A Mafia Boss Watched Her Supervisor Put a Hand on Her Waist During a Shipping Meeting—But When Roman Gallagher Warned Him Never to Touch Her Again, Maeve Refused to Be Claimed, Took Control of the Logistics Plan Herself, and Made the Most Dangerous Man in the Room Learn the Difference Between Protection and Possession

Maeve arrived at the hotel conference suite the next morning with a twelve-page employment agreement and placed it directly in front of Roman.

“No weapons work. No narcotics. No trafficking. No coercive collections. I control logistics decisions inside my area, and if I leave, you do not interfere.”

Roman read the first page.

Then the second.

“You wrote this overnight?”

“I’ve had practice reading contracts written to trap people.”

He looked up.

“And the hospital payment?”

“Separate. You put in writing that I owe nothing.”

Roman turned another page.

Maeve waited.

She had expected resistance.

Instead he took out a pen.

“There’s one clause I want changed.”

“Which?”

“This.”

He tapped a paragraph.

Maeve read it.

Security measures may be imposed upon employee at employer’s discretion.

“That came from your draft language,” she said.

“I know.”

“And?”

“I don’t like it.”

Maeve raised an eyebrow.

Roman crossed it out.

He wrote beneath it.

Security measures affecting Maeve Jenkins require her informed consent except during an immediate, verifiable emergency.

Maeve stared.

“That’s better.”

“I’m learning.”

“Don’t congratulate yourself yet.”

“I wasn’t.”

She almost smiled.

Then Roman showed her the real operation.

Not drugs.

Not guns.

A sprawling gray-market logistics network moving high-value assets, sensitive information, disputed art, prototype technology and clients who paid heavily for discretion.

Some of it legal.

Some of it deliberately outside normal regulation.

Maeve did not pretend otherwise.

“This can put me in prison.”

“Yes.”

“Then I need visibility.”

Roman’s eyes narrowed.

“Into what?”

“Everything touching my routes.”

“No compartmentalization.”

“That’s not how my organization works.”

“Then your organization doesn’t get me.”

He studied her.

Most people negotiated salary with Roman Gallagher.

Maeve negotiated information.

That impressed him more.

“Agreed.”

She started that afternoon.

Within three hours she found redundancy in the Midwest corridor.

Three decoy trucks ran nearly identical routes.

“You’re wasting money and making yourselves easier to map.”

Wyatt, Roman’s transport chief, scoffed.

“We’ve done it for five years.”

Maeve ignored him.

She altered departure times.

Sent decoys through commercial way stations.

Moved the real payload onto county roads.

The model calculated a thirty-four-percent efficiency improvement and a dramatic reduction in pattern exposure.

Wyatt stopped smirking.

Roman looked at the result.

“Implement it.”

Maeve turned toward him.

“Not yet.”

Wyatt’s eyebrows rose.

Roman’s did too.

“We run a forty-eight-hour test on low-value cargo,” Maeve said. “If the data holds, then we implement.”

Roman held her gaze.

“Fine.”

Wyatt stared between them.

Roman nodded toward the door.

“Run her test.”

After he left, Maeve folded her arms.

“You were about to order a network-wide change because you liked my answer.”

“It was correct.”

“That isn’t enough.”

Roman stepped closer.

“What is?”

“Knowing what happens when I’m wrong.”

That answer stayed with him.

So did everything else about her.

Weeks passed.

Maeve became harder to dismiss.

She found routes Roman’s oldest men had stopped questioning.

Identified payments that did not match movement.

Rewrote contingency structures.

And every time someone tried to introduce her as Roman Gallagher’s new assistant, she corrected them.

“Director of Logistics.”

Eventually they stopped making the mistake.

Roman’s attraction became obvious.

So did hers.

But the first time he touched her face, Maeve caught his wrist.

“Ask.”

Roman went still.

The request cost him nothing physically.

Emotionally, it required unlearning years.

“May I?”

Maeve considered him.

Then released his wrist.

“Yes.”

His knuckles brushed her cheek.

That was all.

For Roman Gallagher, restraint felt more intimate than possession ever had.

Three months after Maeve joined him, a priority convoy vanished from the map.

One truck stopped.

A second lost GPS.

The third broke route.

Maeve was alone at the command table.

Liam entered at her shout.

“Call Roman.”

“No.”

He stopped.

