After an afternoon of fairly chaste extracurricular activities in the fitting room at Wyndham's, Nikolas had managed to leave Nadine alone at Wyndamere long enough for him to get across town to his supposed meeting at the clinic. She had tried to convince him to come back to the mansion to spend more time with her and Spencer, but he had held firm in his insistence in going to the meeting. It wasn't that he didn't want to spend time with them – they were pretty much everything to him. It was just that the meeting at the clinic had everything to do with their future as a family.

"Thanks for agreeing to see me at the last minute," Nikolas said gratefully as he kissed his aunt on the cheek. Alexis smiled genuinely as she sat down in an empty chair across from her nephew. "I know that you want to get home to see the girls and I have dinner plans, so I will keep this brief. I want to revisit my will. There are some changes that I would like to make."

Alexis looked up at him unexpectedly, slightly surprised by his announcement. She had known that their business this afternoon was of a legal nature, but she had expected it to pertain to Cassadine Enterprises. They hadn't talked about his estate since Patrick had cleared him of the tumor that spring. "Nikolas, is there anything you need to tell me?" she asked worried, leaning forward slightly. "Has there been a change with your health or something? Is the tumor back? Oh, God, has Helena resurfaced?"

"No, no, no, nothing like that," he chuckled at his aunt's rambling. She was always doing that to herself, getting completely worked up over the slightest hint of trouble. It reminded him of Nadine a lot in that way. It only made sense that he would find the quality equally endearing in both women considering that they were the two most important ladies in the world to him. "As you know, Nadine and I have been spending a lot more time together. I am not saying that I want to make any changes yet, but there are some things I want to start looking at. If we were to stay together, I'd want to make sure that she was taken care of if anything was to happen to me."

Scribbling notes on her yellow legal pad, she waited for him to continue. When he was silent, she looked up at him over the edge of her horn-rimmed glasses. "Okay, well, your current will calls for the estate to be split once Spencer turns 25. I would act as executor until that time. If I was unable to oversee your affairs, you named Lucky and Lulu as co-executors," she reminded him. "Spencer and any other child you should have would inherit a majority of your estate at about seventy-five percent. The remaining twenty-five percent would be split equally between my children as well as Lucky and Lulu's kids. Spencer would act as head of Cassadine Industries if he is willing and of age. Any other heirs would be given titles and responsibilities based on age and Spencer's discretion."

"Wow, comprehensive," Nikolas deadpanned. She definitely had a knack for detail. "I'd still like Spencer and any other kids I have to inherit most of what I have. That's the way Nadine would want it. And of course, I want the girls and my nieces and nephews to be taken care of when I'm gone. I just want to make sure that I could work out a small percentage for Nadine. That's not really the most important thing though. I'm not just talking about money or my holdings."

"Spencer," Alexis declared knowingly. As much as she loved her nephew, she almost loved her great-nephew even more. Until now, it had been understood that she would take Spencer if something ever happened to Nikolas. He had come to her when he was going through everything with the tumor and made her promise to raise him. If she couldn't, he would be raised by Lucky. The only stipulation that was really made was that Helena was absolutely not to have any kind of contact with Spencer. "Nikolas, are you thinking about asking Nadine to adopt Spencer?"

Looking down at his hands, Nikolas knew that his aunt was likely taken aback by the quick pace he was suddenly moving at with Nadine. It felt a little fast to him at times still, too. However, today was just another example of how right it felt with her. "Losing Emily taught me how fleeting life is, Alexis. Things happen when we least expect them. If something happens to me, I need to know that Spencer will be loved," he tried to explain. "I know that you and Lucky would do an amazing job, but you have lives of your own. Nadine would build her entire life around my little boy. In a lot of ways, she already has. I've seen the way they are together. He loves her. Even more than Nadine and me, I know that the two of them were made to be together. I'm not ready to make any definitive decisions, but yes, I do want to begin exploring adoption."

In the two years after Courtney died, Nikolas never once brought up the idea of adoption with Alexis. He had never made permanent arrangements in his will to have Emily take care of him if he was to die. He never asked her to adopt him as far as Alexis knew. "Okay, I can start talking to a friend of mine from law school that specializes in adoption. She is supposed to be in the city next week, so we can head into New York to meet her," she suggested. "Do you want to find out when works best for Nadine and invite her? I can try to plan around her schedule at the hospital."

