Prince's Triplet Babies

by Sophia Lynn

  However, she was back in Hazn now, and everything reminded her of him. From the housekeeper's soft Arabic songs to the very quality of the sunlight to the heat that sank into everything, it felt that she could not move without thinking of Askari.

  For another day, she expected to see him again. Surely he would come by, if only to see the girls. After all, wasn't that why he had had them brought to the Middle East?

  However, the first week passed, the second week started, and Erin realized that Askari had no intention of returning. He obviously wasn't stopping by weekly, and if he thought that he could simply stop by on a monthly basis, that was unacceptable.

  She glanced at her daughters playing in the sunlight, squabbling amongst themselves for whatever toy they had all simultaneously decided was the best one. In another moment, they would forget all about it. Sometimes, she could almost see them growing in front of her eyes; she would turn around and they had outgrown another set of clothes and hit another milestone.

  Back in the United States, there was always a part of her that grieved that Askari would not be a part of this. She had told herself that that was simply the way that things needed to be.

  However, now she was in Hazn, there was no reason that he should stay away. It was unacceptable, and apparently, it was her duty to change it.

  For almost a full day, Erin sat and plotted. She dismissed one plan after another. She couldn't go to the hospital to have him alerted that something was wrong, and given how tightly he controlled everything, she couldn't get in the car and drive back to the city to see him.

  Finally, as she was putting the girls to bed, Erin realized with some wry humor that it simply had to be the truth. If that didn't make him change his ways, then she didn't want him close by. At all.

  She checked the time, noting that it was eight, and decided that there was no time like the present.

  She dialed the number that she had kept saved in her phone ever since she had left Hazn. She briefly wondered why she had never deleted it, but deep down, she knew the reason quite well. It was because if she deleted it, it would mean that she was severing the link between her and Askari. It meant that she might never hear his voice again, and that was not a thing she could deal with.

  The phone rang and rang, and suddenly, she wondered if he had deleted her number. It would be hilariously painful if he picked up and asked who it was...

  "Erin?" he said finally. "What's the matter? Are you and the girls alright?"

  She allowed a brief moment of relief to roll over her, and then she pulled herself together. When she spoke, her voice was level, crisp, and calm.

  "I could ask you the same thing," she said. "Where have you been this past week?"

  To her irritation, his voice had no defensiveness to it, just bewilderment.

  "What the hell do you mean, where have I been? I've been in Haz. Why would I be anywhere else?"

  "Perhaps because you have three baby girls living in your country, and you have not seen them once," she said, a growing edge in her tone. "Because when you brought me here, I assumed that it was because you cared about your children and heirs."

  "What the hell do you think you're-"

  "Because to me, aside from a change in scenery, very little has changed from my life before," she said. "In the girls' lives either. It's still just the four of us, and you are somewhere in your own world."

  "That was your decision, not mine," he said, an anger growing in his voice. A part of her wanted her to tread carefully, but the rest of her threw caution to the wind. She needed him to understand what was going on, and he would not understand it if she was being gentle.

  "Yes, that was my decision, but I did not know that I was pregnant when I left Hazn. I had suddenly realized that what we had was all that you were willing to give me, and that at the end of the day, you had given me damned little. I got to see what happened to some of the other mistresses in Hazn history, and I needed to protect myself. I'm sorry. If I had known that I was pregnant, I would have acted differently, but I didn't, and I will have to live with that."

  There was a silence from the other end of the line, not acceptance, but no condemnation either, and she supposed that that would have to do. "Right now, everything is in your hands," she continued, speaking more softly. "This is your decision. These are your children here, your little girls. You were angry about missing out on their lives until this point. That was my fault, and I am sorry. However, what you are missing right now? This is your own fault and no one else's."

  "And what is it you want me to do?" he asked, and the wariness in his tone was somehow exhausting to her.

  It felt completely wrong that there was a fence between her and Askari. It felt wrong that they had to guard their borders from each other, wrong that they had to have this talk in the first place. However, if he wanted to be a father, a real father, and not just a man who paid the bills, it had to be done.

  "Honestly? I want you to do what you want. I think that that is the best thing in this situation, because anything I force you into is going to be terrible and worse than nothing. I want you to think about who you are, and what kind of place you want to have in these girls’ lives. I want you to think about what kind of father you want to be, and to realize the fact that there is an opportunity here waiting for you."

  There was a long silence. Erin wished she could see him, judge for herself what he thought, but she had said everything that she could have said. If she said more, she would be bargaining or begging or cajoling, and she knew that none of those things would be appropriate. Not like this.

  "Is that all?" he asked at last, and her heart sank. His voice still sounded like stone, as if he were not a man, but something carved out of rock.

  "It is," Erin said softly, "or at least, it's all I can say about this."

  "All right then."

  She half-expected him to hang up on her, but there was a long pause.

  "It's getting late, are you going to bed soon?" he asked, and she blinked at the topic shift.

