“Nothing.” She waved a hand at him.
“It’s not nothing,” Charlie said. “It’s dangerous, and you’ve been put in hospital before because of overzealous Olivia Tyler groupies.”
“What?”
“It’s true.” Charlie looked at him. “She’s poison and has her sights on Luna.”
“I don’t get this stuff,” Dylan said. “I mean, I know who she is because Charlie told me her name and I looked her up, but surely it’s illegal for her to come after you through her fans.”
“They say they’re acting alone is my guess,” Piper said.
“How did you end up in the hospital?” Nash asked.
“Look, it’s not worth discussing,” Luna said. “You all don’t need to be involved in this. I’m fine, really. I’m going back to the Lodge, as I have work to do, so bye.”
“We can take you back.” Mandy shot Ted a look.
“I have my car, so please stay and enjoy your food.”
“If you’re sure?” Ted still had half a brioche left to eat.
“Of course.” She raised a hand and then walked away before Charlie could stop her.
Nash watched her move.He wanted those legs around his waist. The hell of it was he would have taken her too, right there minutes from people, against a wall.
“Those women have been posting stuff,” Mal said when Luna had left and Nash could inhale his first deep breath in a while. Until then the kid had been scrolling through her phone. “They said Luna attacked them on the street. Yelling at them and getting her friends involved. There are pictures of you all walking away and coming back into the chocolate shop.”
Nash may not have social media accounts, or a phone that was apparently up to the high standards of those around him, but he did use the computer at the ranch for things. What he didn’t do was search randomly just for the hell of it on the internet.
Mal’s phone was passed around the table and reached him. The screen was blank, Grace leaned over and tapped it, and the picture appeared.
“That’s you,” she said.
“I can see that thanks, Grace.”
There wasn’t much to see, just their backs, but the caption read “Luna McKinley set her friends on us.”
“Why the bad blood between them though?” Piper asked.
“Luna’s friend Hugo told me that she was more sought after in the modeling world than Olivia. The reason being that Olivia Tyler was too high-maintenance and people got sick of her tantrums. The bad blood came from there, and just got worse when they both became influencers.”
“Can I come and meet Monica and her duck, Nash?” Grace patted his arm to get his attention.
“Sure, you get Mom or Dad to bring you.” Nash guessed she was somewhere above five, but having had no exposure to kids, that wasn’t a definite. She was cute though.
“Uncle Jack said he’d take me, because he wants to look at Monica to see if he recognizes her.”
Nash knew Jack ran the Trainer horse ranch, so maybe he would know who Monica’s owner was, and if he found out that information, Nash was going there to teach whoever it was a lesson on how to treat sweet little ponies.
“Are you eating that chocolate?” Her little finger pointed to his plate.
Nash watched her eyes shoot to her mother as she asked.
“You want it?”
She nodded, her eyes looking right again.
“But Mom told you no more chocolate?” He bent to whisper the words in her ear.