Duality Read Online Free PDF

standing.”
    “You’re pregnant and you were almost killed. Sit down.”
    “Fine,” she sighed, slumping into the chair.
    Mikey righted a chair for himself and sat beside her, carefully thinking over what he was going to say before beginning.
    “Go on, give me a bollocking for being a stupid cow. I deserve it,” she said, mistaking his silence for anger.
    “I don’t like shouting at pregnant women. What are you going to do?”
    “I have no idea.” She regarded him with surprise. “I thought you’d tell me to get rid of it.”
    “Do you think I’m some sort of monster?” he said, hurt.
    She dragged her hands through her hair. “No I don’t. Sorry, I just thought you’d be really pissed off.”
    “To tell the truth, I’m not exactly delighted. It would have made life a lot simpler if it was Jax’s.”
    “Tell me about it,” she exclaimed. “What sort of chance does this kid have with me for a mum and that big loon for a dad? Not to mention his mum, she would kill to have a grandkid, literally.”
    “You’d be in danger if they ever found out?”
    “Definitely. Maybe it would be best all round if I got rid of it?”
    “You don’t sound as though you mean that.”
    “It’s for the best,” she said through a tense jaw.
    “Not for you. I saw the way you screamed and wrapped your arms around your stomach. You were protecting your baby.”
    “Don’t call it that.”
    “What?”
    “A baby. It’s not a baby, it’s just a collection of cells.”
    “You keep telling yourself that if it helps you stay detached but I think you love that kid already.”
    “It’s not a kid.”
    “Yes it is. Your kid.”
    “Jesus Mikey, are you trying to convince me to keep it?”
    “I’m just trying to make you see all sides. If you had an abortion then realised you’d made a mistake that would destroy you.”
    “I didn’t know I wanted it until that arsehole tried to shoot me in the stomach,” she said, gesturing at the dead man. “But I’ll be a horrible mum.”
    “I think you might surprise yourself.”
    “Jesus Mikey. I’ve killed lots of people, I’m a professional assassin, I even kept my adopted dad locked in a cage for two years. If Social Services found that out they’d not only take the baby off me they’d have me sterilised too.”
    “All that’s in the past, you’re not the woman you used to be. I think you’d be great.”
    She gaped at him. “Have you lost the plot or something?”
    “No. I don’t think there’d be a more loyal, protective mum than you. When you hold your baby for the first time, when you feel that bond with them…well, there’s nothing like it.”
    “What if I can’t bond? What if I turn out like Estelle and decide I don’t want it once it’s here then it grows up hating me, wondering what it had done that was so bad its own mother didn’t want it around?”
    “Is that what you really think?”
    She shook her head. “Not now I know she’s a greedy, evil slag who wasn’t interested in any of her kids. Now I know it was her fault, not mine but for a long time I thought it was because I was unloveable, especially when the Parkers started abusing me.”
    “Jesus,” he said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “You are not like Estelle or the Parkers. You’re you and you won’t make the mistakes they made.”
    “Yeah, right,” she muttered, reaching into her jacket pocket and pulling out the pack of cigarettes. “Oh crap,” she said when she realised what she was doing. “Take them off me, please,” she sighed, dumping the pack in his hand.
    “See, you’re already looking after your baby.”
    “Don’t give me that shite.”
    “It’s true. It’ll be the drink next.”
    “Can’t I have any fun anymore? Please don’t tell me sex is out when you’re pregnant too?”
    Mikey swallowed hard as all sorts of images involving himself and Jules together ran through his head. “No,” he said in a tight voice.
    “Thank God for that.” Her