Chapter 16 #2
Shannon either didn’t pick up on it or didn’t care. ‘I know. It took me a year to bounce back from pregnancy,’ she sighed. She held out both arms, displaying a killer body.
And a few nips and tucks, Maverick thought.
He noticed that she had yet to ask where Poppy was but didn’t comment on it.
‘A little birdy told me that Nina Keller is a guest at the ranch,’ she said, lowering her voice dramatically. ‘I was hoping I could network—’
‘Oh. Thinking about going into acting?’ Markus asked blandly.
Maverick didn’t smile at Markus’s tone. If Shannon had heard that Nina was at the ranch, then others had, too. And that was a problem for him.
Still, Shannon had made her first mistake because Markus would not forgive someone who’d use his photoshoot to get to Nina.
Even Shannon seemed to pick up on it. ‘Oh, no!’ She waved one hand. ‘But you know how these things happen,’ she said. ‘The more people you know, the better …’
‘Hmm.’ Markus sat back in his chair.
Perhaps sensing that she should have played her card a little more subtly, Shannon swept her gaze around the kitchen. ‘Where’s Poppy?’
‘Oh, she’s at the barn. Something about mucking stalls …’ Markus shrugged.
The relief swept through Mav like water over a fresh burn. Markus didn’t have to say anything for him to know that Nina had stepped in and taken Poppy down to the barn. That’s who she was. But because he hadn’t heard a car start up yet, and assumed they’d left on foot, he turned back for the door.
‘Where are you going?’ Shannon pouted.
‘To get my girls.’ He nodded once. ‘I assume you know your way back to the resort.’
He left feeling lighter, like he could take on the next day with Shannon hanging around if he had Nina to distract him and Markus to run interference.
Maverick climbed into the Jeep and started towards the resort, but when he got a few hundred yards down the road and saw Nina carrying Poppy, his daughter’s face buried against her neck, a punch of love hit him, and it was so big, so intense, that it stole his breath.
He hadn’t meant for it to happen. Hell, he’d even tried to prevent it.
But only a dead man could have resisted her.
Nina had a warrior’s heart and a contrastingly gentle spirit.
And he wouldn’t do her the disservice by saying that her looks had no bearing; he had eyes, and the woman was sexy as hell.
Still, he wouldn’t do anything about it because she had told him her ground rules already and it wouldn’t have been fair to pressure her with his feelings.
Nina heard the Jeep approaching and turned. Her entire body relaxed in relief when she saw that it was him and that he was alone. Still, as he pulled up, she looked at him as if waiting for him to reprimand her.
Mav had to bite his tongue to stop himself from pouring out his heart right then. In fact, if she hadn’t had Poppy as a shield, he might have done it anyway, the consequences be damned.
‘Need a ride, ladies?’
Poppy unstuck her face from Nina’s neck at the sound of his voice, and the sadness and dread in her puffy, tear-filled eyes just about killed him.
It was his fault. He didn’t know how to hide his anger and bitterness and, yes, fear, when Shannon showed up, and Poppy picked up on his emotions.
She barely knew Shannon, and certainly not enough to always react so devastatingly.
He’d have to work on that. For himself, because he had to let it go eventually. Because he wanted to let it go. But for Poppy too, because her life would be a lot easier if she didn’t have to live with Mav’s bitterness and anger.
Nina offered him a small smile.
Maverick put the car in park and got out. He gently took Poppy from Nina, and when her little arms and legs tightened around him, he had to actively refrain from texting Markus and telling him that the shoot was over.
Even if he wanted it to be, he couldn’t have done it. To Markus, or to Sierra, who had managed to negotiate one hell of a deal for use of the resort. And he couldn’t have done it even if he’d been prepared to disappoint them. They’d signed the contract already.
He rubbed Poppy’s back. ‘It’s okay, baby. You don’t have to see her today if you don’t want to. You can wait for tomorrow.’
He hated that he had to prepare her for it anyway. Shannon might have been negligent, but she had rights. And, worse, she had leverage, because if Mav refused her anything, they both knew she could legally push for more.
Poppy leaned back and used one tiny hand to brush her damp hair off her cheek. ‘Do I have to?’
‘Well, yeah, baby. She’s your mom.’
‘I don’t want her to be my mom.’
Mav didn’t know what to say to that.
‘Why can’t Nina be my mom?’ Poppy continued, unhindered by his silence.
