Chapter 10
Though she slept for what felt like the first time in days, early the next morning, Nina woke in a panic from another nightmare, her hands raised to protect her face.
Her own breathing sawed through the room, and the moment she heard it, she rolled over and buried her face in the pillow, trying to muffle the sound.
She didn’t want Maverick to worry. She didn’t want Poppy to hear her and resultantly test that innocent curiosity on this particular matter.
How did one explain, to a five-year-old nonetheless, that you had traded your peace of mind and your pride for an Oscar?
The moment she was able to get her breathing back under control, Nina rolled over and picked up her phone. She checked her texts, saw that she had two. One from Markus.
Should be back at the ranch around four p.m. tmmrw! X
One from Alex, the producer of Shadowlands, who’d also been calling her every day even though she never answered. Nina’s heart crept into her throat as she opened the message. Her hands trembled as she read it.
Hi Nina. Missing you on set. Alison said you were taking a few weeks to rest before we wrap up your last scene. Hope you’re not gone too long. Let’s win that Oscar.
The message was perfectly polite, the subtext so clear.
Nina wondered what would happen if she breached her contract and simply refused to go back and finish Shadowlands. She wondered if Alex actually had the balls to tie her up in court or if he’d just have the last scene rewritten for a body double to shoot.
Anxious and exhausted, Nina rolled out of bed. She pulled a pair of oversized sweatpants and a baggy sweater over her slinky pyjamas and quietly let herself out of the room.
Though the hallway was quiet in the early morning, she could hear a white noise machine coming from Poppy’s bedroom opposite Maverick’s. A faint pink glow crept from the same bedroom into the hallway through the door, which Maverick had left ajar.
Nina was so terrified of waking Poppy up that she took minutes just to get to the staircase, her every footstep exaggeratedly silent on the hardwood. Every time the house creaked beneath her, she froze on the spot and listened.
When she came to the stairs, she took them slowly in the hope that she wouldn’t make a sound. It was only when she got halfway down and heard a noise that she glanced up and saw Poppy standing on the landing.
Nina jumped. ‘Poppy!’ she gasped. ‘You scared me.’
Poppy only tilted her head. ‘What are you doing?’
Nina supposed she looked like a real idiot. Still, she explained, ‘I was trying to be quiet, so I didn’t wake you up.’
Poppy frowned. ‘But I’m awake.’
‘I see that.’ Nina hesitated for only a moment before asking, ‘You wouldn’t know where your dad keeps the coffee, would you?’
‘Yeah.’ Poppy started down the stairs. She paused on Nina’s step, craned her head back to look up at her, and said, ‘I forgot to pee.’
Nina blinked. Was a five-year-old potty trained? She didn’t even know. Poppy seemed pretty independent. Still, unsure of what to do, Nina simply replied, ‘Okay …’
‘Wait here for me to come back.’
The demand was issued in a such a serious tone that Nina barely refrained from smiling. ‘You betcha.’
Poppy hurried back up the stairs, only pausing to look back and check that Nina had stayed where she said she would.
Nina leaned her back against the wall as she waited and thought about the day ahead.
Markus would be arriving that afternoon.
Although they had been texting back and forth the entire week, Nina had purposefully refrained from telling him about her move to the ranch house yesterday.
Markus was many things, but he would always be a worrier first and foremost, and if he received news like that via text, he would have panicked.
And he would have come right away, even though Nina was enjoying the space.
So, she had refrained. And when he arrived, she would have to tell him that she had been caught sleeping in the bathtub, and she would have to convince him all over again that she didn’t need security, and that knowing you were safe and feeling safe could be two completely different issues.
She groaned aloud at the thought. She was so tired of the guilt and the fear, and although Markus had the best of intentions, his hovering only served to remind her of everything that had happened.
‘’Kay, I’m ready now.’ Poppy hurried back down the stairs until she was at Nina’s level again. Without pausing, she grabbed Nina’s hand and started tugging her down the stairs towards the kitchen.
‘My dad likes coffee, too.’
‘Oh, yeah?’
‘Yeah. He drinks lots of it.’ With barely a breath, she continued with: ‘I don’t like it. It tastes funny.’
Nina thought about that. ‘It does taste funny.’
‘I like juice,’ Poppy offered.
‘Oh, me too.’ As Poppy led her to the full pot of coffee and showed her the mugs on the mug tree on the counter, Nina kept the conversation going. ‘What’s your favourite juice?’
‘Apple.’