Maeve’s fingers flew over the system.

“He’s twenty minutes away. The convoy doesn’t have twenty minutes.”

She pulled traffic cameras.

Armed hijackers surrounded the lead vehicles.

The third driver, Miller, tried to push through.

Maeve opened his channel.

“Reverse.”

“They’ll take the load!”

“If you drive forward, they take your life too.”

Miller hesitated.

Maeve gave him a maintenance-road turn.

Two enemy SUVs followed.

Exactly what she wanted.

She remotely sealed the industrial park’s reinforced gate behind them, locking the pursuers into a concrete yard while Miller remained protected inside his armored cab.

Then she triggered nearby emergency responses toward the main hijacking site.

Sirens closed in.

The remaining attackers fled.

When Roman reached the command center, Maeve was still directing recoveries.

He looked at the map.

At the trapped vehicles.

At the intact cargo.

Then at her.

“You did this?”

Maeve met his eyes.

“They wanted our truck.”

She tapped the locked yard.

“I gave them somewhere to keep it.”

Roman’s expression changed.

Not ownership.

Recognition.

The woman Bradley had treated like furniture had just protected an entire convoy without firing a shot.

And Roman Gallagher understood that keeping Maeve close could no longer mean keeping her behind him.

If he wanted her beside him, he would have to survive the fact that sometimes she would be the one holding the room.

Roman remained beside the command table while Maeve finished directing the recovery.

He did not interrupt.

That was new.

Wyatt reported two drivers injured but alive.

Miller remained trapped in the industrial yard with the hostile vehicles outside his armored cab.

Maeve looked at Liam.

“Can your team extract him without turning that yard into a battlefield?”

Liam glanced at Roman out of habit.

Roman said nothing.

Maeve noticed.

Liam looked back at her.

“Yes.”

“Then do that.”

“What about the hijackers?”

“Contain them. We need to know who sent them.”

Roman finally spoke.

“Alive.”

Liam nodded.

Maeve turned toward him after the door closed.

“You were going to say something else.”

“Yes.”

“What?”

Roman leaned against the edge of the table.

“I was going to tell him to make sure none of them walked out.”

Maeve’s expression cooled.

“And now?”

“Now I want answers.”

“Because I asked?”

“Because you were right.”

She studied him.

Roman had never feared violence.

What he feared was surrendering the certainty violence gave him.

There was always clarity in destruction.

Information required patience.

Trust required even more.

That night they learned the name behind the attack.

Declan Kavanagh.

An old competitor who had spent months probing Roman’s routes.

The convoy hit was not random.

Someone inside Roman’s wider transport structure had leaked departure windows.

Maeve requested access to personnel records.

Roman hesitated.

“That includes people who’ve been with me fifteen years.”

“Then they’ve had fifteen years to learn where you don’t look.”

His eyes narrowed.

“That sounded personal.”

“It is.”

Bradley had survived eight months because everyone around him had decided familiarity made misconduct ordinary.

Maeve no longer believed longevity deserved immunity.

Roman gave her access.

For two days she compared driver rosters, routing changes and expense anomalies.

She found something Roman’s security team had missed.

Wyatt’s deputy had rerouted two maintenance inspections six weeks apart.

Each placed the same outside contractor near protected vehicles before major shipments.

Maeve called Roman.

He arrived carrying exhaustion and anger like two additional layers of clothing.

“You’re certain?”

“No.”

He stopped.

Most people rushed to certainty in front of him.

Maeve did not.

“I have a pattern. Not proof.”

“What do you need?”

“Forty-eight hours and no one confronting anyone.”

Roman’s jaw flexed.

“That second part is difficult.”

“I know.”

He gave her forty-eight hours.

The contractor led to Kavanagh.

The deputy led to payments.

Proof arrived without anyone disappearing.

Roman sat across from Maeve in his office after reviewing it.

“You saved me from punishing three innocent men.”

“I saved your network from becoming less intelligent because you were angry.”

“That too.”

She closed the file.

“You still want to kill him.”

“Yes.”

“The deputy?”

Roman looked through the window.

“Yes.”

“At least you’re honest.”

“I promised you visibility.”

Maeve gathered her tablet.

“That isn’t the same as restraint.”

“No.”

She turned toward the door.

“Maeve.”

She stopped.

Roman came around the desk.

“Dinner.”

