Chapter 22 #2
‘I knew, even though I said yes to going out with him, that it wouldn’t go anywhere.
’ She smiled grimly. ‘I liked him as a person. He was funny. He had this weird way of being pushy and making it seem charming. But I only said yes because I felt …’ she shook her head, searching for the word ‘… obligated, I guess. He had given me this huge role. The role that very well might have made me – at least that’s what I thought at the time.
So, I never told anyone. My plan was to go out with him and then try to work it into the conversation that I wanted to be friends.
‘Except every time I tried to bring it up, he’d kinda talk over me, you know. It sounds so silly now … I could have avoided so much just by being firm that first time he’d asked me out.
‘I don’t really have a ton of experience in that department … I didn’t know that I was leading him on.’
‘You weren’t.’ This came from Benji. ‘Agreeing to go on a date with a man is not agreeing to anything else, including sex. And the fucker knew that. I’m not saying it’s a crime to try. I think that’s pretty normal. But it is to assume. And it certainly is to pressure.’
Nina shook her head. ‘It didn’t feel like pressure the first date.
He was aggressive, but mostly just in talking over me.
That kind of thing. But I started to get a little offput when he didn’t even give me a chance to refuse the second date.
He just showed up at my house, told me he’d made reservations.
‘I was in my pyjamas already, so he knew I had no plans. I felt like I couldn’t say no. But I was committed to telling him I wasn’t looking for anything serious. So, I went.
‘And because he picked me up in his car, he dropped me home afterwards—’ Mav was looking at her, so he saw her eyes glaze over as she thought back ‘—at my front door, he kinda spun me around and pressed in. You know, very romance novel hero.’
‘Yeah. Except you didn’t want him to,’ Sierra observed.
Nina nodded. ‘He kissed me. And I don’t remember feeling anything except trapped. I was trying to move away when his hand dropped to the front of my pants …’
Mav could imagine her, so small, trapped against her own door by a man a foot taller than her, and it crushed him to even think about it.
‘I panicked. I shoved him off me.’ She chuckled mirthlessly. ‘He looked so surprised,’ she recalled. ‘As if he’d never been rejected before.
‘I told him I wasn’t looking for a relationship. He pushed back, and said we could keep it casual. And I guess that’s when I told him I wasn’t interested – in anything. At that point, I didn’t even want to be friends with him. He had really scared me.’
‘What did he do – when you rejected him?’ Sierra asked.
‘That’s what’s so surprising. He didn’t get mad or push and shove me. He smiled and said that he was disappointed but that he understood, and that maybe it was better if we kept our relationship professional anyway.
‘We didn’t see each other for months between then and filming starting up, and by the time we started on Shadowlands, he seemed to have moved on. He even brought his new girlfriend to set a few times, introduced us …
‘But he watched me.
‘I tried not to overthink it. I told myself I was imagining it because he had scared me. But I’d often feel my skin crawl and turn around and see him standing there, staring at me. But he’d always just smile and wave or nod, you know. Alex … his greatest gift is lying. I see that now.
‘The last time I saw him before the attack, I kinda laughingly said something like, “I can’t believe we’re almost done.” Something like that. And he didn’t laugh or comment on how quickly the time had passed. He didn’t say anything.’
She clasped her hands together beneath the table, and Mav dropped his own hand to cover both of hers.
‘That’s the night he came?’ Markus’s eyes glinted black with rage.
‘Yes. And I knew. The moment I was in my kitchen, I knew that someone was there with me even though I couldn’t see him. I could feel him.’
‘And you called me,’ Markus offered.
She nodded slowly. ‘I called Markus. I don’t even know why 911 never crossed my mind.’ She frowned. ‘Actually, that’s not true,’ she corrected. She looked across the table. ‘Markus has always been my safe place.’
Markus took a comically huge gulp from his wine, making everyone smile.
Nina cleared her throat, summoning the courage to continue.
Smiles vanished; everyone knew what was coming and had to prepare for it.
‘He told me to grab a weapon and get outside. So, I grabbed a paring knife from the knife block and crept towards the front door.’ She exhaled a huge breath. ‘I even managed to open it before Alexander grabbed me from behind.’
‘You screamed,’ Markus reminded her in a shaky voice. ‘I heard you scream over the phone.’
‘I did. Once. Before his arm locked around my throat.’ She smiled grimly.
‘It’s so strange, but before that night, I would have sworn I could put up a good fight against a man.
Not win, of course. But put up a fight. But he choked me, ripped my pants open, and took the knife from me, as if I were—’ she shook her head rapidly, forcing her tears to fall ‘—an infant.’
Her voice came in a rush. ‘I managed to get one jab in with the knife – and that was when he threw me on the floor; that was when I saw that it was Alex.
‘He punched me. I think that must have been what gave me the concussion because I remember thinking about raising my arms to protect my face, but I couldn’t move. It was like my mind had separated from my body.