Mav didn’t look at Nina or laugh it off. He couldn’t. ‘Nina has to go back to her home. And her job.’
‘But she’d make a really good mom,’ Poppy insisted, latching on to the idea.
In her little sing-song voice, she started listing all the reasons she thought Nina was a good fit.
‘She’s pretty, she can do French braids and she smells nice and she likes horses like we do.
Sisi likes her. And she let me blow out her candles. ’
Unable to resist, Mav glanced at Nina.
When their eyes met, she tried to laugh it off. ‘I’m qualified,’ she said seriously. ‘I do smell good.’
Maverick opened one arm for her.
She didn’t hesitate. She came to them, slotted beneath his arm, and then wrapped both of hers around them. She didn’t stay there long, only long enough to squeeze them both and say, ‘I think any woman would be lucky to be your mom, Poppy.’
She stepped back, and because he still held Poppy, she gently took the keys from his hand. ‘I’ll drive.’
‘The barn,’ he said, knowing none of them would go back to the ranch house until Shannon had left. At least for tonight. Tomorrow, he’d start dealing with it. Start trying to move forward again.
Nina only nodded. She climbed into the driver’s seat and waited for Mav to get in the other side before starting the Jeep.
Markus looked at the woman sitting across the table from him, drinking wine she’d poured for herself like she owned the place.
Shannon Carlyle was a stunner, one of those rare women who’d won the genetic lottery – and had been told how beautiful she was by every person she’d met.
She was an even six foot, a true blonde, and had come-get-me brown eyes that oozed sex and, when she wanted, vulnerability.
She’d forged a solid career for herself for years but had fallen short of being a household name.
At thirty-six, she was holding on by a single acrylic.
Markus, who had spent close to a decade studying people’s facial expressions, saw the exact moment she turned that practised vulnerability on and aimed it in his direction. ‘I suppose I deserved that.’
Because he had paid generously for her participation, and because he was solely regretting that he hadn’t seen through her interest before he’d signed her, at first he tried to be diplomatic. ‘It’s not my place.’
‘I just wanted to see her, you know. And Mav … He’s a good dad, but he’s so overprotective. He makes me feel unwelcome.’
The moment the criticism left Shannon’s mouth, Markus changed tack. He drew from his own acting past. ‘I wonder why,’ he said, sounding genuinely surprised.
He had been sitting opposite Poppy, so hadn’t missed the look of panic on the kid’s face when she’d recognized Shannon’s laugh. And he hadn’t missed the fact that Shannon had name-dropped Nina before she’d even thought to ask after her own child.
‘I think …’ She paused as if struggling with her emotions.
Markus had to hand it to her, she might make a go of acting yet.
‘I think his ego couldn’t handle it – when I broke up with him.’ She wiped beneath her eye as if checking for tear-streaked mascara. ‘He was heartbroken. He called me every day for weeks.’
‘Hmm.’ Markus tapped his lips as if thinking. ‘I wonder if your kid had anything to do with that,’ he said, this time too dryly for her to miss.
Those brown eyes froze over. The emotion disappeared immediately. ‘I didn’t want kids. He forced me to have her.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘He told me he wanted her. He pressured me.’
‘A man, even one who’s only a genetic contribution, telling you he wants to keep the baby you’re pregnant with, is not the same as a man forcing you to have that baby.
That’s an adult, having a discussion and accepting responsibility for his actions.
’ Markus leaned forward in his chair. ‘Sugar, I might not know Maverick Hunt well, but I only had to meet you once to know who the problem was in that relationship.’
Before she could throw her wine in his face, as he could tell she was sorely tempted to, he continued.
‘We’re going to keep this professional. The fact that we don’t like each other isn’t going to affect the shoot.
But I’m going to make you three promises, just in case.
’ He held up his first finger like a teacher lecturing a child.
‘If you harass Nina Keller while you’re here, I will spread filthy, filthy lies about you to all my industry contacts.
She’s my ride-or-die, and you’re just an ugly person with a pretty face that I’m paying for.
’ She gasped. ‘Two, if you upset that kid, I will photoshop fifteen pounds onto every shot you’re in.
’ She outright paled at that. ‘Three, if you behave and give me good work without upsetting my family, I’ll give you a few more years.
I’ll help you network. I’ll tell everyone what a pleasure you were to work with.
If it doesn’t stick, it’ll at least give you another four or five years to float until you can land a rich husband dumb enough to put up with your bullshit. ’
She took her time thinking it through.