Triplets Under the Tree

Heat swept along her cheeks as she imagined exactly that, and it did not resemble the toga she’d meant to envision. Antonio, spread out on the bed, sheet barely covering his sinewy, drool-worthy fighter’s physique, gaze dark and full of desire...for her... She shook her head. That was the last thing she should be thinking about for a hundred reasons, but Antonio Junior, Leon and Annabelle were the top three and she needed to get a few things straight with their father. No naked masculine chests required for that conversation.

“You look...different,” she squawked.

Nice. Tip him off that you’re thinking naughty thoughts.

“You kept my clothes?” He pointed to the jeans slung low on his lean hips. “And my shaving equipment?”

All of which he apparently remembered just fine as he’d slipped back into his precrash look easily. Antonio had always been gorgeous as sin, built like a lost Michelangelo sculpture with a side of raw, masculine power. And she was still salivating over him. A year in Indonesia hadn’t changed that, apparently.

She shrugged and tried to make herself stop staring at him, which didn’t exactly work. “I kept meaning to go through that room, but I thought maybe there would be something the babies would want. So I left it.”

“I’m glad you did. Thank you.” His small smile tripped a long liquid pull inside and she tamped it down. Or she almost did. It was too delicious to fully let it go.

Serious. Talk. Now, she told herself sternly.

“I had a gym,” he said before she could work up the courage to bring up item one on her long list of issues. “Did you leave it alone, too?”

“It’s untouched.”

“I need to see it. Will you come with me?”

Surprised, she nodded. “Of course.”

Was it wrong to be thrilled he’d asked her to be with him as he delved into his past?

Well, if that was wrong, it was probably just as wrong to still have a thing for him all these years later. If only she hadn’t given up so easily when she’d first met him—it was still one of her biggest regrets.

But then, her relationship rules didn’t afford much hope unless a man was interested enough to hang around for the long haul. She’d thought maybe Antonio might have been, once upon a time. The way he’d flirted with her when they’d met, as though he thought she was beautiful, had floored her...and then Vanessa had entered stage left, which had dried up his interest in the chaste sister.

She followed him as he strolled directly to the gym, mystified how he remembered the way, and halted next to him as he quietly took in the posters advertising his many fights, his championship belts and publicity shots of himself clad in shorts and striking a fierce pose.

There was something wicked about staring at a photo of Antonio half clothed while standing next to the fully dressed version, knowing that falcon tattoo sat under his shirt, waiting to be discovered by a woman’s fingers. Her fingers. What would it feel like?

Sometimes she dreamed about that.

“Do you remember any of this?” she asked as the silence stretched. She couldn’t keep thinking about Antonio’s naked chest. Which became more difficult the longer they stood there, his heat nearly palpable. He even smelled like sin.

“Bits and pieces,” he finally said. “I didn’t know I had martial arts training. I thought I was remembering a movie, because I wasn’t always in the ring. Sometimes I was outside the ring, watching.”

“Oh, like watching other fighters? Maybe you’re remembering Falco,” she offered. “The fight club.”

He shook his head as if to clear it. “I feel as if I should know what that is.”

He didn’t remember Falco, either? Antonio had lived and breathed that place, much to Vanessa’s dismay on many occasions. Her sister had hoped to see her husband more often once his time in the ring was up, but the opposite had proved true.

Caitlyn led him to a picture on the wall, the one of him standing with two fighters about to enter the ring. “Falco is your MMA promotional venue. You founded it once your career ended. That’s where you made all your money.”

“When did I stop fighting?”

“It wasn’t long after you and Vanessa got married. You don’t remember that, either?” When he shook his head, she told him what little she knew about his last fight. “Brian Kerr nearly killed you. Illegal punch to the back of your head and you hit the floor at a bad angle. Knocked you out. You were in the hospital unconscious for two days. That’s probably why your amnesia is so pronounced. Your brain has sustained quite a bit of trauma.”