Page 116 of You Owe Me

I smirk, brushing a thumb over her lower lip.

I’ve spent years building a reputation that makes grown men nervous and smart people careful. Carter’s about to find out why.

She kisses me. Hungry. Bold. Her fingers slip into my hair and pull just enough to drag a groan out of my throat. I deepenthe kiss, shifting until she’s straddling me, water sloshing over the rim of the pool, forgotten and irrelevant.

My hands find her hips. Bare skin, sun-warmed and slick, fitting perfectly in my palms like she was carved for this exact moment. For me.

The possessiveness that surges through me has nothing to do with the kiss and everything to do with what’s coming. She’s mine. My family is mine. My empire is mine. And anyone who threatens what’s mine learns exactly what that protection costs.

She breaks the kiss first, breathless and flushed. “You really want me to do this?”

I nod, but I don’t let go. “Yeah. And you’re going to be brilliant. He’s already desperate. All you have to do is pretend to crack.”

Because she won’t actually crack. Ainsley James doesn’t break under pressure—she weaponizes it. Carter has no idea he’s been trying to intimidate someone who learned to fight back from the king of the food chain.

Her brow arches. “Pretend?”

“Baby,” I murmur, brushing a wet strand of hair off her cheek, “you don’t crack. You light the match and smile while the building burns.”

She laughs, but it catches in her throat like she wasn’t expecting the compliment to hit that hard. I don’t give her time to recover. I tilt her chin up, my voice going low and sharp.

“Call him. Say you’ve had a change of heart. You want to negotiate, but only if his father’s present. Let him think you’re scared. Let him think he’s winning.”

The beautiful thing about Carter’s ego is how predictable it makes him. He’ll hear what he wants to hear—submission, surrender, victory. He won’t hear the trap closing around his throat.

“And what are you doing while I flirt with the enemy?”

“Stacking the deck,” I say. “And sharpening the knife.”

Metaphorically speaking. Though if Carter keeps pushing, the metaphor might become literal.

She stares at me like she’s trying to decide whether to kiss me again or slap me for how turned on that made her. Her fingers trail down my chest, skimming over the small healing incision.

“You sure you’re okay?” she whispers. “I mean, really okay?”

The concern in her voice cuts deeper than any blade. She’s not asking about the surgery or the recovery or the physical healing. She’s asking if I’m still me. If the man who just promised to destroy someone is the same one who holds her gently in the dark.

“I’m fine.” I cup her cheek, leaning in until we’re nose to nose. “My heart’s stronger than it’s ever been. The rest of me?” I smirk. “Still dangerous as hell.”

More dangerous, actually. Because now I don’t have to worry about my body betraying me at the worst possible moment. No more heart rate spikes during confrontations. No more electrical chaos when the pressure builds. Just pure, controlled lethality.

Carter Mills picked the wrong time to make an enemy.

She nods slowly, then leans over the side of the pool to grab her phone. Water drips off her wrist as she holds it up, hesitating just for a second before unlocking the screen.

“You really trust me to do this?”

“I trust you to ruin him if I ask you to.”

And I do. Completely. Because Ainsley doesn’t just love me; she understands me. She knows that sometimes protection looks like violence, that sometimes the only way to keep something safe is to destroy everything that threatens it.

A beat of silence.

No dialing. No ringing.

Just her eyes on me—wide, searching, vulnerable in a way that cuts deeper than any blade.

The phone stays clutched in her hand, dripping water onto my chest. She doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak.

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