Nico stopped and stared at me, his eyes going severe again as they had when I told him about Mama knowing the whole time I was Madeline. “No, you didn’t,” he said with that same finality I’d heard in his voice before. “You weren’t smoking that day, if that’s what you’re thinking. I know for a fact you weren’t. I was the last one, aside from Maggie and Shelby, to have spoken to you that day. I called you from work, and you said you girls had just finished packing things up and were heading home. I meant it when I said you never drank or smoked unless I was there to take care of you. It was our rule and we never broke our rules.” He pulled me closer, leaning his forehead against mine, and I gazed into those beautiful eyes. “They died in a tragic accident. Just because you were driving doesn’t mean you were to blame, baby. And I’m sure, just because you didn’t remember the details, you suffered enough with survivor’s guilt over the last seven years. God knows I’ve beat myself over not being there with you that day. We would’ve gone in my dad’s van, and the accident likely wouldn’t have been as tragic if at all. We’ve suffered enough, Madeline. You and me both. Let’s not do this now. We should be rejoicing. We’ve grieved long enough.”
He kissed me, and just like before, the very touch of his lips to mine made me feel better. I sighed against his lips when he was done. “I am happy,” I said. “I really am. This yearning to remember my past—you—has gnawed away at me forever. It was just such a shock to hear why Mama had to cover it up.”
“You’d smoked earlier that week. It’s why there was some in your system. You always took a few more hits than Maggie ever did and that’s why they found less in her system. But it’s not even like you were this crazed pothead.”
We started walking again, and I was beyond relieved I had confirmation that I hadn’t been high that day. And while I’d begun to think maybe I was Madeline for days now and therefore had time to let the reality sink in that I’d been the one driving that day, it was still a tough pill to swallow. I was living a lie because I might otherwise be in prison now—punished for my actions. Even if I hadn’t been smoking that day, the law might not have seen it that way, and I wondered now if it wasn’t unfair that I’d never have to pay the consequences of having done drugs at all, even in the days before the accident.
The moment we were in my room, Nico closed the door and pinned me to the back of the door, kissing me frantically. Magically, it washed away the morose thoughts I’d been having. For as much pounding as my heart had been doing ever since the very first trigger, this time I thought it might pound right through my chest now. This was really happening. Nico was back in my life again, and neither of us was ever letting go.
He picked me up and walked me to the bed where he put me down then lay down beside me after taking off his jacket. My hands were on his jeans zipper immediately, and he stopped to watch.
“You never did like me even half-dressed when we made love.” He tilted his head. “Unless, of course, it was necessary because we were being sneaky.”
“You took me in the cave from behind, didn’t you?” I said as I worked his zipper down.
His eyes widened. “You loved it that way. It was your idea.”
“I had a visual this weekend, when you took me there. I just couldn’t see who was doing it to me.” His smile vanished, and he went tense, so I smiled. “I meant, since I was supposed to be Maggie, I wasn’t sure if it was Nolan I was visualizing doing that to me. It’s why I was so confused when you said it was our special place. It’s when I really began to suspect I wasn’t Maggie.”
He ran his fingers through my hair, fisting it, and kissed me hard. When he pulled away, he stared at me. “Jesus, just hearing you say you weren’t sure if it was Nolan you were visualizing doing that to you makes me wanna spank your fucking ass.”
I laughed. “You know what I meant.”
“Yeah, and this situation is weird as shit, but those kinds of words should never come out of your mouth.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I’ve never even liked to think about you with someone else, much less hear you talk about it.” He opened his eyes, staring into mine, and his brows furrowed. “It’s why the only thing I’m gonna ask about that asshole Ryan is has he ever hit you?”
“No,” I said adamantly. “Never.”
“But today he had his hands on you, and you said he attacked—”
“He was mad about Nolan’s post. But he didn’t do more than what you saw. I just made it sound that way for the sake of his brother not even considering calling the cops or anything.” I stopped talking and touched his arched brow. “The only other time he’s ever done anything remotely close to what he did tonight, was the other time he was drunk and seething with jealousy.”
