Nicolai kicked himself off the wall against which he was leaning and said to Mateo, "I am here because I am her friend, and compared to you, I am much closer to her. So, I believe that it's better for me to stay with her."
He was not leaving until he had his say.
"Nico—"
"Then you can stay." Theodore looked at Nicolai with an assessing expression. "But I do hope that you will know where to draw the line, right?"
The Ashford family had been neutral for years; they have never aligned themselves with the Serpents of the Phantoms.
Theodore had no plans on doing such a thing either, and to top it all, he had heard of Nicolai's fame. As a father, he did not believe that he was a man worthy of marrying his daughter, for he knew how many women Nicolai had been with.
He didn't agree with it when it was Penelope who wanted to marry Nicolai, and he was not going to agree even more now that it was related to Ariana.
