The Billionaire's Triplets (A Steamy Contemporary Romance Novel) Read Online Free PDF

education short to make it as a model. While Lissa had gone to school, she’d been the breadwinner in the family. Now she was living off her sister. Even though Lissa seemed to think it was just fair payback, she felt guilty. And aimless.
    She’d never minded helping Lissa through school at all. Now it seemed that supporting the family was the only money she’d earned that wasn’t wasted—it kept them a family of sorts. She’d made sure that there was always a home for them to gather at for Christmas or Thanksgiving and flew Lissa there from London.
    When she was drying out, going through the horrors of detoxing and then trying to regain control of her life, it had been hard to find positives in her life to hang on to. Doing nothing more significant than staying clean and sober for another day could seem like eternal damnation, and yet that was what she had to do.
    She and Lissa hadn’t been close as kids. Even when they were young, Joan wanted to party and Lissa studied. In a way, discovering modeling and the money it brought had been a problem; it allowed her to justify her lifestyle. Being seen was important. And when you paid everyone’s way, you could ignore their concerns.
    It amazed her that when she fell apart, Lissa had been there for her. When their mom had died, it was Lissa who bailed her out of jail and got her into rehab. Lissa came to visit. Lissa had taken care of sorting out the details of her life—the unpaid credit card bills, subletting her expensive apartment for her, and generally making sure that when she got her head straight, she had a clear spot to stand.
    They’d fought, screamed at each other, and grown closer than they’d ever been.
    Slowly, agonizingly, Joan came through her ordeal, her stupidity, and got her health back. Now all she needed was work.
    She was drinking a glass of water and reading a book her counselor had recommended on careers. “You could get a real estate license,” she’d said. “Attractive women sell more houses than other people.” That struck her as a possibility, so she investigated it, even chatting with several realtors. The book outlined a number of careers but none of them excited her. Maybe nothing excited her anymore. Maybe excitement was exactly the wrong thing for her. She’d chased it long enough.
    A knock at the door surprised her. She was even more surprised to see that it was Anita, the woman who’d been her agent when she was modeling. “Welcome,” she said. “When I wrote, I didn’t expect more than a note saying ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”
    They sat, and Anita looked her over. “I wanted to see you. You sounded good, but I thought I should see how you are.”
    “And now that you’ve seen?”
    “You look good.”
    “Should I let that excite me?”
    She shook her head. “From a professional standpoint, no.”
    “Because I’m damaged goods? I was a junkie so I won’t get work? I was hoping that using my real name would keep people from finding out I was in rehab.”
    Anita laughed. “The press are a tenacious and malicious lot, but that wouldn’t be a serious problem for you, anyway. If people who were damaged goods didn’t work, no one would. You know damn well that half the population of catwalks are junkies—not the top ones, but a lot. No. You were out of circulation for almost a year.”
    “Between the time it took to hit bottom and drag my ass back up, a bit more.”
    “The jobs you messed up before you went into rehab hurt you more, but we could deal with that too. I’d get you some small jobs and you’d prove yourself. That’s no harder than rebuilding your credit when you’ve fucked up. The real problem is that things have changed in the business.”
    “So I need to retrain?”
    “With the Internet, things are moving at hyperspeed. As far as our current clients are concerned, you don’t have the right look.”
    “I’m obsolete?”
    Anita held her hands out, showing her they were empty. “That’s about