‘Apple juice is good.’ Nina poured herself a cup from the pot, took the first sip black to kick-start her brain before walking to the fridge to search for some milk.
Poppy watched in silence as she added milk to her coffee. Her gaze was so intent on Nina’s face that she explained, ‘It makes it taste better.’
But instead of acknowledging the comment, Poppy asked, ‘What happened to your face?’
Nina’s hand shot up immediately, covering as much of the yellow bruising as she could.
She had been so consumed with thoughts of Markus’s arrival, so ingrained in her morning routine and sourcing coffee, that she hadn’t even stopped to consider her bruises, or how they would stand out under the bright kitchen lights.
What the hell did she say? Poppy was five. She was so sweet and innocent and free, and Nina didn’t want to be the one to indoctrinate her into the real world.
For a long moment they just stood there, staring at one another, Poppy’s eyes full of curiosity, Nina’s full of doubt and pain.
That’s how Maverick found them. Standing in the kitchen, staring at one another, Nina’s hand covering her face.
‘Good morning,’ he said tentatively.
‘Daddy!’ Poppy ran to him.
He scooped her up instantly, planted a noisy kiss on her cheek. ‘What were you guys talking about?’ he asked, more concerned by the look that had been on Nina’s face than Poppy’s.
‘I just wanted to know how she got her ouchie.’
‘Ah.’ Maverick put her down.
‘Ouchie’ was a word he thought Poppy had grown out of, but he supposed she might not have the vocabulary to describe the yellow mottling on Nina’s face.
Nina herself was eerily silent, and unwilling to share her story without her permission, even with a child, Mav tried to generalize. ‘Nina got hurt.’
‘How?’ Poppy asked.
He groaned internally. For a moment he considered lying, considered telling Poppy that Nina had fallen down the stairs or something similar.
But before he could give life to the words, Nina intervened.
She walked to Poppy, crouched down to her level, and in a voice that was so quiet, said, ‘I got hurt by a bad man.’
Mav watched Poppy’s face, and he wondered if it was ever too early to explain to a little girl that the world was full of predators? Was it ever too early to try and make them understand why they had to be careful all the time even though it wasn’t fair?
Poppy’s eyes widened. She didn’t ask ‘Why?’ or ‘Who?’ She knew that bad people existed in the world, even if it was only through Disney. She looked at him and she said, ‘But you won’t let him hurt her again.’
Mav’s heart softened at the absolute faith she had in him. But he angled his face to look at Nina, said, ‘No. I won’t.’
Nina seemed to be struggling with the emotional exchange. Her lips wobbled, and even as she fought her tears, he saw the way they filled her eyes, making them look like two black, inky pools.
Mav wasn’t sure what to do. He wanted to go to her, to hold her, even as he told himself that she wouldn’t welcome the touch and that he needed to keep his distance.
It was Poppy who reached up one tiny hand to trace the bruises on Nina’s face, and when Nina smiled shakily at the sweet gesture, Poppy stood on her tippy toes and kissed Nina’s face, whispered, ‘All better.’
Instead of falling apart as he’d expected, Nina pulled herself together. He watched as she engaged that part of herself that had made her famous, saw her eyes dry and her smile brighten even though he knew it cost her. She said, ‘It does feel better. Thank you, Poppy.’
‘Poppy, why don’t you go get your hairbrush,’ he suggested, pushing them into safer territory. ‘We can get a head start while we have coffee on the porch.’
‘’Kay.’ She paused on her way out to remind him. ‘But I don’t want coffee.’
‘I know, baby.’
He waited until her little feet sounded up the stairs before turning back to face Nina.
Before he could say anything, she pushed to her feet, whispered, ‘I’m so sorry. I froze. I didn’t know what to say.’
‘Neither did I,’ he admitted. He went to pour himself a cup of coffee from the pot behind her. ‘But we figured it out.’
She raised that hand back to her cheek. ‘That might have been the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me.’
Because her voice shook, he nudged her arm with his elbow. ‘You okay?’
‘Not really.’ She laughed tiredly and turned those sad eyes on him. ‘But I’m trying really hard not to fall apart after everything you’ve done for me. And Poppy …’
‘Nobody does emotions like kids. They don’t regulate their own, and they don’t judge other people for having or expressing them.’
Nina didn’t shy away from the personal topic or change the subject as he’d expected her to.
She said, ‘I’m terrified that if I let too much of it in, I won’t be able to pull myself out of it again.
’ She stared into her coffee mug. ‘I just want to go back, you know – back to who I was ten days ago. It’s hard to explain … ’