Given (Give &Take) Read Online Free PDF Page B

ready to think about a future kid, but my mind was flashing images of Rachael holding an infant in our bed in the tree house with the wispy bed curtains blowing around them in the breeze from the open windows.
    It was a nice image. A perfect image. I wanted it—wanted to see it with my eyes and not just my imagination.
    I’d get to be there this time from conception until the day I died. I’d never let what happened with MJ and Nadia happen between me and Rachael’s child.
    I took her hand in both of mine and held it against my chest. She gazed up at me and I wanted to speak every word, every thought that I’d been thinking, but I couldn’t bring myself to get them off of my tongue. What if I said something to scare her? I constantly made the wrong choices. Admittedly, I was terrible at communicating. It was our biggest obstacle. It was up to me to change it, though.
    She blinked a few times, tilting her head and staring into my eyes, like she was trying to decipher what was going on in my head. “You can tell me,” she said.
    “I know. It’s—you know me. I mess things up all the time. I need to think before I speak. It has to be said just right. I can’t ruin it when it comes out of my mouth this time.” I thought she knew what I was referring to, but tobe certain, I rubbed my thumb in circles over her left ring finger. “I can’t mess this up.”
    “You won’t.” Rachael leaned into me, wrapping her arms around my waist and resting her head against my chest. “Even if it doesn’t come out perfectly, I know your heart, Merrick Rocha. That’s what matters.”
    God, her words were a safety net. My apprehension of failing her melted away somewhat. “You
own
my heart, Rachael DeSalvo.”
    We strolled, hand in hand, through the carnival. I hadn’t realized how far we’d walked that evening. The jet-lagged exhaustion I’d suffered earlier waned, tampered by the night air and excitement around us.
    “What if she stays with Enzo?” Rachael said out of the blue. “Nadia. What then? Will it consume you for the rest of your life, or can you let it go?”
    I shook my head. “Not an option. I got MJ away from him. I’ll get Nadia, too.”
    As soon as I’d learned of MJ’s existence—a fact hidden from me, along with the knowledge of his twin, for twenty years—I had to get him away from Enzo. I knew from personal experience what living with that man for even a short amount of time could do. Nadia had been fortunate enough to have been raised by her mother. Of course, I wasn’t sure how much better that situation had been. I needed time with Nadia to know her, to understand what she’d been told about me for all of those years, to come to terms with having her exist in the first place.
    Rachael pressed her lips together, making the outer edges turn white. “So your life—our life—is on hold until everything is perfect with MJ and Nadia? You know there’s no such thing as perfect.”
    “Why are you in such a hurry?”
The words were out in a rush, spurred on by her doubt and the tone of her disbelief that this would end up how I wanted it to. The stunned look on her face was like I’d physically attacked her. Wide-eyed, she dropped her hand from mine. “Jesus,” I said, running my hands through my hair. “Believe me, I want exactly what you want. But right now, MJ and Nadia come first. Are you asking me to turn my back on them?”
    She took a step up to me and jabbed a finger into my chest. “No! I’m asking you to not let them become your
entire
life. There’s still
you
and what you want and need.”
    A flame lit in my gut. She thought I was a fool for following Nadia to Paris. “I should just go home, huh? Fuck Nadia. Shove my head in the sand and forget this ever happened? Go back to the fairy tale of Turtle Tear and pretend?”
    “Is that what you do there, Merrick? Pretend?” Her eyes blazed with anger and hurt. The same anger and hurt boiling over inside me.
    “You can’t