"I don't want to bring this up to her until I am absolutely sure," he countered. "I really want to make sure that this is the best decision for everyone before I even have the conversation with her or Spencer. We've only just really started to get serious. It's just that this is a part of my life that I have to think about now. Speaking of serious, I was hoping to have you and the girls out to my house for dinner. I would like you to spend some time with Nadine and get to know her. Your opinion is very important to me."

"Name a night and we'll be there," she promised, reaching across the desk to cover his hand with hers. It had been a long time since she had seen him look that happy, that at peace. "I am really happy for you, Nikolas. Nadine seems to really have a positive impact on you. I think it's great that you are letting yourself fall in love again. I know that Emily would be happy for you."

Nikolas' eyes darted down to the desktop for a moment and then up to meet his aunt's gaze. "She really would, wouldn't she?" he grinned. He pulled his hand away before coming around to hug her tightly. "Thank you again for coming by here. I will check with Nadine to see when dinner would work and we can set something up for next week. She's been staying with us at Wyndamere, and I'm hoping that she will be willing to make it a little more permanent."

"Did you just slide the fact that you are going to ask her to move in with you at the end of this conversation?" she chastised him as she pulled away from the hug. "That's a pretty big step."

"It's one that I am ready to make," he assured her. It was something that had been on his mind all day, ever since he had seen her dance around his bedroom in his shirt. He wanted to wake up to her like that every single day. There was no way she could go back to living in that apartment blocks away from him and Spencer. They needed her there. "That's why it is so important to me that you get to know Nadine. I'm pretty sure that she is going to be around for awhile. I want her to know Kristina and Molly better, too. She is great with kids."

"She was wonderful with Kristina when we went in a few weeks ago to get her booster shots," Alexis acknowledged before turning back to pack up her briefcase. "I'll bring the girls and Sam whenever you want us there. Nikolas, as long as you love her, I know that we will love her, too. Your happiness is all that really matters to us. You do love her, don't you?"

A slightly crimson spread across Nikolas' caramel-colored cheeks at his aunt's probing question. "I love her," he confirmed with a confident nod. "Even better than that, she loves me and she loves my son. That's all I needed to know to be happy."

Nikolas followed Alexis to the door, pausing once more to hug her. There was little sane Cassadine family left in the world, and so many times, it had felt like the two of them against the world. They had added children along the way, but at the core, he knew that she was the one person who had loved him from the day that he was born and would love him until the day that she died. She was his family when he wasn't sure that existed. "I love you, Aunt Alexis," he murmured as she squeezed him tightly. "I don't tell you that often enough or say thank you."

"I don't need to hear it to know it," she responded as she rested her hand on the door knob. In many ways, Nikolas was her oldest child. He was her constant, the one thing she had always been able to count on. She had made sure that she had survived Helena and the other Cassadine psychopaths because she had wanted him to have the best life possible. When she had wanted to run away from everything that she had known, he had been the one thing that kept her tethered to the ground and kept her coming back to Port Charles. "I love you, too."

They exchanged a final smile before Nikolas closed the door behind her. He walked back over to his desk and started to rifle through his top drawer. He still had one final meeting before he could return back to the house to get Nadine for dinner. A polite knock at the door announced his second visitor of the afternoon. "Come in," he permitted without even looking up from his checkbook. When he was finished making out the check, he looked up at the uniformed man waiting for him. "Thank you for coming by to see me. Did you bring what I asked?"

"Of course, Mr. Cassadine," the man replied obediently. He took the chrome briefcase and sat it on the desk. Nikolas watched as he quickly worked the pair of locks before flipping open the case to reveal an expansive display of sparkling baubles and glittering jewels. "Everything is one-of-a-kind and has never been seen by anyone other than the designer and me. We had the diamonds imported from a remote village in Lesotho."

He leaned over to examine the jewelry closer. Nikolas absently fingered a pair of sizable diamond drop earrings before disregarding them as too gaudy. He also quickly skipped over a simple tennis bracelet, an ostentatious cocktail ring and deep green emerald earrings set in white gold. There were really only two pieces in there that he would even begin to consider for Nadine. "It's between these two," he told the jeweler, pointing to each of the selected pieces. The man removed them and sat them on a black velvet cloth so that he could look at them further. Nikolas lifted the necklace first and ran his fingers over the platinum links. The fine chain slid through his fingertips as he held it up at eye level to look at the sizable pendant. It was a small, diamond-encrusted duck. He knew that it was something that no one else would ever ask for but him. He'd chosen it because it reminded him of the silly bracelet she wore every day at work. It was the first endearing thing that had caught his eye and told him just how special she was. The necklace was exactly as he had imagined it.