“You may not remember, but you’re preaching to the choir, babe. No one knows better than me what it’s like to be jealous as fuck. And I don’t even have to be drunk for the thought of you with someone else to make me go nuts It’s still no excuse to ever put my hands on you like that.” He stopped and stared at me for a moment, his eyes narrowing. “Why’d you accept the ring in the first place. You said you’d cut him off this weekend.”
“I didn’t. You did,” I reminded him, running my hand through his hair. “But it was the first time I’d seen him since I broke up with him. I’d forgotten all about having agreed to meet him until he texted me from the cafe to ask where I was.”
I explained about being out anyway, so I just met him, and the ring being a birthday gift he’d insisted I hold on to for at least a few weeks. “I only agreed because I wanted to just be done with him and get out of there, but I had no intention of keeping it for more than a few days.”
His brow was still up, and I ran my finger over it again until it softened a bit.
“I do remember you being jealous, though,” I said, smiling and still unable to believe I was lying here in bed with Nico—my boyfriend. “Whose bike did I get on that had you seeing red?”
Both brows went up this time. “You remember that?”
“I had a visual just today when I realized I couldn’t stomach him touching or kissing me anymore, not after this weekend.” I tilted my head, caressing that same vein from my visual that made an appearance at the mention of Ryan touching and kissing me. “Whose bike?”
“Some douche named Shane. I couldn’t stand the way that fucker looked at you.”
I smiled. “I know you don’t wanna hear about it, but after Ryan said ‘you’re mine’ to me one time and it set off a major trigger, he never said that phrase to me again.” I smirked, smoothing out his now very active vein and stared into his intense eyes. “I take it you used the phrase often?”
A yelp escaped me as he flipped me on my back, and he was suddenly on top of me. “All the time. You getting on anyone else’s bike unless it was one of my brothers’ and absolutely necessary was a total no-no after that day. Another one of our rules. Because you were—are—mine.” He growled as he sucked my neck then kissed my lips, slow and soft this time.
His mouth felt so good on my mouth I could feel my toes curl from the perfect stroke of our tongues. He stopped kissing me and pulled away, burying his face in my neck. “You have no idea what losing you did to me, baby.”
It was only after hearing his broken words that I realized he was crying. Overwhelmed with the same grief myself, just imagining what he’d been through, I stroked his hair, kissing his head.
“It destroyed me.”
He kissed my neck then my chin and worked his way back to my mouth, and our eyes met. I hated to see the torment in his eyes. “It’s over,” I whispered, wiping the tear that escaped the corner of his eyes. “I’m here now. We’re together and will be forever.”
He kissed me again long and deep, and I squirmed under him, pulling his jeans down his hips. I really didn’t like his clothes on when he was making me feel all this. Between kisses and his sucking my neck, we got each other’s clothes off, and then I saw it. It was big as day: Madeline tattooed across his chest. The M was
a sexy green M&M wearing black boots.
“Oh, my God,” I said, touching it the moment I saw it because, like the New York video, I remembered.
He’d gotten it before the accident. Long before. I’d been stunned not just because of the size of the thing that ran across his upper chest but because we hadn’t been together long when he showed me it. As excited as I’d been to see it, it’d made me nervous. How could he know we’d be together forever? We were so young and this was so big. I smiled, trying not to ruin the moment by crying, but it couldn’t be helped. He’d known even back then.
“God, I love you,” I whispered, and he kissed me.
“I worship you, baby,” he said as he sprinkled kisses all over my face. “Always have. This is just one of many tattoos I have of you—us.”
He ended his trail of kisses on my mouth, devouring it until I could hardly stand it anymore. Spreading my legs, he positioned himself between them.
“I can’t take my time, Maddie. I need to be inside you. I’m afraid this is all going to be over before I’ve had my chance.”
