Chapter 26
They slept cocooned in each other, arms and legs entwined. But when Maverick woke up in the morning and Nina wasn’t there beside him, his blood ran cold.
He found her sitting in the lounge of the hotel suite, her long hair falling down both sides of her face to her hips, her big eyes sad. He knew before she said, ‘We need to talk,’ that she was pulling back.
But he sat. He rested his forearms on his knees, linked his hands, and lifted his eyes to hers. When she struggled to speak, he forced a smile, gave her an encouraging nod. But he didn’t touch her. He was too afraid that if he did, he might do something crazy. Like refuse to let her go. Kidnap her.
‘I have to do this by myself, Mav.’
Of all the words she could have broken him with, those weren’t the ones he would have guessed.
Because if she’d said she didn’t love him or didn’t want a life on the ranch, he would have understood.
But Mav, who had been raised with all the love and support in the world, and who had continued to give and receive that love and support, didn’t understand why she’d need to stand alone.
‘Why?’
‘Mav …’ She reached for his hand then. ‘You don’t know.’
‘So, tell me,’ he demanded quietly as the first of his panic slipped through.
‘You don’t know what it’s like, to be hounded by the media day in and day out. To have them take pictures of your everyday moments – going to the grocery store, blowing your nose, or … or sharing a kiss on a horse – and blow them up into a consumable product, into an … an event!’
‘I know what I’m getting into. I have my eyes wide open.’
‘The fact that you’d say that is only proof that you have no idea. Mav, I know you. You’ll hate every moment of it.’
‘You think I don’t know that?’ he asked. Because he did. He understood – and dreaded – that inevitability. ‘I know, Nina. But I’m prepared to do it – for you.’
‘I’m not prepared to ask you to do it.’ And then she said the only thing that could have destroyed him at that moment. She said, ‘For Poppy.’
Mav hated what she was doing even as he loved her more for doing it.
Because it would be Nina who would think about Poppy’s – about his – wellbeing over her own.
Still, that deep, dark insecurity that existed in him had him saying, ‘If you are only trying to protect us – don’t.
I can look after myself, and I sure as fuck can look after Poppy.
But if you don’t feel the same way, if you don’t want that life, I’ll understand.
But I need you to be honest with me, Nina.
Am I showing up, am I fighting for you as a friend or as a woman who wants more from me? ’
‘It’s not that simple!’ she insisted.
‘It is.’
‘I can’t give up everything that I’ve worked for.
’ She engaged that skill that had made her famous then.
Mav saw it click into place. It didn’t matter that he knew she was acting, it still devastated him when he saw her resolve.
Because it was unmovable. ‘I won’t give up everything that I’ve worked for. I’m sorry, Mav.’
He knew she was evading even as the pain of her rejection tore through him. He thought he had been here before. But he hadn’t. This was more terrifying than Shannon abandoning him with an infant. This was the end of a future he’d wanted with every cell in his body.
‘I never asked you to,’ he reminded her. ‘I’m here, Nina. I showed up, to help you fight for what you want.’
‘Mav, you’ve known me two weeks. Two of the lowest weeks of my life.’
‘Yeah, maybe. But I’ve been searching for you for a lifetime, and that has to count for something. And if I can love you as much as I do at your lowest, God only knows how much I’ll love you at your best.’
‘Mav,’ she urged, her tone slipping.
‘Nina.’
‘I’m asking – begging – you to go home, to give me time to sort my life out. Please.’
Arguing wasn’t going to change her mind.
He could see that she had made her decision, and that she was sticking to it.
If anything, the more he resisted, the more committed she seemed, and Mav would rather cut off his own arm than make her feel trapped and miserable.
He’d unknowingly done that to a woman once before and still regretted it, and Nina already had so much to carry.
‘Call Markus,’ he said, because he’d be damned if he’d leave her alone like this. ‘Once he gets here, I’ll go.’
He waited for her to nod before pushing up off the sofa and walking through to the en-suite shower. He ran the water cold, stripped, and stepped under the unforgiving spray, hoping that the frigid water would freeze out his anger and despair and grief. But it only left him cold and numb.
He knew in the deepest part of his soul that they were destined.
He even knew she loved him too. But how could he justify staying when she’d begged him to leave?
How could he try and show someone who’d never been loved by a lover that making love to someone and loving someone could be completely different and that the precise test of real love was sticking through the bullshit that life threw in your face?
Mav had no fucking idea.
And if there was a small, insecure part of him that had known this would happen, that reminded him he had been expecting it, he tried to ignore it. Because even as she broke his heart, Mav understood why she was doing it. Hell, he even admired her for it.
Nina could hear the water running in the shower and had to actively stop herself from going to him, from slipping inside the shower and pressing her body to his, from taking his mouth and then begging him not to leave, from apologizing for causing that pain in his eyes and then never letting him go again.
Fuck Shadowlands, because that conversation with Mav had been her best performance yet.
But as difficult as it was, she knew that she was right, and that she was doing the right thing.
For Mav, who had worked his entire life to make Hunt Ranch the serene escape it was.
For Poppy, who didn’t deserve to be indoctrinated into the world’s deceit because of Nina’s mistakes.
For Sierra, who would have stood up for Nina for no other reason than Maverick had asked.
Despite all of Mav’s points – and he had made some that had her heart beating overtime – Nina couldn’t ask him to sit with her through police interviews, press conferences, Instagram wars, and media harassment. It wouldn’t have been fair, and she loved him enough to want to spare him.
Because he would stick if she hadn’t been the one to put her foot down. Nina absolutely believed that to be true. And, when it was all over, she really hoped she’d be proven right.
