her mouth.

  “Joan, I’m on your side, I’ve always been on your side. Same with mom. You were just too stubborn to notice.”

  They sat in silence for a while. Joan crossed her arms and furrowed her brow. She wasn’t stubborn. Her mother had been a controlling, manipulative bitch that had abandoned her to the wolves when she was too young to handle it. She’d never forgive her for that.

  Joan decided to change the subject. “Lissa, I’m still worried about you. You say you cried before, but from what you said earlier I think this is the first time you accepted our mother’s death. Am I right?”

  Lissa nodded. “Yeah, I guess you are. I just couldn’t believe that she was dead, you know? I think before I was just going through the motions because I had to. But, in the back of my mind, I kept thinking that it couldn’t be true. That it was all some elaborate hoax, that any second she’d walk through the door and yell, ‘surprise!’ ”

  “Oh, yeah, that would be just like her,” Joan said. She pushed her chest out, waggled her tits, and put her nose in the air with her best Annabelle Edwards imitation spoke in their mother’s affected voice. “Oh, darlings, I do hope you don’t mind the imposition. So terribly sorry to be off the grid for a bit, but you know how these things go, don’t you my dears? So, which one of you lovely darlings will be a dear and bring your mother a cognac. I’m simply parched.”

  After they’d stopped laughing, they used the remaining napkins on the tables to wipe away the happy tears. Despite the jovial chatter, Joan could tell that Lissa was still processing her grief. She was glad she hadn’t had a chance to tell her sister about her plans to quit. She would postpone her plans and stick around Europe a few more months until she was positive that Lissa was coming to terms with her grief.

  They got back to their stories. This time, Joan took charge and told Lissa about how she’d learned of their mother’s death. She told her that she’d heard it from a scumbag paparazzi, who’d showed up on her photoshoot set and told her about it, while she was getting photographed.

  “I’m so sorry, Joan, I didn’t know that’s how you found out. I was trying to get hold of you, but you’d changed your number and your agent wasn’t returning my calls.”

  Joan felt a rush of guilt. She’d been ignoring her sister then because Lissa had been pressuring her to make peace with their mother. Joan and Annabelle had been on the outs for almost six months at the time, their longest tiff yet. But, Joan wasn’t ready to forgive her mother, at that time, perhaps she’d never be. She shook her head, not wanting to get into that. She’d never told Lissa what her mother had done, and she wasn’t going to bring that up today, not after Lissa’s breakdown at the tailor.

  Joan realized that her hostility towards her mother for that unforgivable act had lessened over time, especially since her mother was dead. If her mother could come back for a day, she would forgive her for coming between herself and the only man she’d ever come close to loving... but, her mother wasn’t coming back for a day or a minute. And neither was he.

  It wasn’t worth talking about. Instead, she went back to telling her story. “So, I was on the set, covered in axle grease crouched on a fake tree trunk with a boa constrictor wrapped around my waist. And this asshole reporter comes onto the set and starts shouting at me. “Hey, Joan, how does it feel to find out
that Annabelle Edwards drowned at sea?”

  “I flipped out,” she went on. “I started screaming at the man, calling him a liar. He threw the newspaper at me, and I read it, it was right there, billionaire’s superyacht sinks off the Horn of Africa. But, I still didn’t believe it.”

  “Oh, Joan, how horrible.”

  “Then the guy yells, ‘read the passenger manifest, on page 2,’ so I did. And there she was, our mother, Annabel Marie Edwards, in black and white. I wanted to puke, but instead, I just launched myself at the bastard.”

  “And that’s when he got the photos?”

  “Yes, the bastard caught me flying through the air, face contorted, claws out ready to kill with a snake flinging off my body behind me. That photograph saved my career, actually, but at the time I didn’t know because I stormed out of that photo shoot and went on a bender for I don’t even know how long.”

  “It was a week,” Lissa said.

  “I know you tracked me down, and I’m sorry I wasn’t very hospitable at the time.”

  “I understand, sis, I’m so sorry you had to hear about her death in that way. You know I was trying to find you.”

  “I know, it’s not your fault, I was ignoring you because you were always beating the same dead horse. ‘Forgive her. She’s your mother. Make peace with her, blah, blah, blah.’”

  They were silent again, as both young sisters reflected on the memories of the night when Lissa had located Joan crashed at a drug house, dragged her out of there and taken her to a hotel. Joan wasn’t ready to go back on the straight and narrow at that time and Lissa, after making sure her sister had a safe place to stay for the rest of the week, had gone back to New York fearing that her sister was lost to her for good.

  But, Joan had surprised Lissa. “You got yourself together, after that, for a while at least.”

  It was true. After her first major screw-up, Joan had cleaned up her act all on her own. She’d left France, moved back to her apartment in London, and moved her portfolio to a different agency, which was happy to represent her. She went back to work, the fame from her freak out only making her a hotter property in the world of fashion. But her return to the top didn’t last long. Lissa told Joan about the call that her younger sister had overdosed and was in a hospital in Milan. “The guy didn’t identify himself, and I never knew who it was, but I think he saved your life.”