Free A Bad Boy for Christmas by Kelly Hunter

wearing it.”
    Mia couldn’t help her smirk. “I looked at her website. It’s gorgeous, and so are you. Poseidon. ”
    “I don’t want to talk about it,” he muttered, even as his lips twitched. “Be warned. You’re next. Zoey’s already designing for you.”
    Mia could get behind that notion. Zoey Jackson née Daniels was insanely talented. “What’s she designing?”
    “It’s white and it’s backless. I think it’s a wedding dress.”
    “Oh.” Mia grimaced. “Really?”
    “You don’t want a wedding dress?”
    “Seems a little useless at this point. I was kinda hoping for something I could wear to work. Maybe Princess Leia’s bikini.”
    “You don’t want to encourage that.”
    “I don’t?”
    “Mia, where’s Nash?”
    “Melbourne.”
    “He left?”
    “He does have a business to run. One can’t just wait around for long-lost fathers to materialize, no matter how welcoming the rest of the family is.”
    Cutter had the grace to look discomforted by her observation. “It isn’t easy getting back from England at this time of year without a prior booking. Christmas is coming. Lots of people traveling. Flights are full.”
    “Really?” There was probably some truth to his words. “So, no other reason for the delay?”
    “Why does there have to be another reason?”
    Mia put the picture down and gave him her full attention. “You, your brothers and their wives, your grandparents, you’re all on board with the welcoming party. Every last one of you. And yet there hasn’t been one word of welcome from your father or your mother. Nothing but radio silence there. Even if they’re not inclined or able to cut short their trip, they could have contacted Nash. They could have at least done that, but they haven’t.”
    Cutter didn’t flare up at her words. Instead he met her gaze squarely, with an apologetic one of his own.
    “Cutter, what’s going on?” she asked gently.
    “I didn’t know Nash’s mother or what she did here when she was young, but the fact that he’s her son isn’t going down well. Not with my mother. My father’s more accepting of the Liza connection.”
    “What a guy. Given that he screwed her.”
    Temper flared in his eyes but he kept it banked. “You wanted to know why the delay. My father wants to meet Nash. He knows it’s too late to try and be a father to him, but he wants him in our lives. My mother’s not convinced that’s such a good thing. She told my father to head on home without her and she’d continue on her vacation alone.”
    Mia frowned and rocked forward on the bench. “Ultimatum. Ouch.”
    Cutter shrugged. “My father declined that option. He’s trying to talk her round. And she will come around eventually. Maybe if she’d been here when Nash first showed up she would have dealt with it by now. Maybe if this hadn’t been their big thirtieth wedding anniversary holiday she’d be more welcoming.”
    “Boy, you really do like to believe the best of people.”
    “Mia, they’re my parents.”
    Vulnerable . That was the word she kept circling back to when it came to this man, no matter how apparent his strengths. He wore loyalty to his family like a badge of honor for all to see and she worried for him because of it.
    “You’ve never faced this before, have you? Parents who let you down. You’re thirty years old and this is the first time they haven’t stepped up to the mark you set for them.” He looked at her, and she saw from his face that it was true, and she was gentle with him because of it. “I think your parents must be good ones, overall, given the welcome we’ve had from you and your brothers. You’ve made room for Nash just fine.”
    “I have not,” he said gruffly. “I just keep thinking about the four-year-old kid you told us about rather than the impenetrable bastard who disappears without a word.”
    “Right,” she murmured dryly. “No taking ownership of Nash in that little statement at all. When he comes back