Learning to Stay (Stork Club #1)

A billionaire CEO drowning in triplets. A crisis caretaker who never stays past the job. And an arrangement neither of them planned to survive.

Corey Winters has spent his career putting other people's families back together—then walking away before anyone gets too attached. Structured. Professional. Temporary. When his agency sends him to a San Francisco penthouse where infant triplets are in chaos and their grief-wrecked uncle is asleep on the floor, Corey does what he always does: he takes control, makes a plan, and starts counting down to his exit.

Hendrik Welsin, the kind of man who color-codes his spreadsheets and runs a three-hundred-million-dollar company on pattern recognition, can't make sense of any of this. His sister is gone. He has three daughters he loves desperately and has no idea how to keep alive. And somehow the most infuriating, competent, impossible person he's ever met is the one standing between his girls and disaster.

Now they're living it—formula runs at 2 a.m., synchronized feedings, pediatrician spreadsheets, and the kind of trust that builds when someone sees you at your absolute worst and stays anyway. Corey has survived thirty-two years by keeping himself portable, temporary, easy to leave. Hendrik doesn't push. He doesn't ask for more. He just shows up—every time.

And Corey is terrified of what it means that he's stopped counting down.

✓ Caretaker-to-family
✓ He falls first
✓ Slow burn
✓ Found family
✓ Single dad (surprise guardian)
✓ Forced proximity
✓ Grumpy/sunshine

Heat Level: Closed Door
Vibes: Tender, heartfelt, quietly devastating
Setting: San Francisco penthouse
Ending: HEA
Series, Book 1 (standalone)

Some addresses you don't mean to make home. Some people won't let you leave.