My heart swelled a hundred times over, and then I felt the tip of him at my entrance. Lifting my hips, I welcomed him in, and it was glorious when he slid in. Feeling him stretch me to the point it almost hurt, I understood now how I knew so easily that I hadn’t been a virgin my first time with Ryan. Nico was huge, and it was heavenly having him fill me.
Despite not trying to ruin it, I cried openly even as I spread more for him. It was so intensely moving to feel him making love to me again. Just like when I’d hopped on his bike, this too felt like something I’d enjoyed so many times with him. He buried his face in my neck again as he continued to slide in and out of me.
We wept together, even as I wrapped my arms around him tightly and swayed my hips along to match his thrusts. “I fucking love you.” He gasped against my ears as he buried himself in me deep, thrusting in and out again and again.
I couldn’t touch him, kiss him, and tell him I loved him enough. My body and soul wanted to make up for all the lost time in one night. He continued to make love to me, our bodies in perfect rhythm, until we simultaneously experienced the most gratifying earth-shattering orgasms of our lives.
We continued to weep even after we were done and never once let go of each other. “I think it’s gonna be years or maybe even forever before I’ll truly believe this has happened,” Nico said, kissing my neck “I’m gonna fear waking up and realizing it was just a cruel dream. Already, I’m afraid to fall asleep.” He rolled sideways to look at me, gazing into my eyes in that way I knew I’d never get tired of seeing. “I’ll probably lie awake all night just staring at you to make sure you don’t disappear.”
“Don’t say that.” I traced his lips with my finger. “I don’t think it’s possible for even a dream to capture this much emotion. Even in the dreams where Ryan pulled me away from you, as painful and emotional as it felt, nothing tops what I’m feeling now. I know I’ll feel it every day of my life with you from here on.”
“Every day,” he repeated. “Because I don’t want a waste a single one now. We’ve lost enough time. So even whatever time it takes us to figure out who’s moving where and how we’re going to do this, I don’t wanna be away from you a single day.”
I smiled, trying to stifle tears because I’d done enough crying lately to last a lifetime. I wanted just to enjoy my new reality. My heart finally had what it’d yearned for all those years, and it was overflowing in infinite contentment.
“I cannot wait for my life to start all over again.”
“It already has, baby,” he said, kissing the very spot where my beauty mark used to be, then sucked it with a groan. “It already has.”
Aside from the four additional days I took off that week, I requested a longer leave. There was just so much I needed to take care of. My life was changing all over again; though ironically; it was going back to what it was before the accident. I couldn’t change my name back to Madeline because of the legal ramifications, not on paper anyway, but everyone around me was already referring to me as Madeline, except for Nico that is. To him, I was either peanut or baby. The only time I was Madeline when it came to Nico was when I made him angry, which, surprisingly, was kind of often. Apparently, I was as independent and stubborn as ever, and he was beyond overprotective.
The answers to all my other questions were answered as the days followed and I grilled Mama. As I suspected, she’d left town quietly and sacrificed all the friendships she’d ever made for obvious reasons, to avoid anyone questioning my identity. She said I was just too outspoken to ever really pass off as Maggie, despite how identical we were. Nico admitted to thinking it was possibly me from the first time he’d laid eyes on me at the cemetery. But he’d chalked it up to wishful thinking and because it’d been so many years since he’d seen either of us and forgotten how identical we were. But the absence of the birthmark was the heartbreaking reality for him. It wasn’t until our weekend together that he really began to question it but still thought it too insane.
I also found out my affinity for M&M’s wasn’t so much because I loved the candy but because my sister and I were often referred to as M&M and because it was the first thing Nico had ever bought me, a box of M&M’s at the theater the day we took the infamous photo in the photo booth. It just, sort of, became our thing, and everyone assumed I was an M&M freak.
