5. Mav
FIVE
MAV
Mav
This isn’t going to work.
Jameson
It’s only been a few days, Mav.
Reign
Give her time to adjust..
.
Jameson
Give yourself time to process too.
Did you tell Mom?
Levi
There’s no shot in hell it’s going to work.
Jameson
Fuck, Levi, some compassion?
Levi
Just being honest. Mav’s right.
Why drag out a lost cause?
Reign
Fuck off, Levi.
Have you talked to her, Mav?
Mav
She’s not really speaking to me.
..
Jameson
?
??
Mav
And yes, I told Mom.
She’s thrilled.
Reign
She would be.
I love Kathy.
Mav
This is fucked.
Reign
Can you make it through the honeymoon?
Levi
Go enjoy the beach and get a suntan.
Jameson
Not helping, Levi.
Mav
I fucking hope so.
Aiden sent over shit for our divorce.
Levi
See? It’s not just me.
..
Reign
Preliminary things?
Like a postdated prenup?
Or divorce papers?
Jameson
Damn.
Does she want out?
Mav
I don’t know what the hell she wants.
Reign
Welcome to the club.
Jameson
Seriously.
You can now sit at our table.
Levi
Neither of you is married yet.
Reign
Semantics.
Mav
That’s where you’re wrong, Reign.
Marriage is a whole different ball game.
..
Jameson
Hang in there, brother.
I sigh and drop my head back against the couch cushions.
Our dinner reservation was ten minutes ago.
Kimberly arranged for a center table at the hotel’s swankiest restaurant.
Where is my wife?
Good fucking question.
God, what was I thinking?
Why did I think we could pull this off?
Marriage isn’t the same as fake dating.
It’s a commitment. It’s a legally binding contract.
It’s so much more than I bargained for.
“Mav?” Mckenna says, entering the living room.
I sit up and open my eyes.
My chest aches. It physically throbs as I drink her in.
God, she’s beautiful.
Stunning.
Her hair is pulled back in a simple ponytail, and her makeup is subtle.
She’s wearing a long, flowy dress with a slit up her thigh and strappy, flat sandals.
She’s unassuming and arresting all at once.
She completely disarms me.
Captivates me.
I don’t deserve her.
I clear my throat and force myself to stand.
“Hey, you ready?”
“I’m sorry I’m late,” she says softly.
“It’s no problem.” No use in starting an argument over an unchangeable outcome.
No use in starting a conversation that won’t progress.
What’s the point of this?
Why are we going through the motions when there’s no hope?
Levi was right; it’s a lost cause.
All we’re doing is dragging things out.
Sure, we’ll go to dinner.
We’ll make small talk.
We’ll be polite and civil and boring as fuck.
We’ll force smiles for a photographer.
Then, we’ll return here, sleep, and pretend we’re not husband and wife.
The same way we have for our entire honeymoon.
I eat my words because Mckenna surprises me at dinner.
Once we’re seated and have ordered our drinks, Mckenna leans forward and lightly touches my wrist. “I’m sorry, Mav.”
I look up, surprised.
Then, skeptical. “For what?”
Please don’t say for marrying me.
I can’t take it if she admits how big of a regret I am.
“For how distant I’ve been,” she admits, her voice clear.
“The email today…” Mckenna sighs.
“I don’t want an out, Mav. I want to try to make this work. I want us to be together, to be married, for real. I just don’t know how to do that and well, there are things I need to tell you. Things I want to tell you.”
I sit straighter in my seat and lean closer to her.
To anyone in this restaurant, we look like newlyweds whispering sweet nothings.
The reality is so much bigger than that.
“Tell me, beauty. I want to know everything. Anything you want to tell me,” I murmur, meeting her eyes.
They bleed with heartache that bowls me over.
I don’t understand it; I don’t understand her.
“I will. I promise, Mav. But it’s not a conversation we can have here, in public. Right now, I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry and that I want to try.” She offers a small smile.
“Please, tell me there’s a chance for us.”
My heart stutters before thrashing wildly.
It’s like she’s serving me everything I want on a silver fucking platter.
All I have to do is reach out and take it.
But I hesitate, because after the last few days, I’m too damn scared to trust her intentions, however pure they may be.
Instead, I tuck a strand of her hair that slipped out of her ponytail behind her ear.
My thumb brushes along her earlobe and she shivers, turning into my touch.
“I hope so, beauty. Because I don’t want to give up on us.”