On the other hand, the bracelet was far better than he had ever thought it would turn out. The white gold bracelet consisted of diamond heart-shaped links. At first sight, it was a fairly run-of-the-mill piece that sat in the jewelry boxes of rich trophy wives across the country. The clasp was the thing that made it different. Instead of the traditional lobster clasp on each end, Nikolas had the jeweler custom make magnetic clasps in the shape of Ns. On one of the clasps, there was also a smaller magnetic S. When the bracelet was secured around her wrist, it would read NSN, standing for Nikolas Spencer Nadine. He absolutely loved it.

"I can't decide," he mused, holding a piece in each hand. The necklace was very much about their beginning. It kind of showed where they had come from. The bracelet was about their future. It represented where they could go. In such an instance, there really was only one choice he could make. "I'll take them both."

The man smiled deliciously, dreams of vacations and home remodeling dancing in his eyes. The sale represented a sizable commission, but the money was pretty minor for Nikolas. It couldn't even begin to do justice to what Nadine deserved from him. "Yes, sir, I will just write up the ticket," the jeweler told Nikolas before quickly packing up the rest of the pieces back into the case. "I will just have these wrapped and bring in the receipt in a moment. Is there anything else I can do for you this afternoon, sir?"

Nikolas shook his head dismissively. "Just leave them, I will wrap them myself," he decided. The man exited the room obediently, leaving Nikolas alone once again. He pulled a file folder from his inbox and ran his eyes over the text. This was what he wanted to wrap her gift in. It took him awhile to get it done, but he eventually managed to make the pair of boxes look almost presentable. He finished the box off with a white silk ribbon that he had taken from the wrapping room that Mrs. Landsbury had organized off the pantry at Wyndamere. Tucking them into the pocket of his blazer, he smiled at himself in satisfaction before reaching for his telephone. "Hello?"

"Hey, Daddy!" Spencer's proud voice crackled through the receiver. Nikolas had been working with the toddler on etiquette, so he was excited about getting to answer the phone at home. The proud father smiled to himself again in satisfaction. "When are you coming home? Nadine and me are playing this new game that she just taught me, and it's really fun."

"Nadine and I," Nikolas corrected him automatically. "I will be home in a half-hour, when Po's left arm is on the twelve and the little hand is on the four." Spencer's favorite thing lately had been the Kung Fu Panda that Nadine had picked up for him at the hospital gift shop. He had insisted on learning to tell time immediately. "Can I talk to Nadine?"

"Nadine, Daddy wants you!"

The sounds of the phone exchanging hands filled Nikolas' ear before he heard Nadine exhale softly into the phone. "I bet he does," she teased in a low voice. "So, when are you coming home? We miss you."

"I miss you both too," he smiled. He loved hearing her ask about home and talking about his son as if they were a cohesive unit. "I'm just finishing things up with the meeting and should be out of here within a few minutes. You should probably start getting ready. I need to make a pit stop before we meet Elizabeth and Lucky at the restaurant."

"Will do," she replied distractedly. He could hear Spencer calling her in the background. "Look, I have an anxious little boy to get back to so I'll let you go. See you in a little while."

"Okay," he relented, not wanting to end his connection to her just yet. "I love you."

"Love you, too," she chirped before hanging up.

Nikolas returned the phone to the cradle as the jeweler came back in with a carbon copy of the receipt from the pieces. He scanned the figures quickly before signing off on the withdrawal of funds from his account. "Thank you for bringing these by on such short notice."

After a few more minutes of polite conversation from Nikolas and sucking up from the jeweler, Nikolas walked him out of the clinic and headed back to the bathroom to change into his evening suit. Nadine had picket out a soft sage green shirt to go with the charcoal suit. It wasn't something that he would typically pick out because the hue was so far out of his usual palette. However, he had to admit that it fit him perfectly. As he pulled on the damask silk coat that matched his pants, he heard his phone ringing from the other room. Flipping off the light to his private bathroom, he jogged back into the office to answer it with a curt, "Nikolas Cassadine."

"Hey, it's me again," Nadine giggled on the line. "I forgot to tell you something earlier."

"Oh? What is that?"

"We're staying at my apartment tonight."

"Why?" Nikolas asked confusedly. There was no logical reason anyone would want to stay there given the luxurious amenities and complete staff offering of his mansion.

"Because I intend to rock your world again tonight," she purred. "And I intend to make some noise."