18. Maya
Maya
How much did it cost to set up a new life?
She took a deep breath and started the list.
Rent.
She paused, tapping the pen lightly against the paper as she thought. She didn’t know where she would be living yet. But she knew roughly what things cost. She could estimate.
She wrote a number beside it.
Food.
Another number.
Transport.
Utilities.
Her pen moved steadily now, the rhythm of it grounding. Writing this all down cut through the lingering haze of the past few days.
This was what she did. She made things work, she stretched limited resources into something sustainable, she found the gaps and filled them.
Legal fees.
Maya frowned. She didn’t know what that number looked like, not even approximately.
The realization gave her a small jolt of unease.
She remembered signing papers. Had they talked about what she would need to pay?
Instead of a figure, Maya added a question mark.
She was capable, she was resourceful, she would be okay.
The life she had been building had been almost perfect, something that felt expansive and purposeful and… shared.
A home that was theirs. Work that made a difference.
And—
Maya’s breath caught, just slightly.
A family.
She had wanted that.
In a way that had started to feel all too possible.
Maya stared down at her notebook, the words on the page blurring slightly.
She swiped at her face, almost angry at herself.
That future was gone. There was no point letting herself cry.
It had depended on Reid loving her the way she loved him.
Completely. Without hesitation. Without doubt.
He didn’t.
He hadn’t.
“Hi,” she said, when the call connected. “This is Maya Lawson. I—uh—I…” She felt suddenly out of her depth.
There was a brief pause, the soft sound of typing in the background stopped.
“Yes, Mrs. Lawson,” the receptionist prompted.
Maya glanced down at her notebook, at the list of expenses she had made.
Maya hesitated for a fraction of a second, then pushed through it. “How much will I need to pay?”
Maya heard a mouse clicking, and then the woman spoke again. “It’s all been taken care of,” she said. “Mr. Lawson is paying.”
Maya blinked.
“What?,” she said, because she wasn’t sure she had heard that correctly. “What do you mean?”
“Reid Lawson,” the woman clarified. “He was quite insistent.” She lowered her voice. “We don’t usually schedule new clients on a Saturday, you know. He paid extra.”
Maya’s fingers tightened slightly around her phone.
“And he’s covering all costs. Oh—there’s a note here. He’s authorized premium priority billing, so your case is being treated as urgent.”
Maya looked down at her notebook, at the neat, practical list she had made. She ended the call and lowered the phone slowly into her lap.
For a moment, she just sat there.
Reid had arrested her.
He believed she was a liar. A thief. He had put handcuffs on her wrists, told her to leave her home, shut the door in her face.
And in the same breath—on the same day as he arrested her—he had found her the best defense lawyer he could get his hands on, paid whatever it cost to make him turn up on the weekend.
The contradiction pressed in on her, impossible to reconcile.
Maya let out a slow breath, her gaze drifting back to the numbers on the page.
Reid’s motivations didn’t matter.
She picked up the pen, turning it between her fingers. She needed to be practical. She needed a job.