"Maya!" The name slipped out, rough and raw, cracking the quiet.

"Y-Yes, you must be M-Mr. Eros..." Her voice was softer than I remembered, like velvet, laced with confusion. She obviously had no idea this was just Peter Carter from her old neighborhood.

Isabella had told her about "Eros," not the awkward guy from school. She looked away, cheeks flushing, overwhelmed.

"Yes, nice to meet you, Maya," I managed, my voice suddenly feeling thick. She was still so innocent. Still so cute. How could I resist?

She swallowed. "O-Okay." Her eyes darted around the penthouse, trying to take it all in, before landing back on me, her expression a whirlwind of awe and disbelief. "It... it's... amazing. Just... wow. You're—"

She gestured helplessly. "You're so..." Her voice was so unsure. "This must have cost a fortune! How can you afford this place?"

I pushed off the wall, giving a casual grin. "Haha, I get that a lot." I tried to sound like the confident billionaire playboy Eros, not the nervous kid crushing on his high school crush. "But please, be at ease. No need for formalities. Your mom and I... we're together, but that doesn't mean we can't be friends."

She fidgeted with the hem of her skirt, looking down. "I... yes, it's just…" Her cheeks burned brighter. "It's a lot to take in. You're so..." She trailed off, gesturing vaguely at me, then the room. "And Mom said you're young, but… wow."

I shrugged, leaning against the wall again. "Age is just a number, Maya."

She stepped closer, curiosity getting the better of her shyness. "But seriously, how did you even do this? This place… the cars… all of this?" She waved her hand around. "Mom said you bought it for her?"

And here came the conversation I'd dreaded. The one about the money. "Something like that."

"Something like that?" She arched a skeptical eyebrow. "That's… vague."

I gave a noncommittal shrug, my mind racing. How much did Isabella actually tell her daughter? How did I explain the impossible without revealing the Taboo System or the Dark Seduction system or the fact I'd been a complete loser less than a year ago?

"It's complicated."

"That's not an answer."

Direct. I'd forgotten how direct Maya could be when she wanted to be.

The silence in the penthouse was profound, broken only by the faint, distant hum of the city fifty-one floors below.

The grandeur of the place—the marble floors, the floor-to-ceiling windows framing a glittering Los Angeles—seemed to amplify the intensity of the conversation.

Maya stood before me, a stark contrast to the opulence: a young woman in a simple shirt and skirt, her posture taut with a mixture of awe and a protective ferocity I remembered well.

Direct. I'd forgotten how direct Maya could be when her guard was down, when something mattered enough to push past her natural shyness.

"I got lucky," I said carefully, the words feeling inadequate in the vast space. I gestured vaguely, the movement feeling clumsy. "Very lucky. Made some smart investments. Built something from nothing." It was the sanitized, public-facing story, and it tasted like ash on my tongue.

"At seventeen." Her voice was flat, disbelieving.

"At sixteen, actually," I corrected softly, the correction feeling like a confession.

She stared at me, her green eyes wide behind her glasses, as if she were trying to see through a glamour. "That's... that's insane. People don't just become millionaires at seventeen."

Her gaze swept over me, from the casually expensive clothes that couldn't hide my engineered physique to the impossible penthouse surrounding us. The evidence was undeniable, yet her mind fought to reject it.

Got my age wrong.

"Some do," I offered weakly.

"How much are we talking?" She took a step closer, her curiosity a live wire now, overriding her initial nervousness. The scent of her shampoo—something simple, like apples—cut through the sterile, air-conditioned air. "Like, six figures? Low seven?"

She was trying to anchor this surreal reality to numbers she could comprehend.

I hesitated. Isabella had likely given her a vague idea, but the true scale was a different beast.

"More," I said, the single word hanging between us.

"How much more?" she pressed, her voice gaining an edge.

"Does it matter?"

"Yes!" The word burst from her, sharp and loud. She gestured around the room, her movement jerky. "Because you bought my mom a penthouse. Two penthouses, she said. Plural. And this place is—" Her eyes took in the art, the custom furniture, the sheer scale. "This has to be worth at least ten million. Maybe fifteen."

"Thirty-three million," I said, the number dropping into the silence like a stone. "For both."

Maya's mouth fell open. A soft, incredulous sound escaped her. "Thirty-three—" She couldn't finish. She shook her head, a frantic little motion. "You're joking."

"I'm not." I kept my voice low, steady. I wanted to project calm, but I could feel my own pulse thrumming. This was the girl who used to share her granola bar with me when I had nothing. Now I was telling her I spent more on real estate than she could probably imagine in a lifetime.

"That's not 'got lucky' money," she whispered, her mind visibly racing. "That's—" She did the math, her lips moving silently. "You'd have to be worth at least... what, half a billion?"

'Closer to several billion,' I thought, the true figure a secret weight in my chest. But who was counting?

"Something like that," I said aloud.

"Something like—" She shot to her feet, pacing across the priceless rug, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. "You're seventeen. And you're worth half a billion dollars. How is that even possible?"

She spun back to face me, her expression a mask of confusion and fear. "It's complicated' is not good enough! I need to understand." Her voice cracked with a raw need for truth. "Because my mom is dating you, and we're moving into your penthouse, and I need to know this is real. That you're real. That you're not some... some..."

"Some what?" I prompted gently, though I knew where this was headed.

"I don't know!" she cried, throwing her hands up. "Some trust fund kid playing pretend? Some criminal who's going to disappear and leave my mom heartbroken? Some—" She couldn't find the words, her frustration and protective fear turning into a tremor that ran through her small frame.

How cute!

I walked up, closing the distance between us slowly, not to intimidate but to reassure. "I'm none of those things," I said firmly, holding her worried gaze. "I'm self-made. Everything I have, I built. And I'm not going anywhere."

The promise felt as solid as the floor beneath our feet.

"Self-made at seventeen," she repeated, the phrase sounding absurd even to her. "Do you know how insane that sounds?"

"I do." And I did. From the outside, it was a fairytale or a nightmare, depending on your perspective.

"Then explain it to me. Please." The plea in her voice was naked now. "Because right now, this feels like a fever dream."

I studied her face—the faint freckles across her nose I'd seen a thousand times in the school hallway, the genuine fear in her eyes for her mother's happiness. This was Maya. The girl who'd been kind when no one else was. She deserved more than a brush-off.

"I created something," I said, my voice dropping to a near whisper, as if sharing a dangerous secret. "AI technology. Advanced artificial intelligence. I sold consulting contracts. Made investments that paid off in ways I never expected. And I used that money to build more. It... snowballed." It was the closest to the truth I could give without mentioning systems and supernatural gifts.

"AI technology," she echoed, testing the words. "You built an AI. At seventeen."

"At sixteen," I corrected again.

She sank back onto the couch as if her legs had given out. "This is insane. You're insane. This whole situation is insane." She put her head in her hands.

"I know."

"And my mom knows all this?"

"She knows enough." I thought of Isabella's trust, her acceptance of the inexplicable parts of me.

"Does she know how much you're worth?"

"Probably not the exact numbers," I admitted. "But she knows I can take care of her. Take care of both of you." I emphasized the last part, wanting her to feel included in that safety.

Maya was quiet for a long moment, processing the tsunami of information. The only sound was her slow, shaky breath. Then, the question came, softer now, laced with a deeper confusion. "Why?"

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