Her expression changed.

“Is that an order?”

“No.”

“A work dinner?”

“No.”

“Are you asking me on a date?”

The most feared man in several rooms stared at her as though she had unexpectedly changed languages.

“Yes.”

Maeve enjoyed his discomfort for exactly three seconds.

“Friday.”

Roman exhaled.

“Seven?”

“Eight. Sarah has therapy until six, and I’m visiting.”

“I can send a car.”

“I have a car.”

He nodded.

“Eight.”

Their first date was almost painfully normal.

No private club.

No armored convoy visible from the windows.

A quiet Italian restaurant in Brooklyn where Roman apparently knew the owner but did not control the room.

Maeve chose the table.

She chose her wine.

He did not reach for her once without asking.

That mattered more than she expected.

After dinner they walked one block in cold rain.

Roman stopped under an awning.

“I owe you something.”

Maeve waited.

“The first day.”

“What about it?”

“I told Cole to take his hand off you.”

“That part I appreciated.”

“Then I tried to decide your life for you.”

Maeve’s face went still.

Roman continued.

“I had already paid Sarah’s bill. I had investigated you. I knew where you were vulnerable.”

“Yes.”

“And I used that knowledge while telling myself I was protecting you.”

“You did.”

“I should have offered options.”

Maeve looked at him.

“You frightened me.”

Roman’s jaw tightened.

“I know.”

“No. I don’t think you do.”

She stepped closer, not softer.

“Bradley put his hands on me because he thought my circumstances meant I couldn’t object. You stepped in, then immediately started making decisions because you thought my circumstances meant I couldn’t object.”

Roman looked away.

The comparison hurt.

That was why it mattered.

“I was not the same as him.”

“No.”

Maeve’s voice remained even.

“But that doesn’t make everything you did right.”

Roman met her eyes again.

“What would repair it?”

Not what would make her forgive him.

Repair.

Maeve considered.

“You stop collecting leverage on me.”

“I need security information.”

“You can have security information I agree to share.”

He nodded slowly.

“Sarah is off-limits unless she gives permission herself.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t move me anywhere because you’re afraid.”

“Yes.”

“And you never call me yours unless I have chosen that word too.”

Roman’s face changed.

That one reached deepest.

“Agreed.”

Maeve held his gaze.

“Good.”

She started to walk away.

Roman caught himself before reaching for her.

“May I kiss you?”

Maeve turned.

The question put all the power back where it belonged.

She stepped under the awning again.

“Yes.”

The kiss was not an answer to their conflict.

It was what came after the answer.

Slow.

Careful.

Chosen.

Three months later, Maeve was no longer sleeping in Roman’s guest room because she did not need to.

She had her own apartment.

Her own keys.

Her own salary.

Roman spent more nights there than she spent at his penthouse.

That too mattered.

Then Kavanagh struck again.

Not at a convoy.

At Roman.

A meeting outside Jersey turned violent.

Roman returned to Maeve’s apartment after four in the morning with blood soaking one side of his shirt.

She opened the door.

Looked at him.

Then at Liam behind him.

“Hospital?”

Roman shook his head.

Maeve looked at Liam.

“Does he need one?”

“No. Clean through the side. Doctor already closed it.”

Roman’s eyes narrowed.

“You asked him.”

“You are an unreliable narrator when injured.”

Liam almost smiled.

Maeve stepped aside.

Roman entered.

She cleaned the wound while he sat at her kitchen table.

His knuckles were bruised.

A cut crossed his jaw.

“What happened to Kavanagh?” she asked.

Roman was quiet.

“That bad?”

“He won’t come after us again.”

Maeve stopped working.

“Alive?”

Roman looked at her.

“Yes.”

She released the breath she had been holding.

“He’ll be in federal custody by morning. We gave them enough from the hijacking to bury him.”

Maeve resumed taping the dressing.

“You chose that?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Roman’s hand closed gently around her wrist.

He did not pull.

“I kept thinking about what you said.”

“Which thing? I say many useful things.”

His mouth moved.

Then turned serious.

“I built everything so no one could control me through another person.”

Maeve waited.

“And then you became important enough that losing you scares me more than losing the network.”

“That is not romantic if your solution is to cage me.”

“I know.”

“Good.”

Roman looked at her.

“So I’m trying to make the network something I would not have to burn down to protect you.”

