Given (Give &Take) (13 page)

M
errick wasn’t going to find Mr. Simcoe; he was escaping the two of us. Who did he think he was fooling?

I rested for about five minutes, but the thoughts running rampant through my mind wouldn’t let me nap. My head was aching, so I got up to get the aspirin out of the medicine cabinet in the hall bathroom. Halfway there, I heard Nadia talking to someone behind the closed bathroom door.

Knowing I shouldn’t eavesdrop on her conversation didn’t stop me from creeping closer and straining to hear what she was saying. Some people needed to be listened to, and if she was on the phone with her mother or Enzo, I wanted to hear every word.

She stopped speaking, and I thought she’d hung up. I was about to tiptoe away when I heard her again. “I’m not going to tell him,” she said. “I have something to benefit by this, too, you know.”

It took every ounce of willpower I had not to go charging in there and demand to know what she was talking
about, but I knew that would only push Merrick and he needed to be eased into the revelation that his daughter was a manipulative mastermind like her grandfather. Instead, I tucked the information away and made my way back to our bedroom. I’d talk to him about it, but I had to do it when the time was right so he didn’t think I was attacking him with accusations about Nadia.

As I stared out the bedroom window, my mind raced. She had to have been talking about Merrick. She’d said she didn’t want him to know something. Who else would she be talking about? Paul? Enzo?

No. Just as I’d suspected all along, Nadia knew something that Enzo and Gina didn’t want Merrick to know.

I tapped my nails on the windowsill. Back in France, on the phone, Nadia had told me she wanted to do what was right. It was clear from what I’d just heard that she was lying. My best move would be to try to gain her confidence and try to pry the truth from her.

That was my best bet to get this situation under control. My mom always told me you win more bees with honey that you do with vinegar. I guess I’d been going about this all wrong with Nadia. I needed to spread the honey on thick. The dress shopping backfired, but now we were stuck together without anyone but Merrick and Mr. Simcoe to play referee between us. It was time for some female bonding. I only wish I’d spent more time at parties and sleepovers when I was young and less time daydreaming about redesigning Barbie’s dream home.

The second part of my plan would be even harder. I had to get rid of Merrick for a few hours. Luckily, Beck never turned down my pleas for help.

Merrick came in an hour later when I was under the covers reading. “Couldn’t find Mr. Simcoe,” he said, pulling his T-shirt over his head.

“It’s pretty bad if an old man can escape you on this tiny island.” I winked and pulled the blanket back, inviting him to come to bed.

“I swear that man’s got a secret hiding spot.” He stripped down to his boxer briefs and climbed in beside me. His body was warm and his hair smelled faintly of bonfire. I set my book on the nightstand and turned to him, snuggling against his side. His arms wrapped around me and held me tight. I kissed his bare chest and laid my cheek against it to hear his heart beating.

There was so much to talk about—the potential of him working again someday, Nadia, our wedding, how his visit with Beck went—that it was overwhelming, so I didn’t say one word. Neither did Merrick. He ran the tips of his fingers up and down my arm until the stretch of skin underneath went numb, lulling my heavy eyelids closed.

The next afternoon, Merrick found me in the kitchen slicing fruit. “Beck just called,” he said. “He wants me to check out
this Harley store in Daytona with him. Says it’s the biggest store in the U.S.”

“Yeah?” I popped a cherry in his mouth. “Sounds like something you’d love. What time are you going?”

“You don’t care? I could take Nadia with me.”

“No. I don’t care.” I’d planned it. “Nadia would be bored out of her mind there. We’ll watch a movie or something.” I rose up on my toes and gave him a kiss. “Don’t worry.”

He looked hopeful, but leery. “Okay. If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“We’ll leave here in a couple hours then. I’ll be back later tonight.” He grabbed a handful of cherries and pulled his phone from his pocket. “I’ll bring you back some ass-less leather chaps to ride in.”

I smiled at his sultry grin. “As long as they have fringe.”

“Done.”

He strode out of the kitchen dialing Beck. It was time to put the second part of my plan into action.

I found Nadia tanning by the pool and plopped down into the chaise next to her. “This is fabulous, isn’t it? Lying in the sun, swimming. I wish there was a pizza place that could deliver out here, though.” I laughed and watched the confusion sweep across her face. It wasn’t like me to sit down and start chatting with her. She didn’t want it and neither did I, but too bad for both of us.

“I was thinking,” I continued. “Merrick’s going to some big Harley store with Beck later. Maybe we could watch
movies? Drink some wine? Have a girls’ night and start over. I think we owe it to him to make this work between us.”

She gave nothing away, only shrugged. “Sure. Why not. I don’t have any other plans.”

“Great! We’ll make a night of it.” I lay back in the sun and closed my eyes, wondering if she’d start a conversation. She made me nervous and that pissed me off. I hated that she held so much sway over Merrick, and I knew she was out to get me. From where I sat, she held every advantage. Sure, Merrick loved me, but he’d tire of having to deal with the bickering between me and Nadia, and he’d already told me not to make him choose.

