Sophie (The Boss 8)

“What happened?” El-Mudad asked as soon as he saw us. So, we must have looked just slightly pissed off or something.

“Olivia was madly packing up everything she owns. In case Valerie and Laurence planned to keep her.” Neil didn’t add anything to that. The alarm on El-Mudad’s face meant no further explanation was necessary.

“They don’t have her passport, do they?” was the first thing out of his mouth.

“You guys are so...well, I don’t want to say paranoid, but that was Neil’s first reaction, too,” I said, amazed by their protective instincts.

“International custody disputes change your way of thinking,” El-Mudad said grimly. Though the conflict with his ex had never involved us, we’d picked up on the animosity.

“We decided it was time to have a family discussion about this. We’ll have dinner with Valerie and Laurence on Sunday night to try and smooth some of this over.”

“I will be sure to be...elsewhere,” El-Mudad assured us. He was so used to being pushed aside in all things Olivia that it had become a heartbreaking reflex.

Neil shook his head. “No. You’re Olivia’s family, too. It’s time we put that out in the open.”

“But that’s the problem, isn’t it? My involvement with the two of you?” El-Mudad shook his head. “Will further involvement improve things?”

“It doesn’t matter if it improves them or not.” I would stand firm on that point. “We don’t need permission from Laurence or Valerie to live the way we choose. We’re raising Olivia in a loving family, and that’s all that matters.”

“It’s all that should matter,” Neil said in firm agreement. “Unfortunately, others might not see it that way.”

“Which is why I’m not certain my presence at such a meeting would be wise.” El-Mudad shook his head. “If you want me to be there, I will be. But please, don’t do anything that could jeopardize things with Olivia. I couldn’t bear it if I were the reason you lost her.”

“Don’t talk like that.” I couldn’t stand to even think about it. “We’re not going to lose her, and we’re not going to lose you.”

At least, I hoped not.

“Hey!” Rashida shouted to us from beyond the gentle rise that disguised the sunken dining area. “Are we going to eat?”

El-Mudad scolded her in Arabic and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Neil put an arm around El-Mudad’s back. “She’s becoming our little American. So rude.”

“Hey!” I protested and heard Rashida’s outraged inflection in my own voice. Or maybe it was the other way around; possibly, I was not a great influence.

Our very mature decision to sit down with Valerie and Laurence had been all well and good in the moment, but once Sunday arrived, I wanted to travel back in time and kick my own ass. Neil was a ball of nerves, so El-Mudad was overly patient and calm, which just annoyed Neil and made me snippy, as well. Knowing that the emotional stakes of the day were high, we tip-toed on broken glass to keep from sending each other into a panic attack or depressive spiral.

When my mother made her weekly check-in call, I was already crawling out of my skin with anxiety.

I’d snuck off to my private sitting room to talk to her. Was it spoiled of me to have an entire room just to sit around with nobody bugging me? Probably. But I needed it to survive. Being in a relationship with one person made it hard enough to get alone time. With two other people? We all needed our space. El-Mudad had his den, Neil had his study, and I had my lovely pastel blue paradise where I could meditate, do yoga, read… But most of the time, I just watched TV and refreshed Instagram over and over.

It was nice to have privacy for calls with my mom, though. I paced the white-washed floorboards of my sitting room, phone in hand, as Mom recounted the details of a recent lunch with her mother-in-law.

“I said, Cynthia if you don’t like the geraniums, next year we’ll plant something else. It’s not a heart transplant. It’s a bunch of sickly flowers that are already dead.” Mom sighed heavily. “And that she asked for specifically, but she won’t acknowledge that, of course.”

“Of course,” I said, my gaze flicking out the window. This room didn’t have a view of the sea; from my second-story vantage point, I could gaze out the window at the rolling expanse of sparse woods that surrounded the property. It reminded me a little of home in the U.P., which had been part of the reason I’d claimed this particular room.

“You sound distracted, honey,” Mom said. It wasn’t a complaint about my attentiveness but a remark of genuine concern. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. No. Not really.” I knew she probably hated to even hear about El-Mudad and our relationship with him, but she had gotten a bit more accepting once she’d realized that his presence in our life came with two built-in granddaughters. “We’re having Valerie troubles.”