  "It's not late, not really, but yes, I think I am going to bed soon. Talia was the handful today. That girl is as stubborn as a donkey when she wants her way, and today, her way included everything her sisters were eating."

  She heard a soft puff of air, as if she had surprised a laugh out of Askari. It might have been nothing, however, because when he spoke, his voice was tight again.

  "You should get some sleep," he said. "I promise that I will think about what you have said."

  "Thank you," she said. For a moment, it was on the tip of her tongue to say that she loved him, but that was ridiculous. She had never said it while she was in Hazn before, and saying it now would tip everything over that had so recently been said right. "Goodnight."

  When Erin crept into bed that night, her mind wanted to play tricks on her. Somehow, she was convinced that at some point, Askari would come in, late as he always was, and that he would crawl into bed with her. He would hold her, he would touch her, and everything would be all right again.

  She knew that that could never be true, and the tears started to fall.

  Chapter Twelve

  The next morning, Erin blinked hazily and realized that she was awake far too late. The sun was high in the sky, and she could hear no crying at all to wake her. There had been a time when she could not reliably sleep past dawn. Fortunately, those days were gone, but she blinked in confusion.

  Her girls never slept so late, and as she absorbed that, Erin sprang to her feet, all but running to their room. Her half-sleeping brain didn't know what it was going to find, but the fear in her heart was terribly real.

  Just as she registered that the cribs were empty, she heard a laugh from the front of the cottage. Erin froze, and even as her body flooded with relief, her mind tried to figure out who it was.

  The staff who took care of the cottage for her were excellent, but none of them would have pulled the babies out of their cribs. She had been very clear on that front; t
he only person who was meant to hold the babies or to care for them was her.

  That meant that there was only one other person it could be, and swallowing hard, she ventured into the living room.

  The first thing that Erin noticed were that her children were placed carefully inside a large circular fence, one that circumvented most of the living room and was large enough to allow them to explore as they wished. Talia was working on her crawling while Tonya rested on her back on Askari's legs, looking up at her father with pure adulation.

  Tabitha, on the other hand, was busily poking and prodding at something else, something that gleamed. Erin was still trying to find something to say to Askari, and then it finally registered what Tabitha was playing with.

  "Oh my god, Tabby!"

  Tabitha made a surprised squeaking sound as her mother pulled her prize away, her face screwed up in a howl. With a sound that was a little like a growl, Erin stepped over the fence and hefted her baby up on her hip.

  She saw a bemused look on Askari's face as she turned back to him and handed him his expensive gold wristwatch.

  "I think I did warn you that she'll be after all of your favorite possessions if you are not careful," she said, and he smiled at her. It was a smile of surprising gentleness, and she was briefly stunned. Some part of her was convinced that she was not going to see it again.

  "I thought it was fine," he said. "I pulled it off my wrist and gave it to her. I thought she would like to play with it."

  "Well, you say that now, but I'm not sure that you'll be saying that if she somehow finds a way to dismantle your wristwatch with her tiny little hands."

  With a sigh, she sat down with him. There were a dozen questions in her mind, but she dismissed them one after another. She was not sure that she could ask them without sounding accusatory or angry. For Askari's part, he seemed content to sit in silence, fascinated by the fact that Tonya would grab at his fingers and hang on, giggling when he gently tried to pull back.

  After a moment, apparently bored of exploring on her own, Talia scooted closer to Askari, leaning against his foot before falling asleep.

  "When did you get in?" Erin asked finally. It seemed like a neutral ground. It was at least a place to start.

  "I got in fairly early this morning," he said with a shrug. "I thought about what you said, and I made sure that there was a light plane waiting for me as soon as I got up."

  "And so you flew here?"

  "Yes. It was the fastest way."

  "How did you get in?"

  He looked up from Tonya long enough to shoot her an amused grin.

  "Have you forgotten that I own this building?" he asked, and somehow, she had.

  She didn't feel as if it was home (if she were honest, no place really did), but the idea that he could simply open the door whenever he wanted to do as he liked, with no security system to stop him, made her frown.

  "I would rather that you let me know that you were coming before you did that again," she said finally. "It was a little alarming to wake up today and realize that my children were not sleeping where I had left them last night..."

  To her surprise, her statement brought a slightly guilty look to his face. Somehow, Erin had expected a fight, or perhaps some sort of argument. Instead, he simply nodded with a slight amount of chagrin.

  "I am sorry I frightened you, even if it was only for a moment," he said. "It was just well, when I came in..."

  He trailed off and she frowned.

  "What is it? What happened?" she asked.

  “When I came in, everything was quiet. I... suppose that I have not been sleeping all that well lately. It wasn't quite dawn yet, and I was thinking about simply lying down in one of the guest rooms until it got a little bit later. That was exactly what I was planning to do until I heard a noise. It wasn't a cry, really, more like a whine. It made me, well, think of little puppy that had been locked out of the house, so I peeked into the nursery and found Tonya looking around as if she had been abandoned."

  He looked surprised and mildly offended when Erin laughed a little.