Maeve’s fingers stilled.

That was different.

Not I will destroy the world because you are mine.

I will change the world I built because I refuse to make you pay for it.

Roman continued.

“I am closing the routes tied to violence.”

“Why?”

“Because every one of them creates enemies you have to inherit simply by standing near me.”

“And the profitable ones?”

“Some are profitable because people are afraid to say no.”

Maeve looked at him.

“You’re giving those up?”

“Yes.”

“That will cost you.”

“Yes.”

Roman’s gray eyes stayed on hers.

“I’m not asking you to reward me for it.”

That was the sentence that reached her.

Maeve set the gauze aside.

Then she touched his face.

Her choice.

Roman remained still.

“I’m glad you came back alive.”

“So am I.”

She kissed him.

Not because he had threatened a man for her.

Not because he paid a debt.

Not because fear felt like romance.

Because months after their first confrontation, Roman Gallagher had finally begun giving up the very thing men like him protected most fiercely.

The right to decide for everyone else.

And Maeve, who had once survived by calculating the price of every refusal, chose him without owing him anything.

Maeve did not become powerful because Roman Gallagher loved her.

That was the first misconception she destroyed.

The second was that her authority came from sharing his bed.

Six months after the Kavanagh attack, Roman called a senior operations meeting and took the chair halfway down the table.

Maeve stopped in the doorway.

His usual seat at the head remained empty.

“What is this?”

Roman looked up.

“Your meeting.”

Wyatt was already there.

So were department heads who had once referred to Maeve as the secretary Roman brought home.

None of them used that language anymore.

Maeve placed her tablet at the head of the table.

Roman did not move.

“This restructuring affects all transport operations,” she said. “I want objections before approval, not after.”

Wyatt raised one immediately.

“The new transparency controls reduce deniability.”

“Yes.”

“That is the point of compartmentalization.”

“It was.”

Maeve tapped the screen.

A new organizational map appeared.

“We have spent years designing the network to survive investigation. That makes the same network excellent at hiding theft, disloyalty and internal abuse.”

She looked around the table.

“Kavanagh exploited that.”

No one disagreed.

“We reduce criminal exposure, convert legitimate routes into actual audited businesses, and eliminate anything that requires a frightened employee to keep quiet.”

Roman watched her.

That last sentence belonged to more than shipping.

Maeve knew it.

“So we become legal?” Wyatt asked.

“More legal than you will enjoy.”

Someone laughed.

Maeve did not.

“We also become harder to blackmail.”

That silenced them.

Roman spoke for the first time.

“She has final operational authority on the conversion.”

One executive glanced toward him.

“And if we disagree?”

“You disagree with her.”

“Not you?”

Roman leaned back.

“You heard me.”

That was surrender of a kind.

Public.

Specific.

Expensive.

Maeve did not thank him.

She simply ran the meeting.

Over the next year, the network changed.

Not magically.

Not completely.

Some illicit operations were sold.

Some were shut down.

Others became legitimate high-security logistics businesses handling art, technology prototypes, legal private transport and crisis relocation.

Roman’s old power did not disappear.

It narrowed.

He stopped pretending every illegal enterprise deserved survival simply because his name was attached.

Maeve built compliance structures she once would have mocked.

The irony pleased her.

She also created anonymous workplace reporting channels across legitimate companies Roman controlled.

Reports bypassed direct supervisors.

Outside investigators reviewed harassment complaints.

Retaliation became grounds for immediate termination.

One afternoon Roman read the new policy.

“This is Bradley.”

“It is everyone like Bradley.”

“You built an entire system because one idiot touched your waist.”

Maeve looked up sharply.

Roman corrected himself.

“Because everyone around him made it possible for him to keep doing it.”

“Better.”

He signed the policy.

Sarah recovered slowly.

Her spinal injury remained part of her life.

Roman’s money had paid bills, but it had not created a miracle.

Physical therapy remained difficult.

Maeve remained her sister, not her savior.

That mattered too.

One Sunday Sarah met Roman for the first time.

She looked him over.

“You’re the anonymous donor.”

Roman glanced toward Maeve.

Maeve had made it clear before lunch that Sarah deserved the truth.

“Yes.”

Sarah folded her arms.

“Why?”

Roman did not say because I wanted your sister.

“I learned about your account while investigating Crestview.”

