Chapter 13
Chapter
Thirteen
MAVERICK
Grayson’s voice seethes with resignation. “The lawyers her parents hired aren’t optimistic. If we could just get more time…”
I stand a distance away watching the blonde beauty pull fabric from the line, white cloth billowing around her like a lacy veil.
“Is she confiding in you? Giving us anything we can work with?” he asks, steely-voiced.
“Getting there, though nothing solid yet.”
“I see,” he says as if he doesn’t quite believe me.
He shouldn’t. Mia’s gone cold, silent. Achingly polite.
She’s not punishing me for anything I did. She’s learning to live with the decision I made.
For both of us.
The kind of decision you make before the roar of the crowd dies down—and you realize she’s still standing there alone.
I rub my hand over my beard. “What does the attorney need?”
Grayson lets out a low sigh. “Ideally, proof of abuse, coercion, forced medication, or a credible third-party witness.”
“Shouldn’t the lawyers talk to her directly?”
“The way the law reads, she needs a judge to sign off on legal counsel.”
“Are you serious?” I grimace. “She sounds like a slave.”
“But does she think she is? That’s what matters. That’s what I need you to sort out.”
“Okay,” I murmur, though I already know it’s too late. What happened when I walked out the other day. When I turned my back on her at her most vulnerable moment… I’m not sure it can be repaired.
I thought it was restraint. The right thing to do. But as her frigid voice, terse demeanor, and far-off gaze attest, everything has changed.
I should tell Grayson this, admit where I went wrong. But restraint was easier than choosing her.
Yet, despite everything, something about Mia won’t let me walk away. Even if she’s already left me far behind.
Inside the cabin, she sits at the counter, typing into her laptop. A Word document is pulled up, and her fingers fly.
“You take up writing since the last time I was here?”
Her mouth is a frown of concentration. She doesn’t answer, face cold and composed. I feel some of her ice lodge in the warm spot where my heart should be.
“So, I get the silent treatment now?”
Her fingers freeze, mint eyes snapping to my face. “What?” She asks too innocently, like we’re strangers.
“You heard me.”
She shrugs, eyes gliding back to the screen. “Didn’t think you wanted to talk anymore. On duty permanently, remember?”
I snort, ready to eat my own words. My restraint has taught her not to rely on me. My seeming indifference transformed her need into distance. I hate myself for it.
“Mia…”
“What?” God, she wears indifference cold.
“The not talking to me. The medication. The typing. What are you planning?” I put my hands on my hips, forehead creasing.
“Does it matter to you?”
“You know me better than that.”
Her eyes narrow, fire glinting behind the cool green. “I know you want to keep things professional. I’m helping you now.”
“Professional doesn’t mean silence … or putting up walls,” I counter, annoyed by how helpless this conversation makes me feel.
“If you must know,” she says, closing the laptop and spinning around toward me on the stool. “I’ve kept a journal for years now. It’s where I detail stuff. Write down what’s happening, what’s being done for me.”
I cross my arms. “And what’s being done to you?”
“Either you already know, and you’re asking to gain my trust. Or you’re the clueless newbie who can’t help me, anyway.”
I shift back on my heels, swallowing loudly. “What if it’s something else?”
She chuckles, shaking her head. “No offense. But it never is.”
“What if I do want to earn your trust, but not for the reasons you think?” I ask gruffly.
“You already lost it,” she says pointedly, like what’s done is done. Forever.
“I get where you’re going with this. That I maybe didn’t handle things right before. But this isn’t about me. It’s about you and your manager and what you want your life to look like.”
“What I want my life to look like? Now, that’s rich!
” She stands, pacing back and forth, hand going to her mouth deep in thought.
“I’m forced to take medication I don’t need.
I’m treated like a child without the ability to function or make my own decisions.
Hell, I’m a virgin, and yet I still have an IUD, just in case.
Just to make sure nothing—not romance, not family, not a future—gets in the way of Edwin’s plans for me. ”
I inhale sharply, stung by her words and knocked flat by the pain etched on her face. “See, that’s what we need to know, Mia. So your parents can help you.”
“My parents?” She screams, raising her hands. “Are you out of your mind? Who do you think signed away parental rights to Edwin in the first place? God, this is pointless!”
“And so what are you going to do, Mia?” I ask darkly.
She stops pacing, eyes drilling into me. Like she’s searching for a connection she can no longer find.
“I’m going to… I’m going to get a lawyer, and I’m going to make a huge legal stink, and—”
“The guardianship blocks you from seeking legal counsel unless it’s court-appointed.”
She bites her bottom lip, face going as white as the sheets on the line earlier.
“But you already know that, don’t you?”
Her head sinks back, and she lets out a ragged sigh. “I have a plan now. One where I don’t need help. Not from you. Not from anyone else. I’m going to appeal directly to my fans. Try to put enough public pressure on the legal system, on Edwin, on whoever will listen so that I can finally be free.”
“I know you don’t want to believe this, Mia, but I can help.”
A caustic laugh escapes her lips. “You?” She arches an eyebrow, imperious like the princess I once took her for. “You’d have to care to be able to help me. So would Lone Star Security. So would my parents. But if there’s anything I’ve learned from this situation, it’s this: I can’t rely on anyone.”
What scares me most about her words isn’t that she rages or makes a loud scene. It’s the way her gestures diminish, her voice goes quiet, as she speaks with the kind of determination that means I can’t change her mind.
Turns out, the most fragile thing about Mia Love was never her safety or her ego. It wasn’t the public persona or the fame. It was the trust she placed in me—the trust I shattered without a word or a second glance.