  "Oh, I could have told you that that is one of her favorite tricks," Erin said with a great deal of affection. "At some point, she figured out that that particular noise is the one that is most likely to get her sympathy, at least from people who haven't heard it when she decides that she needs food or affection at four in the morning. It took me a while to get her to understand that I need to sleep. You probably set that back by months."

  Askari looked a little startled when she teased him, but he continued with his story.

  "I thought that perhaps she was hungry or needed to be changed, but neither of those things were the case, so I came out here to play with her and to avoid waking the other two."

  "Let me guess. That lasted about twelve minutes at best."

  "You are very good at this," he said a little dryly. "Yes. About ten minutes later, Talia started to cry, so I brought her out as well, and about five minutes after that, Tabitha decided that she was lonely."

  He paused, shaking his head, and when he looked at her, Erin wondered if there was a little more respect in his eyes.

  "We've already had a bit of an adventure when it comes to getting changed and getting fed. You are seeing the aftermath of a truly ferocious effort on my part."

  Erin laughed a little, reaching over to stroke Tonya's hair gently. She couldn't get over how much her shy little girl looked like Askari. She had his dark hair and his dark eyes, and though she was nothing but gentle and sweet, she was definitely a child who liked her own way.

  "Well, welcome to my life," she said. "It sounds like you did pretty well. Sometimes, though, with this lot, you really do have to understand that the cycle of cleaning, feeding, and changing seems to go on forever. This is what being a parent is, or at least, this is what it is like right now..."

  He sighed a little, and for a short time, they were simply silent. The last of the golden morning sunshine tiptoed across the room, and Erin could feel a strange peace drift over her. She couldn't figure out why she felt so calm when there was still so much between them, but she couldn't resist taking the time to simply enjoy the moment. There was a peace here that felt unfamiliar, but there was a part of her that reveled in it. She wondered if this had been what she was looking for her entire life. There was a part of her that had always been restless, and now, somehow, she was soothed.

  It was Askari who broke the silence between them, and when he did, he did not look at her. Instead, he looked down at Tonya in his lap, at Talia and at Tabitha.

  "I want to say thank you," he said quietly.

  "For what?" Erin was surprised. She had given up predicting what Askari might do next, but after everything that they had been through together, she had never thought that he would thank her. She figured that when it came to her, he was still working through a rage that might need years before it calmed.

  "For calling me when you did last night. You were completely right. We cannot change what came before. It is impossible. Instead, all we can do is move ahead, and we need to do that. I want to be a father to our girls, and I would not have been able to do so if I were hiding in Haz."

  "Hiding?" she asked. It was hard to imagine someone like Askari hiding. It was far simpler to imagine him lifting a sword and running off to fight the enemy, but there was no enemy here. There was only him, her, and three innocent, beautiful little girls who had never harmed anyone.

  Askari's smile was rueful. Tonya made an inquisitive cooing noise, and he lifted her up so that he could kiss her head. When he rested the tiny baby against his chest, Erin was struck by how natural it looked.

  "Have you ever held children before?" she asked quietly. "You are very good at that."

  There was a slightly shifty look on his face, and Erin's eyes narrowed.

  He started to demur, but she shook her head.

  "No, there's some kind of story there. Did you go to someone with a kid and demand some instructions or somet
hing? Did you have to have Basaam look it up on the Internet?"

  "No, and no," he said. "It's actually a little more embarrassing. If you must know, when I was very young, it was something I wanted to do very much."

  The expression on his face was one of great dignity, and Erin's brow furrowed in confusion.

  "What do you mean?"

  "When family gatherings occurred when I was oh, let's say five or six or so, there were always a bunch of children of all ages around. Of course our parents kept an eye on us, and there were also plenty of nannies and what have you. However, I apparently decided that that wasn't good enough for me, and so the only thing I ever wanted to do when I was that age was take care of the babies."

  Erin couldn't stop her face from splitting into an enormous grin as she imagined it.

  "You as a five-year-old carrying around a baby sounds like the most adorable thing."

  "Well, that's kinder than what my parents thought. They thought it was hilarious, and because they were always interested in catering to my whims, they made sure that I knew how to hold a baby, change one, and feed it."

  "And you rebelled and refused?"

  "Oh god no. I jumped into it, and eventually turned into such a little dictator about it. The nannies joked that I was trying to replace them.

  "So you always wanted to look after children."

  "Well, not for very long. After about a year or so, I grew bored with it and moved on to other things; soccer, riding, fencing, things like that. However, for years after, there would always be some auntie or cousin who wanted to plunk a baby down with me and take a picture."

  He paused for a moment, considering.

  "That actually ended up causing some problems when some reporter got a hold of one of those pictures when I was fourteen and claimed that it had to be a picture of me and one of my illegitimate children."

  Erin had to clap her hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh.

  "Oh, that's awful...!"

  "It was. My father was ready to come down on me for that one, but then someone pointed out to him that it was my cousin Myna."