Page 21 of My Three Rivals

“What the actual fuck do you think this is? A brothel?” I snapped, striding forward. “You can’t bring random women into my house!”

Maverick whipped his hand back like a kid caught in the cookie jar, my appearance startling him more than the action he was performing. He rolled his eyes as I folded my arms under my chest and grinned nonchalantly.

“Hello, Tegan,” Maverick offered sweetly. “Care to join us?”

His flippant response to bringing my high school tormentor into my house enraged me worse than anything else he had done so far. Hurt welled in my chest, and I wondered how he had known.

Of course he knew. This is all part of their plan to harass me out of here.

“Oh, my God!” Natalia choked, gawking at me. “That’s right! Tegan… Schmidt, right?”

She was so excited, as if she and her cheerleader pals hadn’t spent all of my junior and senior year making me miserable.

“Pickett,” Maverick corrected when I said nothing, but continued to glower at him, ignoring Natalia altogether. “You two know each other.”

Tears of anger and humiliation burned at the back of my eyes, but I blinked them away before anyone could see. The last thing I would ever do was show him I was frazzled.

“Uh, yeah, right. Don’t you remember me, sweetie? From Sierra High?” Natalia cooed, stepping closer, the sneer on her lips barely hidden beneath the thick of lipstick as I flipped my gaze back toward her. “You live here, too, huh?”

“Fuck you, Natalia,” I growled, turning away.

There was nothing else to say, but I relished the gape of her too-red lips as she stared after me.

“What? What did I do?” she squealed innocently.

Shaking my head, I realized I was trembling, and for half a second, I saw compassion in Maverick’s eyes.

“You must have done something,” he intoned.

I wanted to tell Maverick to fuck himself also, but before I could muster the words without having my voice crack, he spoke.

“I’ll call you an Uber, Natalie.”

She laughed as I stalked back into the kitchen, trying to get away from the ugly scene.

“Uh, Natalia,” she corrected him. “Remember? I hate being called Natalie.”

“I don’t care,” Maverick replied conversationally. “Where do you want to go? Give me an address. I’m ordering an Uber for you.”

Ignoring their back-and-forth, I headed toward the butler stairs, still shaking. This place had once been my sanctuary, and now it was being overrun with men just like my asshole father.

I’m sorry, Gran. I don’t know how to protect it anymore.

Natalia giggled annoyingly again.

Maverick’s tone turned dark. “What are you laughing at? Go wait outside. They’re fifteen minutes away. I just put in the address for the bar, but you can tell the driver a different address if you want to go home.”

I stopped at the base of the stairs to listen to the exchange now, confusion overtaking me.

“What? Why? Because of Teabag Tegan?” Gone was the sweet, flirtatious tint to Natalia’s voice. In its place was the Natalia I fully remembered.

I gritted my teeth, and I heard Natalia yelp. Hurrying back to the threshold of the kitchen, I peered around the doorframe to see Maverick escorting Natalia to the front door, his arm firmly on her arm. She resisted his exit, a scowl overtaking her face entirely.

“Oh, my God! You’re all so lame!”

The front door slammed, the door locking, and I backed into the kitchen as Maverick strode past me, his blue eyes fixed straight ahead. I stared at him, waiting for him to say something, but he didn’t acknowledge me as he climbed the stairs and disappeared, leaving me to wonder what the hell had just happened.

CHAPTER9

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