Undone (4 page)

"Is he in your bedroom?" He turned back to Sophie and she almost believed him angry enough to kill.

"Y…yeah,” she answered warily.

"Tell him to kindly pack his things and get the hell out of my home. He has ten minutes. If he's not off the premises in the time allotted
, I will shoot him for trespassing." With that, he spun on his heel and walked away, only stopping to succinctly order Ellie to their room.

"Mom...
," Sophie called helplessly.

"He doesn't mean it, he's just angry. Give him time to calm down
. Until then, I think it’s best if Andrew stayed in another room. At least until we come to an agreement." With a sigh and a reassuring pat on her arm, Ellie followed her infuriated lover back to their bedroom.

"Before you start laying into me, can I say
, in my defense, that I didn't even know about this until last night? When I found out it was too late to do anything about it." Ellie closed the door behind her and came away from it. Taking a seat on the couch she watched while Nicholas paced.

"You should've called the cops. Better yet, my security team would've been more than happy to kick him out on his ass
,” he retorted.

Ellie rolled her eyes. "Oh
, right, and risk the chance of Sophie running after him?"

"You could've called me. Damn it
, Ellie, you could've told me that the bastard was her professor!"

"I understand you're angry, Nicholas, but you had better stop yelling at me
, otherwise, you'll be sleeping alone tonight,” Ellie said coolly, crossing her arms in the process.

Nicholas took a moment, still pacing to rein in his anger. Opening his mouth at this very second would no doubt leave him with the couch as
sleeping partner tonight. So he combed his fingers through his hair with a heavy sigh. Coming to the conclusion that rational and calm would better serve him in this situation, he turned to the mother of his children.

"I can't forbid Sophie from seeing him, can I?" he finally asked, far more calmly then he felt.

Empathizing with him wholeheartedly, Ellie pulled him to the couch beside her. "Not unless you want her to run away and end up marrying the man just to spite us."

Nicholas frowned. "She wouldn't dare."

"People do the craziest things when they're in love. I went out with you, remember?" She faced Nicholas, her legs tucked beneath her, and she gently smiled. "Despite Gabe’s warnings and my better judgment, I started dating you. I fell in love with you, even though I knew you were bad for me. I wanted to be with you no matter what anyone told me. Now it's our turn, Nicky,
we're
the parents and we have to be just a little wiser than our own parents were."

"But he's thirty and her teacher at that!" he groused.

"Believe me, I know." Ellie sighed. "But we can't yell at her, Nicky, and we certainly can't forbid her from seeing this man. If we tell her she can't, then she'll be more inclined to do it. We just have to support her and let her know she can come to us for anything. We raised her well. She's never done a single thing to make us doubt her judgment. Besides, she's an adult now, we have to step back and let her make her own mistakes."

"I don't like this, Elle, I don't like it one bit."

Ellie scooted closer and framed Nicholas’s face, bringing his pewter grey eyes to her. "I know, I don't either, but that's what being a parent is about. The only thing we can do now is show her that we support her and get to know her boyfriend."

"I don't want to
,” he said sullenly, furrowing his dark brows.

Ellie grinned and kissed his nose
. "For me, Nicky, please?"

"No."

Ellie dropped a kiss on his cheek. "Please...?"

"No."

A longer kiss on the corner of his mouth, Ellie tasted the oncoming smile. "Please…? I promise we can do that thing you like,” she cajoled.

Interest lightened Nicholas’s face, his grey eyes dancing
. "I can even get to…"

Ellie laughed and nodded
. "Uh huh, and we can even use those diamond studded cuffs you bought for me for Halloween."

Nicholas smirked and pulled Ellie onto his lap
. "With the golden collar?" He nuzzled her neck, licking the caramel flesh.

Ellie hummed and closed her eyes. "And the whip."

"Fine, the bastard can stay, but he's sleeping in the first floor guest room and if I so much as catch him in Sophie’s room, he's as good as dead."

"I'll even help you bury the body. Thanks, Nicky."

Taking hold of her face, Nicholas leered and claimed a kiss. "Thank me later."