“Please, Mav. Don’t,” she pleads.
I nod once, letting my hand drop.
The server appears with our drinks.
I lift my mojito toward Mckenna and she smiles.
This time, it reaches her eyes, and a flicker of relief sparks in my chest.
Maybe we’re going to be okay after all.
“To new beginnings,” I toast.
“To new beginnings,” Mckenna repeats, clinking her margarita against my glass.
We each take a sip of our beverages, our eyes holding, our lips curling into smiles.
From the corner of my eye, I note the paparazzo snapping photos but I don’t turn.
Instead, I keep my gaze trained on my beauty.
She gives me those navy eyes and that beautiful smile and it feels like I can breathe deeply for the first time this week.
Mckenna and I enjoy a delicious dinner.
Our conversation is light yet comfortable.
When we walk back to our hotel suite, I take her hand, and she doesn’t flinch or pull away.
Instead, she laces our fingers together and turns into me.
“I don’t want to lead you on, Mav,” she murmurs.
“I just want to take this, things with us, slowly.” She bites her bottom lip, and I can tell she’s worried.
“We can take this as slowly as you want, Mckenna,” I promise.
Her eyes glitter and she releases her bottom lip.
“Will you kiss me?”
Finally.
“I’d love nothing more.”
With my free hand, I cup her cheek and watch as her eyes close.
I brush my thumb along her cheekbone, memorizing the softness of her skin, cataloguing details of this moment.
God, I’ve missed her.
I’ve missed this.
Slowly, I arc my mouth over hers and press my lips to her rosebud mouth.
I kiss her softly before pulling away.
“Thank you for tonight, Mckenna.”
She smiles at me, relief I don’t understand snaking through her irises.
“Thank you for everything, Mav.”
She pulls me inside our suite, and we cuddle on the couch, watching a rom-com I’m fairly certain I’ve seen before.
At some point, Mckenna falls asleep and I hold her close, listening to the evenness of her breathing, reveling in the fact that there is hope for us after all.
Once the end credits roll on the screen, I tuck my beauty into bed and relocate to the couch.
Tonight felt like a giant leap forward and I hold on to that as I drift to sleep.
Her scream pierces the air, scaring the shit out of me.
I jump from the couch and rush to Mckenna’s side.
Blinking rapidly, my eyes adjust to the darkness.
I scan the space for a shadowy figure, a threat, something to make sense of the agonized screams pouring from her mouth.
I sweep the space around her bed, searching for a cowering figure.
For something.
There’s no one.
“Mckenna!” I holler, gripping her shoulders.
Her skin is sweaty and clammy, with strands of hair sticking to her neck and chest.
She thrashes against me, her hands swatting at my face, her nails clawing at my chest. “No! No! Please, no,” she cries, her eyes closed, her head turning from side to side.
“Mckenna! It’s me, Mav,” I try again, shaking her.
Terror seizes my chest, locking down my limbs as my mind whirls to understand what’s happening.
“It’s a bad dream, a nightmare,” I try to explain, for both our benefits.
“You’re okay; you’re safe.” My voice cracks as I say it.
Tears track down Mckenna’s cheeks as she slowly opens her eyes.
They’re unfocused as if she’s still seeing something else.
Something horrifying.
“Mav.” She gasps like she’s been underwater too long and broke the surface.
Her chest heaves. Her tank top clings to her skin, soaked through with sweat, as if she just ran a goddamn marathon.
“I’m here; it’s me,” I repeat, pulling her into my arms.
Her body shakes as a constant stream of trembling wracks through her limbs.
She’s cold and pale.
She curls into herself, looking fragile.
I rock her slowly, rubbing my hand along her arm to warm her up.
She’s simultaneously shivering and sweating.
It’s as if she has a fever, except when I lift the back of my hand to her forehead, it’s cool.
“You’re okay,” I repeat.
“You’re safe.”
She tucks her head under my chin and presses her face into my chest. I rub her back, and we sit silently in the dark for long moments.
Except, the trembling doesn’t stop.
A sob cuts the air, and I realize Mckenna is crying.
Bawling. Gripping my T-shirt with both hands and clinging to my frame like a lifeline.
“Mckenna?” I pull back slightly to read her face.
It’s too dark to make out the emotions in her eyes and I shift our bodies to turn on the bedside lamp.
The light catches her naked expression, and the fear in her gaze haunts me.
