He Cancelled Our Future for Her Anxiety novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Owie

The courier was a bored boy in a green vest with a tablet.

"Ashdown?" he said. "Sign here."

I signed with my finger on the screen and took a thick cream envelope.

The return address was printed in dark green.

Landry Family Office, Scottsdale, Arizona.

I carried it back to the kitchen.

Owen was standing at the counter with both hands flat on it.

"Open it," he said. "Please. And don't sign anything."

Inside there were six pages, stapled.

I read the first one standing up.

AGREEMENT OF UNDERSTANDING.

Corinne Ashdown agrees not to contact Dylan Kessler or Piper Landry by any means, and not to discuss the family, its fund or its arrangements with any third party. In return, the Fund confirms its gift of $6,200 as final settlement.

There was a line for my signature.

There was a note clipped to it, in the same warm, unhurried voice I had heard on the phone.

Corinne, a small formality. Please don't think of it as unkind. Do take care of yourself in London.

I set the pages on the counter.

Then I looked at him.

"Owen."

"Yes."

"You said not to sign anything from that family before I'd finished telling you their name."

He didn't answer.

"You went pale when the courier said Phoenix. And on the stairs, when I said Arizona State, you went still."

"I know."

"So how do you know the Landrys?"

He pulled out a chair and sat.

He looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with the hour.

"I grew up two streets from the house with the fountain," he said.

"Owen. How do you know them?"

"My mother worked for them when I was a kid. She cleaned the guest wing. It's how I got through school." He stopped. "That's the version I tell people. It's true. It's also not all of it."

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