In all honesty, I’d never been more afraid in my life. What if this caused a rift between him and me that I couldn’t bridge because this woman beside me was determined to pry us apart farther and farther until the Grand Canyon stood between Merrick and me?

I couldn’t let that happen, but I was grasping at straws trying to prevent it. Her admission that she was holding a secret over us would be my only saving grace.

“You look tense,” Nadia said, making my eyes pop open. “I know a good masseuse who has a spa in Miami. He spends half his time there and half in Spain. We should see if we can get in.”

I didn’t know where this was coming from, but I’d take it. “That sounds perfect. Mr. Simcoe can take us by boat to the mainland and wait there for us to get back. I’ll arrange a driver to take us to the spa.”

“Perfect! Let me call and get us in. He’s booked for months, but always finds a way to squeeze me in.”

I watched as she called to make our appointments and hoped I wouldn’t end up at the bottom of the river tied to cement blocks.

The hour-and-a-half drive to Miami went fast. Nadia was chatty. She told me about the all-girls schools she’d gone to through the eighth grade. There had been three of them. Two in Spain and one in France. She and Gina moved a lot, all over Europe, so she didn’t have many friends. She’d only stayed at the Rocha Estate with Enzo once. It was during the summer and she was kept hidden away in the west wing so MJ wouldn’t see her while he was home on break.

No matter what I thought of Nadia, it broke my heart that Enzo—that absolute monster of a man—tore his family apart, robbed them of two decades of knowing and loving each other.

High school had been done online and through homeschooling with a hired teacher who traveled with them. A male hired teacher who, if my deductive reasoning wasn’t faulty, she’d screwed six ways to Sunday.

Her life had been luxurious and crazy. Indulgent yet full of sacrifice. She’d had everything a girl could want growing up and nothing she needed. She was the product of raising a child by throwing money at it. No wonder she was
so manipulative. She’d had to be to get any attention at all from the sounds of it.

I found myself feeling sorry for her as we pulled up to the spa. Maybe this day would show me a different side to Nadia, and she’d trust me enough to tell me the truth about why she was here and what was going on.

The spa was a modern, pink stucco building with tall, narrow windows and a mirrored door that said
Marcello’s
over it on a black script sign. We walked into a dim lobby with a trickling fountain and soft music playing overhead. A petite woman in a black smock rushed toward us. “Welcome to Marcello’s! Ms. Rocha and Ms. DeSalvo, correct?”

They must schedule appointments one at a time so they know who’s coming in. Or she was telepathic. “That’s right,” Nadia chirped, putting her high-society face on. “Marcello fit us in today.”

“Right this way.”

She left us in dressing rooms, or I guess it’s more accurate to call them undressing rooms, with fluffy white robes and slippers. I found Nadia already lying naked on her stomach with a sheet covering her bottom half when I came out into the massage room. “Have you had a massage before?” she asked, probably sensing my apprehension at dropping my robe and climbing up on the table.

“No. I’ve always wanted to get one, though.” It wasn’t a total lie. Thinking of having the knots and kinks worked out of my muscles was pleasurable enough, but I’d never
gotten over how uncomfortable it would be having someone I didn’t even know touching my bare skin.

“Well, I’ll turn my head while you lie on your table and pull the sheet up. Don’t worry, you’re going to love it.”

I lost track of time, but what seemed like hours later, hot stones where being lined up along my spine. I was loose and jelly-like. My thoughts roamed to Nadia and how we got along when she was telling me how things should be. Like with Merrick and encouraging him to build his business again. Whether her motivation was simply an unconscious desire for having control since she never had any with Enzo and Gina, or if what she was leading me toward was part of a plan, I had no idea. If I wanted to get along with her, I’d let her call the shots. After overhearing her phone conversation, I was going in with my eyes open and would give her the sense that I would do whatever she wanted. Hopefully, that would reveal enough to get me to the truth.

The massage therapists left the room to let our bodies soak in the heat from the stones. With no one else in the room, it was time to dive into Nadia’s psyche. “Do you and your mom get along well?” I asked.

“Yes. She has high expectations, but she’s pretty much all I’ve ever had.”

“It had to be hard keeping the secret that she was alive all those years. That had to be a lot to take on as a kid.”

My face was resting in the hole in the cushion, so I could only see the floor, but I heard her shift on her table. “Well, I didn’t know she was supposed to be dead until
I was older. It wasn’t that hard considering nobody knew I existed either. We were living our own private lives in Europe, so it wasn’t ever a problem.”

“True. I guess that would make it a little easier.”

“You don’t know your family has… issues or whatever when it’s the only thing you know. It was always normal to me.”

Now we were closing in on a groundbreaking discussion. “What about now? I remember when you and I were on the phone when Merrick and I were at the hotel in Paris. You mentioned wanting to do what was right. What did you mean by that?”