My receding adrenaline kicks back up.
What am I missing? What the hell is going on?
Mckenna looks lost. Pained.
Desperate and empty and broken all at once.
“It was real,” she tells me, her eyes glazed, her cheeks wet.
“It was a bad dream,” I try to rationalize.
Fresh tears swell in her eyes, and she shakes her head.
“No, it wasn’t. I wanted it to be, but it’s not. It’s not, Mav. It happened. That’s what I need to tell you. It’s what I need you to understand.”
Clasping her hand, I keep her fingers pinned against my chest. “What is? What happened?”
“It was Branson,” she whispers, defeated.
“All this time, I knew it, but I didn’t know it. And it was him. This whole time.” She speaks in fragments, and my mind races to assemble her words into an explanation I understand.
Even though I’m having difficulty following her, her physical reaction to this situation causes my blood to run cold.
I shiver from the look in her eyes.
From the loss written in her expression.
“What did he do?” My voice is monotone, nearly arctic.
But the emotions that rush through me—the anger and anguish and horror that churn low in my gut—are hot and feverish.
I know, but I don’t know .
Not until she says it.
As much as I need to hear the words, I pray I’m wrong.
I hope I’m fucking wrong about every damn thing.
Mckenna stares straight at me.
Her navy eyes bleed with an apology.
With shame. “He raped me.”
Her words are clear.
Sharp. Pointed like a knife that slices into the space between my ribs.
She didn’t have a nightmare.
She relived a fucking trauma.
“When?” I whisper.
She swallows and arches her delicate neck.
“You believe me?” Her voice is small, and I want to cry.
Wail and sob and pound my fucking chest. Claw at my skin and tear at my hair.
I want to fucking unravel right beside her.
But I don’t. I can’t.
Because she needs me.
There’s no way in hell she’s conflating a nightmare with reality.
No fucking way. I saw Mckenna’s reaction to Branson that night at The Ivy.
Instantly, her past reactions snap into place, and the picture is clear.
Branson hurt Mckenna.
He fucking traumatized her.
And she blocked it all out.
She shut that shit down.
And now, it’s rushing back to the surface.
It’s infiltrating the present.
It’s pouring out of her in tears and in nightmares.
It’s making her question herself and wonder if anyone would believe her story.
Believe her .
But why does she think I’d be one of the non-believers?
She’s my wife.
“I do,” I promise.
“I believe everything you tell me, Mckenna. And my heart is fucking breaking for you.”
Her face falls, and she drops her forehead to my chest again as more tears slip down her cheeks.
“It was my 1L year,” she admits.
“This whole time, I knew. But I didn’t fully remember. I couldn’t piece it together.”
“That’s okay.” I run my palm over her back, trying to comfort her.
“You’re remembering now.”
She shakes her head.
“It’s awful, Mav. The morning after our wedding, it all snapped into place.”
I want to vomit.
Marrying me made her recall being raped?
At this moment, I hate myself more than I thought possible.
“I don’t drink like that. Not since...not since that night,” Mckenna continues, unaware that her words plunge me into my own hell.
I continue to rub her back.
Force myself to stay silent.
To listen. Because she needs me, and after everything she’s been through, after everything I’ve put her through, I won’t not show up for her.
Not a chance in hell.
“Bran raped me,” she repeats, her voice stronger this time.
“I’m so fucking sorry, beauty.”
She pulls back to look at me.
Meets my eyes, holds my gaze, and flips my world upside down.
“You’re the first person I’ve told, Mav.”
“I’m here for whatever you need, Mckenna. Always,” I swear to her.
“Do you want to...talk about it?”
She regards me quietly for a moment.
Then, she drags her fingers over her eyes, straightens her spine, and regains some of that confidence I love.
She nods slowly. “Yes. I trust you, Maverick. I want to tell you everything because I want there to be a future for us. A real one.”
“There is, Mckenna. There always has been.” My heart fucking shatters all over again.
Christ, I will not survive Mckenna Byrne for a multitude of reasons.
I’m all wrong for her.
She deserves a better husband.
A better life.
But fuck, if my wife didn’t just become my goddamn everything.
If I can help her through this, be the man, the person she needs, then I’m sure as hell going to rise to the challenge.
I’ll ruin Branson Burton in the process.
I’ll be whoever Mckenna needs me to be.
“Tell me,” I say.
She takes a deep breath, and then, she cracks my fucking soul wide open.