That one hits.
I look toward the blanket lump beside me.
Livy peeks out. “I do need to laugh. Doctor’s orders probably.”
“I doubt that.”
“Mav said emotional wellness.”
“Of course he did.”
Maverick stands and smooths a hand over the blanket near my knee. “There’s an outfit in our bathroom that should fit. We’ll go shopping later today to get you both whatever you need.”
Ourbathroom.
My brain catches on the word like a snagged thread.
Notthebathroom.
Notmybathroom.
Not evenyourbathroom.
Ourbathroom.
He says it like it’s already been decided.
Maybe it has.
I’m too tired to fight it.
“Let’s go,DonLivy,” he says. “We have an empire to run.”
Livy scrambles out from under the blankets. “Can I feed someone to the fishies?”
Maverick offers her his hand. “I’ll let you know after I read my email.”
They leave the room together, entirely too serious about it.
I sit there holding my coffee, wearing borrowed pajamas in a crime lord’s bed, listening to my ten-year-old plot estate management with a man called the Outlaw.
What’s happening in my life?
I give myself ten minutes.
Then I get up, get dressed, and hunt down my daughter.
I hear her laughter as soon as I leave the suite Maverick calls a bedroom.
“Wow,” I say when I find her in a very girly room.
Soft pink walls. Cream furniture. A white canopy bed with gauzy curtains tied back by little satin ribbons. Shelves full of books and stuffed animals. A tiny table near the window with two chairs, as if it’s been waiting for a tea party.
It’s beautiful.
The kind of room someone loved into existence.
“Isn’t it beautiful, Mama?” Livy asks. “Maverick says it’s mine for as long as I want it. Forever. I want it forever.”