The stuff Mama had put away in the other smaller storage unit included said photo of us in that photo booth, which I now had enlarged, framed, and hanging in our front room. The memories began coming to me slowly, full-blown memories of everything Nico and I had gone through in the years leading up to the accident. The entire scene of how we met was now cemented in my brain and would never be forgotten. Neither would the day he made me his in every way for the first time and then the many times after.
Memories of anything else were still sketchy. It was my time with Nico and his brothers that I thought helped enlighten all the memories of Nico and me. But it saddened me that memories of Maggie were still few and far between.
I moved to Radcliffe and into Nico’s home. He’d just bought it earlier that year, but had been living on his own since he moved out to Radcliffe in the first place. Mama stayed in Denton, despite my urging her to move to Radcliffe. There were several branches of Wells Fargo in my area, but she and Don were getting even more serious, and I understood why she’d want to be closer to him. Then he moved in with her, which made me feel better about leaving. We were only two hours away. We spoke every day on the phone and made a point to get together even if just for lunch at least once a week.
I landed a position at Radcliffe Memorial, only to end up pregnant within months—with twins. By my seventh month, I was bedridden, due to a couple of scares of me going into labor too soon.
Grandma Cortez was a mama bear who took to watching over me while Nico went to work. But his equally overprotective brothers and father took turns keeping me company the few times either Grandma or Nico weren’t available.
As if the months leading up to my finding out the truth about my true identity hadn’t been emotional enough, my twin-impregnated hormonal ass was an off-the-charts emotional mess.
“How’s my double peanut M&M doing this morning?” Nico asked, walking into the room with a breakfast tray.
“He told her he doesn’t love her,” I cried, throwing my Kindle down beside me.
“Who did, baby?”
“Sydney,” I squealed. “I just . . .”
I shook my head as both my arms fell limply at my sides, and I seriously felt like I might throw up. I was so in shock still about the twist in the novel I was reading.
“Peanut baby, I told you to stop reading those romance novels, at least for now.”
He set the tray down and sat down on the nightstand. I threw my arms around him as he squeezed me tight. “Please don’t ever tell me you don’t love me anymore.”
“Never,” he said immediately, kissing t
he side of my face and hugging me even tighter. “That’ll never happen.”
“If any of your friends ever die, you’re forbidden to be their widow’s rock while she’s trying to get through it.”
I felt him chuckle even as he kissed my head. “Okay.” He rubbed my back, pressing gently against the lower part where he knew it ached the most. “You know I don’t have a single friend—or brother for that matter—who’s yet to get it right with even a girlfriend. So, I’d say you’re safe with not having to worry about anything like that happening.”
I pulled away to look at him, feeling a little silly even if my heart was still heavy over the last passage I’d read. We already knew the twins I was carrying weren’t identical. We’d been told weeks ago one was a girl and the other a boy. I immediately announced the girl would be named Margaret, but we’d yet to decide on the boys’ name.
“I was thinking,” I said, running my fingers through his hair. “Why not name our baby boy after your father? I really like his name.”
“Matteus?” He lifted a brow. “Maggie and Matti boy? Hmm, I wonder where that idea came from?”
I smiled big. “I hadn’t even thought of that. I was just thinking I really like it and it’s perfect, M&M.”
“I think Dad would love that.” He kissed my forehead, nose, and then finally my lips. “Maggie and Matti. It is perfect. I love it.”
“I love you, Nico,” I whispered, wiping away the silly tears brought on by my heart-wrenching novel.
“I worship you, peanut,” he said, kissing away what was left of my tears. “Always have. Always will.”
Epilogue
Nicolas
The sudden wailing coming from the bedroom had me dropping the spatula I’d been using to make breakfast. With my heart at my throat, I ran out of the kitchen through the hallway to get to Maddie.
“Oh, my God, I remember!” she said, sitting up on the bed, sobbing. “I remember Maggie. Everything about her. Everything about the two of us and she’s gone!”
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