“That is extremely creepy.”

“Yes.”

Maeve nearly choked on her coffee.

Sarah continued.

“Do you expect anything from me?”

“No.”

“From Maeve?”

“No.”

Sarah looked at her sister.

“Is that true?”

Maeve smiled.

“It is now.”

Roman accepted the qualification.

Months passed.

His relationship with Maeve continued to contain arguments.

Sometimes vicious ones.

She accused him of withholding information.

Sometimes she was right.

He accused her of making operational decisions alone when she was afraid someone would stop her.

Sometimes he was right.

Neither treated conflict as betrayal.

That was new for both.

Then a federal investigation reached one of Roman’s oldest businesses.

His attorneys presented two options.

Destroy records and preserve much of the remaining network.

Or cooperate, accept financial penalties and expose decisions Roman had personally approved years earlier.

Maeve read the memorandum.

“What are you going to do?”

Roman stared at the city outside his office.

“Cooperate.”

She did not immediately react.

“You could lose licenses.”

“Yes.”

“Properties.”

“Yes.”

“Possibly face charges.”

“Yes.”

Maeve closed the file.

“Why?”

Roman looked at her.

“Because I cannot ask everyone below me to live under rules I refuse to stand under myself.”

She felt something inside her chest shift.

Accountability was less dramatic than violence.

That was what made it convincing.

Roman turned over records through counsel.

He paid penalties.

Two companies were sold.

One license was suspended.

His lawyers negotiated aggressively without fabricating innocence.

The newspapers eventually ran his name.

Not everything became public.

Enough did.

Roman hated every day of it.

Maeve stayed.

Not because she had promised forever.

Because each morning she still chose to.

Eighteen months after the Crestview boardroom, she entered another one.

This time the table belonged to Gallagher Secure Logistics, one of the newly legitimate companies built from the restructuring.

Maeve sat at the head.

Roman sat two seats away.

Across from them, Harrison Vale, a regional customs director, smiled as if Maeve were an assistant someone had accidentally seated in the wrong chair.

“We can expedite your freight,” Harrison said. “But there are administrative costs.”

“How much?”

“Twenty percent.”

Maeve leaned back.

“That isn’t an administrative fee.”

Harrison smiled.

“You’re new to this level of shipping.”

Roman’s gaze shifted toward Maeve.

She did not need him.

“That’s a bribe,” Maeve said.

Harrison’s smile thinned.

“I would be careful with accusations.”

“I am.”

She tapped the smart table.

A ledger appeared.

Harrison went pale.

Maeve had spent weeks auditing delayed clearances.

The pattern led to a consulting company.

The consulting company led to Harrison’s brother-in-law.

The payments matched his unofficial fees almost perfectly.

Harrison looked toward Roman.

“Mr. Gallagher.”

Roman did not help him.

“You’re speaking to Ms. Jenkins.”

Harrison turned back.

Maeve slid a compliance agreement across the table.

“You will stop delaying our freight. You will refund the improper charges already documented. And my counsel will decide what goes to the Inspector General based on your cooperation.”

Harrison stared.

“You’re blackmailing me.”

“No.”

Maeve’s voice remained calm.

“If I were blackmailing you, I would offer silence in exchange for something illegal.”

She tapped the agreement.

“I’m offering you an opportunity to correct an abuse before my attorneys report it.”

Roman’s mouth almost curved.

Harrison read the document.

Signed.

Then left.

The doors closed.

Maeve exhaled.

Roman stood and walked around the table.

“You enjoyed that.”

“A little.”

“You were terrifying.”

“I learned from several terrible examples.”

He leaned against the table rather than over her.

“No threats.”

“No guns.”

“No off-book customs route.”

“Disappointingly respectable.”

Maeve smiled.

Roman reached toward her, then paused.

Still.

After all this time.

“May I?”

She knew what he meant.

Maeve stood.

“No.”

Roman’s hand dropped immediately.

Then she grabbed his lapels herself and kissed him.

When she pulled back, his expression had gone dark with amusement.

“That was manipulative.”

“I changed my mind.”

“My favorite loophole.”

They walked toward the windows.

Below them, trucks moved through the city in orderly lines.

Maeve remembered Crestview.

The fluorescent lights.

The clock reading 4:13.

Her silent calculation every time Bradley came too close.

She did not hate that version of herself anymore.