‘He knelt on the floor and grabbed me by my shirt front, kinda pulled me into a seated position. And he said, “After everything I’ve given you, did you really think you could just use me and walk away?” And then he kissed me.
And I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t move my arms to try and push him off.
I couldn’t even feel my jaw, so biting him was out of the question.
‘And just when I had accepted that I was going to be raped or maybe even die, I heard someone screaming my name.’
Maverick’s vision wavered as the word ‘raped’ slapped through the room. But he didn’t get up and pace as he wanted to. He sat completely still, trying to control himself – for Nina.
‘Someone else was there?’ Markus asked.
Nina nodded through her tears. ‘You were.’
‘Jesus.’ Markus didn’t try to stop his own tears. ‘Jesus Christ.’
‘You were screaming my name over the phone I’d dropped. And I heard you. And so did Alex.
‘He realized that I had called for help. He panicked. He punched me a few more times, and I lost consciousness but he must have kicked me and broken my ribs.
‘I woke up in the hospital, and you were the first thing I saw,’ she said to Markus.
‘And I realized I was alive, but I couldn’t find any relief.
’ She shook her head again, frantically this time.
‘I was so tired. A … and you kept ranting on about some deranged stalker, and I just let you. Because it was easier than trying to explain.’
‘Neens … Oh God.’ Markus reached across the table, and Nina gave him one of her hands. ‘He came to the hospital.’
‘I know. I told you that.’
‘No. Neens, he came that night too.’
‘What?’ Maverick and Sierra said at the same time.
‘When you were still out of it … He came while you were still being checked over.’ Markus swore.
‘He reeked of alcohol. He looked deranged. And I thought: What a good friend, coming straight from some A-list party as soon as he heard the news.’ He tapped his forehead hard with the base of his palm.
‘And I’m only just realizing that he had no way of knowing about the assault unless … ’
Nina was silent, her eyes downcast.
Mav reached for her hand and linked his fingers with hers.
She sent him a fleeting smile that didn’t reach her eyes, but finally said, ‘When he came the next day, once the nurses forced you to go home—’
‘I’m going to kill him.’ Markus’s face was completely serious.
Maverick agreed with the sentiment. But he gently pushed Nina to tell the rest of the story so that he could help her if she struggled recounting it to the police. ‘What did he say?’
‘He apologized at first. He said that he had a substance abuse issue and that he was going to seek help for it.’ Nina laughed mirthlessly. ‘My heart rate was so high, one of the nurses came to check on me.
‘But once she left, Alex said, “I think it would be in both of our best interests if we just forgot about this.” And when I had nothing to say to that, he said, “It would be a shame if we lost our chance at an Oscar because of a misunderstanding.” He kept using that word – misunderstanding.
‘I panicked. It felt like I had spent years training for this marathon, only to have someone tackle me two feet from the finish line. And all I could think, as I lay there, unable to move while my attacker sat at my bedside, was that my mother’s prophecy had come true.
I had ended up on my back – just not in the way I’d always feared. ’
Markus scoffed. ‘Fuck Lulu!’
Calmer now, having recounted the worst of it, Nina sat back in her chair.
‘I believed him. I knew he wouldn’t risk hurting me again or ruining my career if I kept quiet, so when the cops came, I said I didn’t see his face,’ she continued.
‘I let him win because I was afraid. And I still haven’t forgiven myself for that. I’m not sure that I ever will.’
‘Don’t do that to yourself,’ Sierra said before Mav could interject. ‘Being a woman is hard enough. Don’t carry his guilt for him.’
‘You’re speaking out now,’ Mav reminded her.
‘You’re risking everything you’ve worked for so that a monster is caught and caged.
’ Afraid of the immensity of emotion coursing through him, he didn’t pull her into his arms as he wanted to.
He just gently tugged a strand of her long hair.
‘It’s the most unfair thing in the world to expect a victim – a survivor – to stand up against their perpetrator, to expect them to be brave when we as a society have failed them already, to expect them to publicize their trauma and fear even though nothing might come of it. ’
‘But I need to,’ Nina said. ‘Because if I don’t, one day it’ll be another woman getting hurt. It’ll be someone else’s mother or daughter or sister or friend. And she might not be as lucky as I was.’
Her tone was hot with rage, but Maverick welcomed it because seeing her angry was so much better than seeing her sad or scared or ashamed.
‘I need to do it because he deserves to suffer the consequences of his actions. I need to do it because I want to see the fear in his eyes when he realizes that I’m not just going to go away.’
‘So, we go.’ He nodded. ‘Together.’
Nina looked at him. ‘I don’t want this to ruin you, Mav. You’ve worked so hard …’
‘You’ve kinda ruined me all by yourself already.’
He didn’t care that everyone was listening. She had destroyed him in the best way possible, and Mav knew that whatever came, they would face it together. And once the storm had passed, they would rebuild together too. He didn’t know how they would make it work. Only that they had to try.
He wanted this soft-hearted, brave woman to be his.
Officially.
Permanently.
He could only hope that after the storm she wanted him as much too.