Risk (The Men of Matiz 1)

"Can I see it now?" Ellie takes my hand and kisses my fingertips. "I want to see it."

"Twenty seconds." I kiss her hand. "I'll be back in twenty seconds."

I sprint down the hallway and unlock the cabinet in the office. I push a bunch of loose photographs aside as I dig in the top drawer for a plastic bag. I find it. I yank it out before I take double strides to get back to where Ellie is.

I place the bag in her lap and she doesn't move. She stares at it. "Yes. This is it."

"You remember it?" I ask as I lower myself next to her. "Do you remember it, Ellie?"

Her hand carefully glides over the surface of the bag and the blanket and note that is trapped inside. I'd put it in the bag on the advice of my attorney. He wanted me to keep it preserved in the event that I'd be faced with a custody battle.

She cranes her neck to try and read the note. "I remember it. It was such an unusual blanket for a baby to be wrapped it. I kept thinking that it looked like the torn piece of a quilt. I asked her where it came from."

"The woman holding May?" I refuse to call that woman May's mother. That's not who she is. It took Kristof less than thirty minutes to learn her name after I told him that she was a witness to Ellie's shooting.

Jennifer Richardson abandoned her premature daughter in the lobby of my building sixteen hours after she gave birth to her. The note she left with May listed her time of birth. She wrote that she was doing it because she realized that her life didn't have room for a child. She wanted May to be safe and to live with someone who could give her what she needed. She ended the note with a vague promise that if things didn't work out for her, she'd be back for our daughter.

May was her backup plan which meant I'd never let her near my daughter.

"Where did she say it came from?" I ask because I'm curious. I want to know Jennifer's mindset between the time my daughter took her first breath and the moment she left her alone in a cardboard box.

"She didn't say much of anything." Ellie half-shrugs. "She didn't look well. She was so gaunt and I asked if I could help. I offered to buy her food and take her to a doctor."

That's not what she needed. Jennifer needed courage. She needed the courage to face her estranged husband to tell him that she had fucked a stranger she met in a bar and ended up pregnant. She obviously didn't do that. She's living with him in Texas now on a sprawling ranch, happy and child free. The shares of their tech company are riding high at the moment.

Their year-long separation was documented in the tabloids as he spent his time chasing after women half his age and she disappeared from the public eye.

Kristof will keep a distant eye on Jennifer in the event she ever decides to seek out May. I'll keep the blanket, the note and the information Kristof gathered to give to my daughter if I ever feel it's necessary.

I'm indebted to her that she didn't make another choice when she discovered she was pregnant. She made a choice to have our daughter and to give her to me and for that, I am eternally grateful.

"Do you think it was fate?" Ellie slides the bag back onto my lap. "Me and May, you and Annie? Was it all fate?"

I place the bag on the coffee table before I turn and face her. "I think fate is part of our story. I think risk is a bigger part. I took a risk for Annie. You took a fucking huge risk for May and we took a risk on each other."

"I'd risk anything for May." She scoots closer, her hands landing on my leg. "And I'd risk anything for you, Nolan."

"We're doing this until we die." I pull her into my lap. "You and I are in this until we're as old and gray as Jersey."

"I'm in." She kisses me softly. "You are my destiny. I can't even try and deny that."

"You're mine. I'll cherish you forever and celebrate every day I get to love you."

"I'll do the same. You, me and May."

Epil

ogue

One Year Later

Nolan

"I'm not a doctor." Ellie hands the piece of paper back to me. "What does any of this mean?"

I look down at the complex terminology splattered across the page. "It means that I can be up to full speed in no time flat. All we need to do is book an appointment and a new baby brother or sister for May B will be on the way."

Her brow furrows as she rips the paper from my hands. "We already did the home study for the adoption. Why are you having an appointment on your own? Also, May would tell you no speeding in that new car you bought."