Page 63 of You Owe Me

“Sure.” His voice is carefully neutral. “Whatever you want.”

But I can tell he’s not buying my act. Maverick Lexington didn’t build his reputation by missing obvious tells, and right now, I’m about as transparent as Saran Wrap. I’m fidgeting with my fork, avoiding eye contact, and giving one-word answers to his attempts at conversation. If I were anyone else, he’d already be ten steps ahead, figuring out exactly what I was hiding and why.

The fact that he’s not pressing means he trusts me.

Which makes this so much worse.

On the TV, the contestant decides to phone a friend, and I watch numbly as she explains the question to someone who clearly knows less about marine ecosystems than my stuffed sea lion, Lawrence. It’s painful and ridiculous, and normally, I’d be yelling at the screen, but tonight, I can barely muster the energy to care.

Because Carter’s phone had been a dead end.

Three hours. I’d spent three hours going through every app, every message, every photo, looking for something—anything—that could give us leverage. And what had I found? Nothing. The man keeps his digital life cleaner than a monastery. No incriminating texts, no blackmail folders conveniently labeled “Evil Plans,” no smoking gun that would make this nightmare go away.

Either he’s smarter than I gave him credit for, or he keeps the really damaging stuff somewhere else. Somewhere I can’t reach.

“You know”—Maverick stabs a particularly stubborn noodle—“if something is bothering you, you could tell me, right?”

My fork clatters against the bowl. “Of course.”

“Because you’ve been...” He pauses, choosing his words carefully. “Different. Quiet.”

“I’m always quiet.”

He gives me a look that clearly says bullshit. “You once gave a twenty-minute lecture about sea lion mating rituals during a commercial break. You’re never quiet.”

Heat crawls up my neck. He’s right, obviously. Normal Ainsley would be dissecting the contestant’s strategy, explaining the ecological importance of kelp forests, probably making him promise to take me to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for our next anniversary. Normal Ainsley doesn’t sit in sullen silence while her boyfriend tries to make conversation during his favorite trashy dinner.

But normal Ainsley isn’t being blackmailed by a sociopath with daddy issues and a trust fund.

“I’m just tired,” I repeat, because it’s easier than the truth. “The internship’s been intense.”

“Greg giving you trouble?”

“No, Greg’s perfect. He’s learned three new tricks this week.” I force a smile, trying to inject some enthusiasm into my voice. “He can balance a ball on his nose for almost thirty seconds now.”

“That’s great.”

I can tell he’s not convinced by my sudden brightness. He knows me too well, knows that talking about the sea lions usually unleashes a flood of excited babbling about cognitive development and behavioral modification. The fact that I managed exactly two sentences means he’s definitely suspicious now.

The contestant on TV loses on a question about coral bleaching that any marine biology student could have answered, and I feel an irrational surge of anger at her failure. Like herinability to know basic ecological facts is somehow connected to my inability to protect the man sitting across from me.

“Maybe I should call in sick tomorrow,” I mutter, mostly to myself.

“To the internship?” Maverick’s fork pauses halfway to his mouth. “You never call in sick. You once went to work with food poisoning because you didn’t want Greg to think you’d abandoned him.”

“That was different. Greg has separation anxiety.”

“And now?”

I shrug, not trusting myself to elaborate. Because the truth is, I want to call in sick to everything. To my internship, to my classes, to this entire mess that’s spiraling further out of control with each passing day. I want to crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head and pretend that Carter Mills doesn’t exist, that I never went to that stupid gala, that I’m not caught in an increasingly complex web of lies that’s going to destroy everything I care about.

But I can’t do that. Because hiding won’t make this go away. And every day I wait, every day I fail to find something useful against Carter, is another day closer to him deciding he’s tired of playing games.

“If you try anything clever,” he said, voice dropping to that dangerous register that makes my skin crawl, “remember that Maverick’s the one who’ll pay the price. I’d hate for his academic career to suffer because his girlfriend couldn’t follow simple instructions.”

The memory makes my stomach clench. Carter wasn’t just threatening me; he was reminding me exactly what’s at stake. Maverick’s future. His degree. His ability to continue running his grandfather’s company. Everything he’s worked for, everything he’s sacrificed his health to maintain, hanging in the balance because I thought I could outsmart a predator in khakis.

“You want to tell me what’s really going on?”

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