Tom's nerves were quickly growing incredibly frayed. As he stood, hands in the warm water and suds brimming the sink before him, his ears couldn't help but listen to the conversation in the nearby living room. Constance had invaded his home two days before and ever since he felt as though he'd been walking on eggshells. He'd done quite well at keeping his mouth shut. To be honest, Constance wasn't approaching Sophia nearly as hard as he'd expected. She was actually being quite understanding, sympathetic, motherly even. It seemed as though all her disdain, all of her contempt for the situation was being directed toward him. Snide remarks, sideways glances that nearly made his skin crawl. He had never felt quite so uncomfortable in his own home. Sophia would try her best to dissuade her mother's scorn, but it was like just trying to yank your foot out of a proverbial bear trap: pointless.

He'd spent most of the last forty eight hours tiptoeing around, allowing the mother and daughter the most time possible. He'd join them here and there, or stay behind while they ventured throughout London. He made tea, straightened the apartment, did everything the doting boyfriend trying to impress his beloved's mother would do, but it was growing quite tiresome. Fifteen months, a giant rock and a house they had yet to move into would have been more than enough to win over any other parent. Even the constant reassurance flooding out of Sophia's mouth at his behalf was more than an adequate campaign for Tom, but not Constance. She wouldn't budge. She didn't like him and it was beyond his reasoning as to why.

"Mom, it's not happening," he heard Sophia say in a hushed tone.

"Sophia, darling, I love you, but I really think you should come home…"

"I AM home, Mom!" Sophia insisted through gritted teeth. "Why can't you understand that?"

"What? Here? On your own while he's out running around the globe? Sophia, he wasn't even here when you miscarried…"

Their words fell into silence as Tom unconsciously elbowed a tea cup to the floor. His teeth were gritted, jaw clenched. His crystal blue eyes were clouded with anger. His hands braced against the counter in front of him as he tried to breathe himself into a calmer state, though it wasn't really working.

"Thomas?"

He took a deep breath and turned around to find Sophia in the doorway.

"Are you alright?" she asked, a concerned expression strewn across her face.

Tom took another breath, the air filling his lungs to what felt like their breaking point before he exhaled slowly. "Yeah. Yeah I'm fine."

Sophia glanced over her shoulder to make sure her mother was still seated on the sofa before she walked more into the kitchen, out of Constance's line of vision. "Sweetheart, don't listen to what she says…"

"How can I not?" Tom asked, his whisper coming off as more of a hiss. "She blames me for all of this…"

"It doesn't matter what she thinks," Sophia interrupted, placing her hand snugly on top of his, still gripping the countertop.

"It DOES," Tom argued. "She's your mother. She…is going to be a part of my life for the rest of hers and…she hates me. She is sitting in there, twelve feet away from me, trying to get you to leave the country, to leave me. How am I supposed to ignore that?"

"I don't know," Sophia said with a sigh. "I just…"

Tom took a deep breath. "I can't do this. I can't be in this house listening to this…bullshit any longer. I just can't."

"What're you saying, Tom?"

"He's saying he's going to leave. Again."

Tom's head of curls swung in the direction of the woman behind him. "I'm not running anywhere. In fact, if you were to let me finish, I was going to ask if you would leave."

"You were going to ask my daughter to kick out her own mother?" Constance asked, her thin arms folded across her chest. "How very chivalrous of you."

Tom's blue eyes rolled toward the back of his skull. "Right. I'm the bad guy. I forgot. Remind me again of the man before me. The one that broke her heart and then the other heart of the daughter you worship. Does the sun still rise in his eyes?"

"Grant has nothing to do with this."

"No, you're right, he doesn't," Tom stated, standing tall. "Sophia made her choice. Over a year ago. She chose to be somewhere with people who loved her, who valued her. Something you in all your years as her mother have never done."

"Thomas…" Sophia began softly, brushing her fingertips against his hand ever so softly, begging for him to grow silent.

