Taken by Storm (Give & Take) - By Kelli Maine Page 0,15

Maddie laugh. Then cry. He’d been her family. The one person other than her dad who she could always count on. That was before they became more. Much, much more, and it all imploded.

Rachael was still staring at her, expectantly.

“I haven’t seen him very much over the past year,” Maddie said. “But MJ’s…” She sighed. “If you take the most impossible route to anywhere and make it a thousand times more complicated, that’s the way MJ goes through life.”

Rachael laughed. “Sounds like Merrick. He’s his own biggest obstacle.”

Maddie shook her head, smiling. “Like father, like son, I guess.” She really hoped MJ and his dad would get to know each other, that they would go to baseball games like MJ always wanted to do with his dad.

A pang of regret struck her heart, realizing she wouldn’t be around to see it happen. She wouldn’t even get to hear the stories.

Maddie fingered the engagement ring under her shirt. It was better this way.

“Were you and MJ always just friends?” Rachael asked. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business. You just looked a little wistful when you talked about him.”

Maddie clutched the edge of the bench. “We were more once, but we weren’t good together.”

“Why were you bad together?” Rachael asked. The look on her face made Maddie wonder if Rachael had deliberated the good and bad about Merrick the way Maddie had—and still did—with MJ.

Maddie hadn’t told a soul the real reason she’d left MJ. It had been eating away at her for over a year. She wanted to tell someone so badly, but the words were locked deep inside.

“We just were. What we had wasn’t a get-married-and-grow-old-together kind of love. It’s the kind that burns too fast and explodes. It was too intense.” Maddie leaned back and looked up at the sky. “It was young love and not a real, adult relationship that takes into account jobs and futures and goals and the gritty, everyday things that couples face.” Maddie sighed. “It was kids’ play.”

Five

Bullshit.

MJ stood listening at the library window. Listening and seething.

“Kids’ play my ass,” he muttered. She was afraid. He didn’t know why, but he’d make her face her fear.

There was no way she could ever find an adult relationship even close to as all-consuming and mind-blowing as what she had with him.

No fucking way.

He’d let her stay away for too long. Now she had these crazy-ass thoughts in her head.

But that was about to change.

Maddie was his.

Always had been. Always would be.

“I need to get inside,” Rachael said. “Enzo wanted to meet with me and MJ about something.”

The two women stood and MJ stepped away from the window. He ran his hands through his hair in a futile attempt to get his mind off of Maddie before it got screwed over by the Old Man. He’d yet to go to a meeting with Enzo that didn’t leave his head fucked six ways to Sunday.

The one thing he knew for certain was that he could never trust the Old Man to tell him the truth. He took nothing his grandfather said at face value. There was always an ulterior motive lurking under his tongue with every word he spoke.

Sitting beside Rachael in the black leather chairs in front of his grandfather’s desk, MJ twirled the silky hair stuck in his watchband around his finger. His mind raced. He had to get out of this office and get to Maddie.

He knew he was in a riptide being pulled under while he fought to get back to shore and keep his footing. With her, it was a competition to see who would drown the other faster. He wouldn’t lose this time.

She would always be what he wanted. If she was near, he’d want to hear her laugh, watch her full lips quirk into that slightly off-center smile, be the one to put that hazy, needful look in her eyes when he kissed her.

“Do you understand what I’m telling you?” His grandfather pounded on his desk.

MJ hadn’t heard one word the Old Man had said. “I understand.”

“It’s not your fault your father doesn’t want to see you. He’s always felt guilty about Gina’s death. He thought you died, too. I’m sure he’s carried an enormous burden. You’d be nothing to him but a reminder.”

Rachael shot forward in her chair. “Your mother’s dead? Merrick knew there was a baby, but thought you’d died?”

MJ could only stare at her. “He didn’t tell you?”

His grandfather let out a sarcastic chuckle. “Of course he