And if there was a not-so-small, niggling part of her that knew she feared trusting him, feared relying on him too much, Nina forgave herself for it. Because she had absolutely meant what she’d said: Maverick didn’t know what he was taking on.
Tomorrow, when she made her official statement, the war would truly start. And all wars had casualties. It didn’t matter that this one would primarily involve words, twisted into lies and arguments that masked the truth, people would get hurt. Nina was already one of them.
But she’d be damned if the Hunts would be, too.
Still, when Markus arrived, dressed in neatly pressed, pleated khaki pants and a white linen shirt, it took every ounce of her God-given talent to remain composed.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked, his dark eyes searching her face.
She could hear Mav rummaging around in the bedroom as he packed. ‘I asked him to leave.’
Markus nodded slowly. He didn’t tell her she was an idiot or argue with her. This man, who knew every corner of her soul, the corners that Maverick was still learning, said, ‘I don’t agree with you. But I’ve got you.’
Nina’s eyes burned, but she refused to let the tears fall until Maverick had left.
Still, holding them back made her think about how often she had cried in the past month, and how often she had cried in front of Maverick.
It wasn’t because she was a particularly sensitive person either.
It was because he made her feel safe, and in doing so gave her the space to be vulnerable.
He came out of the bedroom, looking like every woman’s dream on legs. Nina promised herself that one day, hopefully soon, he would be hers again. Forever.
She didn’t say that.
Instead, she walked into his arms and gave him a hug, trying to impart every thought in her head and feeling in her heart through only that contact.
Mav didn’t shy away. He squeezed her back, and he said, ‘Call if you need me.’
Nina nodded, but the moment he stepped back, severing contact with her, she felt bereft. As if she’d been stuck in a raging river, desperately holding on to a fallen tree branch for days, and she had just willingly let it go, succumbing to the rapids.
He turned to face Markus, and although she couldn’t see his face, she could see her best friend’s, so she saw all the messages passing between them. But when Markus held out his hand for Mav’s, Mav only said, ‘Seriously?’ and pulled Markus into a bone-crushing hug.
And Nina walked away, because she knew that if she didn’t, she would cave.
Markus went to Nina the moment that the door shut behind Maverick. ‘Are you sure about this?’
The words came then. ‘He would have stayed, Markus. He would have put everything on the line for me, and I won’t let him do that.
When this is done, when the nightmare is over, I want Hunt Ranch to go back to.
I want Poppy to not be traumatized. And—’ she sighed ‘—I guess I want Mav to know that there’s more to that broken woman who showed up in his life in pieces.
I am strong. I am brave. And I am independent.
Or, at least, I was. I just need to get back there. ’
‘I can see that arguing would be futile,’ he said, and although he didn’t agree, there was a part of him that understood too. Because she was right. The court battle would be long and messy, and it would hurt.
‘I’ll listen anyway,’ Nina replied.
So, Markus asked the difficult question. ‘How much of this has to do with Lulu? How much of you is terrified because you’re not comfortable depending on him?’
Nina replied honestly. ‘About thirty per cent. But most of me only wants to save him from himself. Because he thinks in black and white, in right and wrong, and we both know that this entire drama is going to be played out in the grey.
‘I don’t want to hurt them, Markus. I love them.’
His phone vibrated, and when he looked down at the screen and he saw the message from Maverick –
Keep me updated on everything. Please.
– he knew that for the first time since he’d met Nina, his loyalty was split. And he was alarmingly okay with that.
Nina had said that only thirty per cent of her reasoning had to do with her mother, but Markus knew that it was more.
Because trust wasn’t something you just learned overnight.
It was taught through years of relationships, of friendships and love affairs and familial connections, starting and running their course and ending, and Nina hadn’t had much opportunity to learn that.
Still, he picked his bag up off the floor and tossed it onto the sofa. ‘I see you shovelled out the big bucks?’ he said as he took a turn about the two-bedroom suite.
‘Mav did. I should go down and put the room in my name.’
‘Ah, no. I’ll put it in mine. You need to stay incognito.’
Nina sighed deeply. ‘Can you do something for me?’
‘Always.’
‘Can you help me put my house on the market? Find a realtor, get my things out of it … I’d do it myself, but it’s swarming with media.’
Markus’s eyebrows rose. ‘You want to sell? Are you sure? That’s the first big thing you ever bought for yourself …’ More, he knew she loved that house.
‘I’m sure. It’s not … home anymore. Since the attack …
I only realized yesterday when we drove past it that I’d already let it go.
’ She shrugged. ‘I’m going back to the ranch when this is over.
If Mav forgives me …’ She didn’t finish the thought.
‘If he doesn’t, I’ll still want a new place. Maybe with some land …’
‘Okay. I have a friend who’s a realtor. I’ll give him a call.’
‘Thank you.’
He could see her exhaustion and, beneath the resolve, her heartbreak. ‘What can I do to help?’
Nina laughed sadly. But there was only one thing that would help, so she said, ‘Play “Run” by George Strait.’
Markus pulled out his phone. He found the song on Spotify and pressed play.
He hit pause almost immediately. ‘Maverick changed these lyrics,’ he stated.
Nina nodded. ‘Yeah. I’ve listened to this song like a billion times now. It’s keeping me going.’
‘Girl.’
Nina nodded. ‘I know. You don’t have to tell me. I know.’
So, Markus didn’t. He went and sat beside where she’d plopped on the sofa, took her hand in his, and hit play again. And then simply sat by her side and listened to George Strait sing ‘Run’.