Chapter 16 #3
‘Come on, honey. We both know the only reason you’re sniffing around Nina is because those twenty-year-olds are snapping at your heels and you’re hoping to get lucky with a second career when modelling drops you flat.
’ He pushed. ‘The only way you stay relevant at your age is if you’re too famous to drop – and I can help you bridge that gap. ’
She didn’t deny it. ‘I’ve worked really hard.
You might not understand, and I’m not asking you to, but I gave up a really good life because I wanted my career more.
And it wasn’t easy.’ Markus, oddly, thought she might have been genuine.
‘Walking away from Poppy was the second most difficult thing I’ve ever done.
But building a successful modelling career was harder.
’ She tipped her head haughtily. ‘And, yes, you’re right. I can feel it dying.’
He stuck out one hand. ‘So?’
She took it. ‘Make me shine.’
Markus nodded. ‘Keep those claws retracted.’
She pushed back from the table and started for the door, one foot perfectly in front of the other in an unconscious runway walk, her child seemingly forgotten.
She paused before exiting, asked, ‘When Mav said, “My girls,” was he talking about Nina Keller?’
‘They’re a thing,’ he said. ‘A good thing. Don’t fuck with it.’
She nodded and walked away, not even bothering to stop and say hi to Sierra, who leaned against the wall, silently listening.
They remained quiet until the door slapped shut.
Sierra came to him. She nabbed his wine glass from his hand and took a huge gulp. ‘Will you marry me?’
Markus laughed. ‘Honey, if we didn’t bat for the same team, I’d cart you off to Vegas tomorrow.’
She sighed. ‘Drat.’ She sat in the chair next to him.
‘People like that only cooperate when the terms and conditions are in their favour.’ He sighed. ‘Besides, if modelling does drop her flat, who do you think she’s gonna tap sympathy dollars from first?’
‘Ugh.’ She plonked her forehead on the table, muttered, ‘I know.’ She took a deep breath and then raised her eyes back to his.
‘I try really hard not to hate her – Shannon. But I can still hate that you’re right.
’ She looked at the dinner table, half-eaten plates of food forgotten. ‘Where did the others go?’
Markus rubbed his hands together for dramatic effect. ‘So, check this. The doorbell rings, and Maverick goes to get it. Poppy immediately recognizes Shannon’s voice and starts tearing up.’
‘Poor kid.’
He held up one hand. ‘Wait for it. My girl sees the tears, scoops the kid out of her chair, and just abandons the front line!’
‘No … Really?’
‘She left me alone to deal with Cruella! My best friend. Abandoned me like yesterday’s socks.’ Markus nodded. ‘God only knows why I’m so thrilled about it.’
‘Nina took Poppy away from Shannon?’ Sierra asked, her eyes wide with disbelief.
‘Shannon wasn’t in the room yet. But yeah … Just poof.’
‘Shit.’
‘It’s love.’ He shook his head, thought, About damn time. But knowing it didn’t stop the worry.
‘Do you think she’ll stick?’
Markus didn’t want to give his doubts room to grow. But he felt he had to warn her. ‘She struggles with people. She doesn’t trust easily.’ He laughed tiredly. ‘Hell, the only reason she kept me was because I refused to budge. And if Maverick knows what’s good for him, he’ll refuse to budge too.’
‘Yeah, that’s what worries me.’
‘He won’t fight for her.’
Sierra polished off the rest of his wine. ‘Maverick will leave the decision up to her. He might – might – tell her how he feels. But he won’t pressure her. And he won’t ask her to stay because the last time he did, it blew up in his face spectacularly.’
Markus knew that. Isn’t that what he’d told Shannon when she spouted that bullshit about being pressured into having the kid? ‘Make me a promise.’
‘After you just put Shannon in her place? Sunshine, I’d go to the moon for you.’
Markus picked up her hand and kissed the back of it. ‘When it happens, we don’t let them get away with being stupid.’
‘I hate interfering.’
Markus burst out laughing. ‘Bitch, you love it!’
Sierra looked stunned for a moment, as if she couldn’t believe he’d actually said it. But when she started laughing, she laughed loudly. ‘Oh, God, I really do! People can’t be trusted to make decisions for themselves!’
They laughed until they both had tears streaming down their cheeks, and every time they made eye contact, they only laughed more, laughed harder.
Markus thought that while he and Nina might have been soulmates, he and Sierra were kindred spirits. They had the same need for planning and organization, the same obsession with success and ruthlessness in carrying it out.
Like most of the decisions in Markus’s life, once he decided that he and Sierra were going to be lifelong friends, he grabbed ahold with both hands. So, when she stood and started cleaning the kitchen, which was usually Mav’s chore, he pushed to his feet to help. ‘Tell me your story.’
‘My story?’
‘Everything,’ he confirmed as he threw food scraps into the bin. ‘Including why you feel sympathy for that bitch?’
‘That obvious?’
‘You’re fierce and stubborn and love your brother and niece, and yet you didn’t pile into Shannon as I’d have expected …’
‘It’s one of those long, sad ones,’ she warned.
Markus looked up at that. He saw the grief in her eyes, felt a little jolt of surprise at the intensity of it. But because he knew that friends didn’t shy away from the pain, he topped up his empty wine glass and passed it to her.
‘I think that Shannon might have actually suffered from PPD, and I make a conscious effort to withhold my disdain for her because of it. And it’s hard.
Because I hate her. Not just for what she did to Mav, or for abandoning Poppy.
But because my baby died, and I will never understand how she could just walk away from hers, from Poppy, when I would have done anything for even a single minute with mine … ’
Markus gave her time. He stood at her side while they did the dishes. He didn’t speak. He just listened as Sierra talked, telling him things she hadn’t told anyone else.
She told him that she’d birthed a stillborn baby at full term, and that the biggest regret of her life was that she’d refused to hold her dead child before they’d taken her away.
She told him she’d only ever loved one man, and that she’d loved him since she’d been fifteen years old.
She told him that whoever had said the opposite of love isn’t hate, but indifference, had been wrong, and that you could only truly hate someone proportionate to how much you had once loved them.