"No," Tom said, turning toward her. "I've held my tongue quite long enough." He turned back to the middle aged, debutante before him. "I don't know what I've done to place myself so…securely on your bad side, but I assure you that you hold no different place with me." He gulped back the angry lump that was growing in his throat. "I have spent much of the last fifteen months trying to undo the damage you have done to the woman I love. Because I do. I do love her more than your…simple mind could possibly even fathom."

Constance chuckled, leaning against the door frame. "Quite a bite to your words there, Charming."

"Well you seem to have pushed me to my limit," Tom stated. "Please, tell me how as someone who sees their firstborn child once a year you think you have any more of a place in her life than I do."

"Because I was there for the first thirty years instead of the last one."

"You were there? By there do you mean drunkenly passed out? Or berating her into self hatred? Or allowing her father to toss her and Samantha around like ragdolls? Is that what you mean by there? Because, in my experience, though my parents are divorced, I can assure you that is not what is intended when you're told to be there for your children."

"You think you know her entire history."

"I know what she has told me!" Tom shouted. "And that is more than enough. I don't need to hear your side of the story and I sure as hell don't want to because it makes no difference to me."

"And where were you when she needed you? Aside from up on your high horse? In Paris, right? Living your…extravagant lifestyle, doing lord knows what…."

"I WAS WORKING!" Tom yelled. "I was onset when I got the call and I was on a plane within an hour. Sophia knows where I am every second I am not in this home. I have never once lied to her, I have never once put her or our relationship in danger. Was my career my only focus for a long time? Yes. Of course it was. But now, the only reason I do what I do is so that I can give her and our family the life they deserve. I don't do this for the fame or the glory. I do it so when I go to bed at night I know that I have given her everything she could possibly ever want."

"Except for you being there."

Tom shook his head and scoffed, running his fingers through his ginger-blonde curls. "You will never understand what she and I have. You will never get the sacrifice both her and I have put into this relationship because you don't understand how a real relationship works. How love works. If the roles were reversed I would stand beside her just as she has me and she knows that."

"Does she? Have you asked her?"

"I don't need to because she knows my heart as well as I know hers," Tom insisted. "Can you say that about any of your what? Five marriages? How's this one going, by the way? I'm not sure I even know his name. Should I bother with learning it?"

"Okay, Tom, that's enough," Sophia stated.

"Yes. Listen to your bride," Constance stated. "Or continue. Maybe you'll just push her back to New York. You may do my job for me."

"Trust me, it'll take a lot more convincing for her to go with you than it would her to stay with me."

"Stop it!" Sophia shouted. "The both of you. Do you honestly think this is helping anything at this moment? Do you really think you're making yourselves look good because I can tell you for certain that neither of you are very well lit at the moment."

Tom asserted his agreement with just a nod, his eyes still locked onto the woman in the doorway. "I'm going to leave, just for a few hours. And when I return I want you out of my home. Remain in London or go back to New York, I don't care. But you are no longer welcome here."

Sophia's eyes widened at her usually mild-mannered man's request. She didn't blame him and she certainly wasn't angry, but she also definitely did not anticipate his words. Without so much as another beat, Tom's lean legs lead him past her mother and into the living room. "Tom, where are you going?"

"For a drink. I'll be back before bed," he stated simply, grabbing his coat from the closet and his wallet from the table. Tom turned back to Sophia and ran his arms down her shoulders. "I'm sorry. I truly am, but…I won't stand for this any longer. I understand that she is your mother. I get that, truly I do. But…if we are to have any sort of life together, if we're really in this for the long haul…something has got to change. Either…her attitude or her presence because I can't live like this." He took a step toward her, planting his lips firmly on her cheekbone before moving toward the door and disappearing into the hallway.

Sophia winced as the door shut with a bit of a slam. She breathed deeply trying to prevent the flood that emotion filled her eyes from pouring down her face. It was time for her to make a choice. Give in to the little girl inside who still wanted nothing more than to please her mother or stand beside the man she loved and say goodbye possibly once and for all?