Page 126 of You Owe Me

“How long?” he calls out, voice hollow.

I don’t turn around. Don’t even pause. Just smile at the back of Ainsley’s neck and keep walking.

Because he already knows the answer.

Forever.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Rumor has it, she finally got her perfect couch.

Ainsley

“Absolutely not,” I declare, recoiling from the angular gray sectional like it just called me ‘ma’am’ at Starbucks. “That thing looks like it was designed by someone who hates spines.”

Maverick raises a brow and tilts the price tag toward me. “It’s practical.”

“So is eating expired yogurt, but that doesn’t mean I want to.”

He rests a hand on the cushion, testing it. “Seems durable.”

“Yeah, like a brick. A very expensive brick that screams, ‘No one’s ever been loved here.’”

Janice—our exhausted furniture guide who’s clearly three couples away from quitting retail—approaches with the same customer service smile she had when I fake-sobbed into a recliner twenty minutes ago. “Still narrowing things down?”

“I want a couch that understands me,” I tell her earnestly. “Something emotionally available. Something that can cradle my body and my anxiety.”

“Something that can survive a full bowl of Frosted Flakes being launched during a sea lion emergency,” Maverick adds dryly.

I shoot him a glare. “You startled me during a rescue mission. That sea lion was trapped.”

“You flailed like you were in open water.”

“Don’t act like you haven’t passed out on the couch with tortilla crumbs in your armpit.”

He shrugs like he’s not embarrassed at all.

Maybe this seems like just another chaotic errand in our very not-normal relationship, but this isn’t about the couch. Not really. This is about what’s changed.

Three months ago, Maverick ruled Havemeyer like it was a hedge fund with hormones. IOUs, favors, secret influence—he ran it all. And then one day, he didn’t. He handed it to Rowan. Clean break. No drama. No announcement.

Because he wanted off the chessboard.

Because he didn’t want people coming through him to get to me. Because he finally realized he’d rather build something real with me than control everything from a distance.

He still runs Pops’s investment firm on the side, obviously. The man would rather die than hand over a balance sheet of his making. But the rest? The power, the manipulation, the constant risk of being used?

He gave that up. For me.

And don’t think I’m not painfully aware of what that means. The guy who calculated people like assets decided I was the investment. Not a liability. Not a complication.

A priority.

Janice leads us to a cluster of couches that don’t look like they were made by Bond villains, and I spot it immediately.

A deep navy sectional. Lush. Inviting. And it looks like it can handle emotional damage and post-sex snacks.

I fall onto it. “Oh, my gosh,” I sigh, practically purring. “This couch gets it. This couch is the one.”

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