“She’s coming back,” Nox told her. He read her so easily.
“I know,” she murmured. Her words were not nearly as confident as his.
The rest of the drive was short and quiet. When they rounded the corner of the street that Nox’s shop was on, a huge grin appeared on Sophia’s face when she saw the mudded-up jeep in the parking lot.
“Told you,” Nox quipped as he parked.
Jumping from the car, she ignored him as she ran for her sister. Rounding her jeep, she saw Elianna and Asher in a standoff with him looking ready to strangle the much smaller woman.
“Umm, hi.” Her voice squeaked. She jumped when they both whipped around to face her just as Nox appeared behind her.
Asher pointed at Elianna and said to Nox, “Control her, she damn near ran me over again.”
“If I wanted to run you over, I wouldn’t have missed!” Elianna smirked.
“Seriously, you two?” Nox groaned. “We’re starting so soon?”
From the moment they met, they’d fought like cats and dogs. Soph swore it was attraction. They grumbled and snapped anytime she suggested it. Nox generally just shook his head at their antics.
Asher growled at Elianna when she stuck her tongue out at him, and he walked away.
“You gonna stop trying to run over my best employee anytime soon?” Nox asked once Asher was out of earshot.
“Don’t you mean second best?” she smart-mouthed back.
“Christ.” He grabbed the bridge of his nose and shook his head. Obviously done with the entire thing, he left them alone to go inside.
“How did it go today?” Elianna asked her. Her usually boisterous attitude was gone, and in its place, was the scared little girl she had been all her life.
“She’ll never see the light of day again, Eli,” Soph told her. Their eyes met with a mutual struggle over whether to be relieved or upset.
Pulling Soph in for a hug, she cried. “Thank you, Sophie girl. For going, for being strong enough to watch and stand up to her.”
This, this was the closeness Sophia had been searching for all her life.
Nox watched Sophia all day, expecting sadness to creep in over her mother, but when not a single tear was shed, he felt relieved. The older woman didn’t deserve a single moment of Sophia’s guilt. He was both surprised and elated when she’d told him she was really alright with the sentencing and Rebecca’s subsequent outburst cursing Soph and Anthony to hell and back.
When Anthony had stopped him in the parking lot of the courthouse before they’d left, he’d been pissed, only wanting to comfort Soph. Which was how they’d been looped into sitting at the fancy table they were currently at in the mansion’s informal dining room.
Informal his ass.
It was fancier than his mother’s Thanksgiving best, and she went all out for every holiday. Without the servants, of course.
“So, Anthony, what was so pressing we all had to be here,” his mother asked, never one to beat around the bush.
The older man sputtered at her direct question. “Well.” He cleared his throat while wiping his mouth with a napkin. “I’d like for the kids to allow me to pay for their wedding. They refuse.”
His mother rolled her hand as if to say “continue”.
Anthony darted a quick look at Sophia who just smiled. “They won’t accept my offer,” he said.
“So I’m here because why?” Lorraine asked again.
“To convince them.” He threw his hands up in the air, and Sophia lost her battle not to laugh. “You hush, child,” he scolded her.
His mother was completely serious when she said, “Do you think my son can’t provide for our girl? That he can’t give her what she wants?”
Sophia’s laughter stopped, and she shot a worried look at Nox. “I know you don’t think that, baby,” he whispered to her. She leaned up to kiss his cheek lingeringly.