That woman had survived long enough to become this one.

Roman had not created her strength.

He had recognized it before she fully had.

Then he had made the more difficult choice.

He learned not to confuse recognizing her with owning her.

“I want to ask you something,” Roman said.

Maeve looked at him.

“That sounds dangerous.”

“It may be.”

He reached into his coat.

Maeve stared.

“If that is a ring and you kneel in this boardroom, I will fire you.”

Roman actually laughed.

He took out a small velvet box but remained standing.

“Noted.”

He opened it.

The ring was elegant.

No giant stone.

No family crest.

Maeve looked from it to him.

Roman did not launch into promises.

Instead he said, “Nothing changes if you say no.”

Her expression softened.

“Your position stays yours. Your apartment stays yours. Sarah’s care stays funded through the trust already established in her name. There is no debt attached to this.”

Maeve’s eyes filled.

Roman continued.

“I am not asking you because you saved shipments.”

A pause.

“Or because I protected you once.”

Another.

“I am asking because you are the only person I have ever trusted enough to disagree with me and remain beside me afterward.”

Maeve swallowed.

“And if I say yes?”

“We negotiate everything.”

She laughed through tears.

“Romantic.”

“I know my audience.”

Maeve closed the box with her fingertips.

Roman’s face remained still.

She did not let him suffer long.

“Yes.”

His breath left.

“But.”

“There it is.”

“My name stays Jenkins professionally.”

“Yes.”

“I keep my board seat independently.”

“Yes.”

“No decisions about my security without me unless there is an immediate threat.”

“Yes.”

“If we have children someday, they do not inherit an empire because of blood.”

Roman’s expression changed.

That was the deepest condition.

He thought about men who built dynasties.

Men who taught sons that power was love.

Men who created enemies before their children could choose anything.

“Yes.”

Maeve held his gaze.

“Then ask again.”

Roman opened the box.

“Maeve Jenkins, will you marry me?”

“Yes.”

He did not put the ring on her finger.

He held it out.

Maeve took it herself.

Then she slipped it on.

Roman smiled.

Not the cold half-smile people feared.

Something ordinary.

Something hers because he had chosen to show it, not because she had earned access through obedience.

Two years later, Maeve still sat at the head of operational meetings when logistics were hers to lead.

Roman still interrupted occasionally.

She still told him when he was wrong.

He had learned to enjoy being corrected almost as much as she enjoyed correcting him.

Almost.

The organization around them became smaller.

Cleaner.

Less glamorous to the men who confused danger with prestige.

More durable.

Maeve’s workplace protections expanded across every legitimate company they controlled.

Sarah eventually joined the foundation board overseeing medical assistance for injured workers and their families.

The fund carried no Gallagher name.

Maeve had insisted.

One rainy Tuesday afternoon, Maeve passed through the lobby of a Crestview building that now belonged to another corporation.

She stopped.

Through the glass she could see rows of desks.

Employees leaving at five.

People gathering bags.

Laughing.

Living ordinary lives.

Roman stood beside her.

“Bad memories?”

“Useful ones.”

He waited.

Maeve looked at him.

“You remember what you said in that boardroom?”

“Yes.”

“Touch her again and you’re dead.”

Roman winced slightly.

“I was dramatic.”

“You were terrifying.”

“He had just put his hand on you.”

“And I had already told him no.”

Roman nodded.

“That was the part I should have centered.”

Maeve smiled.

“You eventually figured it out.”

“Slow learner.”

“Expensive learner.”

He held out his hand.

Not taking hers.

Offering.

Maeve slipped her fingers through his.

They stepped back into the rain.

The first time Roman Gallagher saw Maeve Jenkins, he mistook the urge to protect her for the right to decide for her.

The first time Maeve looked at Roman, she saw a dangerous man who believed power could solve every problem.

Neither had been completely wrong.

Neither had been completely right.

What changed them was not the threat in a boardroom.

Not the hospital bill.

Not the convoy.

Not even the ring.

It was what came afterward.

Maeve learned that accepting help did not erase her independence.

Roman learned that love without freedom was merely another form of control.

And when people in their world eventually began referring to Maeve as Roman Gallagher’s weakness, Roman stopped correcting them.

Maeve did it herself.

“No,” she would say.

Then she would take her seat at the head of the table.

“I’m his partner.”