"Dad!" Bella squealed. At the sight of her father, she abandoned her seat on the floor and ran to embrace him. "When did you get in?" she inquired, pulling away with a beaming smile.

Nicholas tenderly kissed the top
of her head and returned her exuberant smile. "This morning...midnight, actually." Glancing around the living room, through the chaos of wrapping paper, scissors, tape and an assortment of clothing, Nicholas caught sight of Dina, Maddie, Brent and Dylan; the rest of his family absent, his youngest child included.

“Where is Noah?” Nicholas asked, approaching his
mother-in-law, he leaned down and dropped a kiss on her cheek.

“Upstairs showing Phillip how to play video games
,” she said with a smile.

Nicholas ruffled Dylan’s hair and had his hand swatted away.
"Pops, not the hair!" his son protested. "This hair is gonna get me laid…Ow, Belle, what the hell?"

"You're such a pervert!"

"Mom!"

"I didn't see anything
,” said Ellie, taking a seat on the floor next to her mother. She grabbed a few small items from the floor and helped her stuff the stockings.

"That's not cool," he turned to his sister and sinisterly grinned, "hit me again and I'll make sure Bobby Crandall gets your number."

"You wouldn't."

"Try me, Belle." He grinned wickedly as she glowered at him.

She turned away from him with a huff and resumed her wrapping duties, muttering to herself about idiotic twin brothers and their constant need to pester her.

Joining in their chuckles, Nicholas
turned to Maddie and Brent and greeted them. "How's business going, Brent?" he asked, taking a seat opposite to where Brent sat, his gaze intent on the flat screen TV, watching a basketball game. Putting the television on mute, Brent turned and faced Nicholas, his peculiar golden eyes displaying his mirthful countenance which Nicholas greatly admired. The guy made it damn hard to be anything but happy around him. In the past two years since he'd been with Maddie, Nicholas had never seen the man display any emotion other than cheerfulness, everything seemed to roll off his back.

Having known Maddie for so long, Nicholas naturally considered her part of his extensive family, and as such he’d come to be a bit protective of her. So, when she’d introduced them to Brent, Nicholas had been slightly wary of him, but quickly found that there was no need for it. Despite his hulking appearance and extensive tattoos, Brent Hayward was as harmless as a duck,
and worshipped the ground Maddie walked on.

Prevented from doing his routine background checks, Nicholas had been forced to have an actual conversation with Brent over dinner
—that Ellie forced him to attend—and though he'd been reluctant in going, Nicholas had learned quite a bit about the new man in Maddie’s life. For one thing, Brent was an expert tattooist who had learned and mastered both Eastern and Western techniques through his extensive years of traveling abroad, which, Maddie told them, was how they'd met.

While finishing up an assignment in Europe, she’d stayed in a quaint little hostel outside the city borders, the very same one Brent had been lodging in and the rest was history. Loathed to sever their immediate connection, they'd traded emails and after months of talking over the internet and
confident that neither one was a psychopath, they'd decided to meet. Ellie, Nicholas and three undercover security guards had been in attendance that day. Thinking back on it now, Nicholas realized how comical their safety precaution had been. Brent was a bear-sized man who wouldn't dare hurt a fly, let alone a woman he was wholly enamored with.

They'd also discovered that, not only was Brent an expert tattooist, his experience far exceeding Nicholas’s own abilities, but he also owned a tattoo shop downtown, a booming one at that, named Venus Ink, after the his first two tattoos. Anyone who could ink as well as Brent did and not piss Nicholas off was
OK in his book. Brent was one of a select few Nicholas actually considered a friend.

"Can't complain
.” Brent grinned with a shrug. "Pays the bills. How'd your trip go?"

"As well as to be expected considering the rush of the holidays."

While they spoke, Maddie and Ellie shared a look and knowingly grinned. It was always a good thing when Brent and Nicholas got together. Hopefully, Brent's amiable mood would rub off on Nicholas. A happy Nicholas was much easier to handle than an irritated one and Ellie knew her husband would be irritated when it came time to actually meet Sophie’s boyfriend.

