The Unbreakables (BWHM)

Chapter 4

"I need time; I can't deal with this right now. If you want me to change, then fine I'll go change." I jumped off the bar stool so fast I sent it careening to the kitchen floor.

Ruby picked up the bar stool and sat it in an upright position and said, "Alright, child. Go and get dressed the food is almost done and your sister and that new man of hers will be here in less than an hour."

Upset, I took the stairs two at a time up to my room. I was desperate to escape from the kitchen before I fell apart. The painful memories I always kept buried were almost at the surface.

Once in my room, it only took me fifteen minutes to dress. When I finished I sat on the bed and attempted to put my emotions in check.

After five minutes of guilt, hurt and anger, I took a deep breath and stood. It was now time to deal with Miah's crazy. So I tucked away my feelings and began to make my way downstairs to join the rest of my family. Half way down, voices coming from the foyer drifted back to me. The first voice I recognized was my sister's. When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I paused to listen. The man holding Miah's hand spotted me.

"You must be Nikayla." The man had a deep voice with a hint of an accent.

"Kayla." My mother snapped her fingers and gestured for me to come over. "Come meet Jamiah's...Caleb." She finished with a frozen smile plastered across her lips. She was quietly pissed and couldn't bring herself to call Caleb Miah's fiancé.

As I moved closer to them Caleb extended his hand. I stared down at the offered appendage, like there was a catch. After a moment, he lowered his arm and gave me a slight smile. The kind of smile adults gave kids who didn't know any better.

Caleb returned his gaze to my mother. "Surely, you're not old enough to be Jamiah and Nikayla's mother. Sister maybe, but mother." He shook his head. "No, I don't believe it."

Wow, he was really going there with such a butt kissing comment. Yes, my mother was still a beautiful woman in her mid-fifties, but even Stevie Wonder wouldn't mistake my mother for our sister. At that moment my father decided to introduce himself.

"I'm Dr. Nichols Jamiah's father." Dad  offered his hand.

"Nice to meet you, Dr. Nichols." He extended an arm to my father. "You have a beautiful family. A man such as yourself has no shortage of luck."

"Luck." My dad laughed before grasping his hand in a firm hand shake. "No, brother. I'm blessed."

"Of course," Caleb said.

"Another winner," I mumbled under my breath.

Caleb turned at the sound of my voice and just for a flash of a second I saw deception in his eyes and just as fast it was gone, to be replaced by amusement in a pair of steel gray irises.

As my parents drew Caleb in polite small talk, I took the time to run an assessing gaze over him. He looked to be six two with shoulder length black hair he wore pulled back in a ponytail at the nape of his neck. His well built body exuded power. Scorched butter toned skin was stretched taut over hills of lean muscles. I know Jamiah said Caleb was of Jamaican decent, but he appeared to me to be Middle-Eastern.

Caleb dressed in a white Armani button down shirt and solid black dress pants. He was the epitome of leisured sophistication, but there was something else about him my mind couldn't conceive. A subtle danger that seeped from his pores and thickened the air around him.

"Let's all go into the living area so we can get better acquainted," My father said, ushering us from the foyer.

As we gathered in the living room Caleb and Jamiah sat on the love seat facing my mother, while I settled on the sofa and my father sat on his favorite arm chair.