“So Brent, when are you going to make an honest woman out of my sister here?” Ellie teased
, laughing when the man flushed. He was saved from answering when Noah came running downstairs; Sophie and Andrew following at a more sedate pace.

“DAD!” Noah, bundle of energy that he was
, ran to give his father a long awaited hug. “When did you get here?”

Nicholas smiled and ruffled his hair. “Early this morning. How’s it going, kiddo?”

“I beat Grandpa at DeathRacer 3! It was my highest score!” he boasted with a smile, his bottom front teeth missing. “No one can play like you, Dad! We have to get teams and play together!”

It was hard for Nicholas to concentrate on his youngest son’s exuberance when his oldest daughter was holding on to the arm of a man who was nearly his age.

Sophie’s nerves went into overdrive when she saw Nicholas critically eyeing Andrew, who for his part, stepped forward and reached his hand out.

"Andrew Hunter
.” For a stretch of eternity, Sophie feared Nicholas wouldn't take the offered hand, but she breathed easier when her adoptive father's hand finally grasped Andrew's own.

"Nicholas Grayson." Sophie bit her bottom lip, hating that something so good in her life was causing so much dissonance. She wanted to flee, but Andrew's steady hand on her lower back kept her rooted.

"Did you both sleep well?" Ellie stepped forward, her warmth quickly dispelling the frigid tension her lover emitted. "Are you hungry, Andrew? There’s breakfast in the dining room."

Andrew respectfully declined. He did
, however, open his mouth to say something completely unexpected. "If my presence here has made you in any way uncomfortable, I'd like to apologize to you and your family, Ms. Holbrook. It wasn't at all my intention."

Nicholas’s eyes narrowed
. "And what was your intention, exactly?"

"Not to incur your wrath, that's for sure
,” Andrew deadpanned.

"Well, it's a little bit late for that, I can assure you."

"Dad."

"Nicky
,” Ellie warned.

"I think it would be best if I stayed in a hotel room."

"Andrew, no!"

The corners of Nicholas’s lips upturned in a malicious smirk
. "I'll have security escort you off the premises."

"No! Dad!"

"Nicholas, that's enough! No one is leaving. Andrew, please excuse our behavior, we're usually not this impolite. Nicholas and I are still in shock. It isn't everyday our eldest daughter brings home a man ten years her senior and expects us to be OK with it."

Andrew nodded
. "That's to be understood, Ms. Holbrook, and I sincerely apologize for the discomfort.”

Knowing that her lover was on the edge of snapping, Ellie held onto his arm, preventing him from doing anything rash. "Ellie, please, and it’s alright. Now, why don't you and Sophie head to the dining room and grab a bite to eat
; there's plenty of food, so please don't be shy." She smiled for added affect, putting them both at ease. The moment they disappeared around the corner, Ellie’s shoulders sagged and she sighed.

"Nicky you promised!"
she grumbled, facing her obstinate lover. "You have to at least try to be civil to the man."

"I don’t like him."

"Yes, but that’s why we’re going to be civil and get to know him,” Ellie retorted.

Nicholas sighed frustratingly
. "There’s something about him I don’t trust, Ellie."

"I'm not asking you to be his best friend, Nicky. I just need you to be kinder."

"To a pedophile?"

"May I remind you that Sophie is twenty?"

"Mom’s right, Pops," Dylan piped in, clapping his father on the back. "Soph’s a big girl, and it’s completely legal. Besides, I think you should take comfort in the fact that your son isn’t into cougars. Like to date within my own age group. Although, if I had a cougar come on to me—" He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, grinning up at his glowering parents.

"Come along, dear," Dina called to Dylan, knowing she needed to save his hide before he earned himself a punishment. "Walk me to the dining room, your poor Nan's hungry."

"A little advice, Nicholas...?" She stopped in front of him. "Understanding works so much better then anger, give him a chance." With a sympathetic pat to his cheek, she walked away.

"I feel like the only sane one here," Nicholas remarked dryly, brushing his hand through his hair
. He turned to the rest of his family. “And I take it you all think I should give him a chance too?”