5. Marcus
Marcus
The first question hits before Sloane and I clear the doors.
“Mr. Vale, who was the woman in the photos?”
Flashbulbs crack across the lobby like lightning against glass, too bright and too close, turning the polished stone floor into fractured white reflections.
Security holds the press line back, but barely.
Bodies shift behind the barrier, cameras lifted, phones recording, voices stacked over one another in a rush for the first usable answer.
I don’t give them one.
Not yet.
My hand rests at the small of Sloane’s back as we step into view, the contact light enough to look natural and deliberate enough to be seen.
Nothing about this appearance is accidental.
Not our timing. Not the entrance. Not the way she walks beside me instead of behind me, close enough to read as familiar, composed enough to make anyone watching question whether the story they’ve been fed was ever as clean as they wanted it to be.
That’s the point.
The original photos created the problem.
Me leaving a private event with a woman connected to a decision the market was already watching too closely. A hand at her back. Her mouth near my ear. A few badly cropped angles and enough insinuation to dress gossip up as investor concern.
Sloane is the answer we’re giving them; not a denial, but a reframing.
A private relationship established before the photos is stable enough to explain the proximity and clean enough to make the rest look like noise. It's a risky strategy, which is exactly why Sloane designed it.
Beside me, Sloane doesn’t falter. Her face is calm, her posture precise, expression set into that unreadable composure she wears like armor.
If the cameras are bothering her, she gives them nothing.
If she hates standing beside me while the world turns her into a solution to a problem I didn’t create, she gives them even less.
That, more than anything, tells me she knows exactly what she’s doing.
Another reporter calls out, louder this time. “Was the woman at the event a client? An investor? Someone connected to the acquisition?”
That version moves through the crowd, different in a way that makes it far more useful to them.
I feel Sloane react without looking at her. There’s no visible reaction, no shift in her shoulders, no tightening of her mouth. But her body stills beside mine in a way I recognize now.
Control, locked down before anyone can use the absence of it.
“We’re here to make a brief statement,” I say, voice measured enough to cut through the noise without feeding it. “There will be no extended Q&A today.”
The volume rises immediately.
“Are you denying the relationship with the woman in the photos?”
“Did Crossridge know about this?”
“Is the board concerned about investor confidence?”
“Ms. Parker, are you confirming the relationship as part of Crossridge’s official response?”
Sloane steps forward half a pace, not away from me, but with me. The adjustment is small, but every lens catches it.
“We’re confirming that the relationship exists,” Sloane says, her voice calm enough to make the surrounding noise feel excessive. “Because speculation built around incomplete information has already started shaping a narrative that isn’t accurate.”
She doesn’t sound defensive or rehearsed. She sounds like someone correcting the record because allowing stupidity to stand would offend her professionally.
A few reporters start talking at once. She waits them out.
That’s the part most people get wrong. They rush to fill the silence, afraid of what might grow inside it. Sloane lets it work for her.
“The woman in the circulating photos is not part of Crossridge.” she continues. “She has no influence over executive decisions, and no authority over the acquisition itself.”
Another flash. Then another.
“What is relevant,” Sloane says, “is that the images have been framed to imply something they do not prove.”
The reaction moves through the press line almost immediately. Not acceptance yet, but interest, and that's enough to shift the momentum.
Sloane glances toward me then, the look brief and deliberately controlled, and I recognize it for what it is. My cue.
I move half a step closer, not enough to crowd her but enough for the cameras to read the shift, keeping my hand at her back because that's the image we're selling. Not protection or possession, but alignment.
At least, that's what it's supposed to be.
“The speculation surrounding my personal life is not material to Crossridge operations,” I say. “But since the current reporting relies on omission and implication, we’re correcting the record.”
A reporter near the center leans forward. “Then correct it. Are you in a relationship with Sloane Parker?”
That’s the question we came here to answer, the one that turns Sloane from strategist into a story. The weight of it presses into the space between us immediately.
For one second, I am back in the boardroom with her voice cutting through the noise, telling everyone that if we didn’t define the shape of the narrative, someone else would. I didn’t like it then. I don’t like it now.
“Yes,” I say.
The word alters the energy in the room immediately.
The press line shifts, cameras adjusting, phones lifting higher. There’s no single sound for it, only a collective sharpening, as if every person in front of us realizes at the same time that the story has just changed direction.
Sloane stays perfectly still, but I notice the smallest change in her breathing. Not fear. The impact of becoming part of the narrative instead of controlling it.
“Our relationship is private,” I continue. “It predates the current speculation, and it has no bearing on Crossridge’s acquisition strategy, investor communications, or executive decision-making.”
It’s clean, direct, and hers. I hate that I can hear her fingerprints all over the language. I hate even more that it works.
“So the woman in the photos?” someone calls.
“Was photographed out of context,” Sloane says before I can answer. “And the assumptions built around those images are exactly why we’re addressing this today.”
A man near the end of the line gives a short laugh. “Convenient timing.”
Sloane shifts her attention toward him slowly enough that the movement feels intentional instead of reactive.
“Inconvenient timing,” she says. “Which is usually how you know something private wasn’t staged for public benefit.”
The effect is immediate. Half the cameras fire at once, and the man asking the question loses whatever follow-up he thought he had prepared.
Smart woman. Infuriating woman. The fact that I still categorize her as useful feels wrong the second the thought forms.
Sloane isn’t useful. She’s effective. There’s a difference. Useful implies a function without cost. Sloane costs. Attention. Control. The easy assumption that I can walk into any situation and force it to bend.
She doesn’t bend.
Another reporter raises her voice. “Why keep the relationship quiet?”
“Because it’s personal,” Sloane says.
“Or because it looked bad?”
My hand tightens at her back before I can stop it. Not enough for anyone else to notice, but enough for her to know. Her gaze flicks to mine for the briefest second. Warning. Or acknowledgment. Maybe both.
I loosen my hand.
“Private doesn’t mean improper,” I say, keeping my voice even. “And we won’t validate the idea that discretion is the same thing as misconduct.”
The crowd surges louder.
They don’t like that answer because there’s nothing soft in it. No apology. No invitation. No opening they can press wide enough to climb through. So they do what they always do. They look for another angle.
“If this is real,” a voice calls from somewhere in the middle, “why do you two look like you’re giving testimony?”
A few people laugh. Not loudly, but enough.
Sloane’s expression doesn’t change. That’s how I know it impacts her.
Not because she reacts, but because she doesn’t. Because there is a fraction of a second where her composure becomes too perfect, too still, too sharply held. The kind of control that tells me someone just touched something she would rather keep out of reach.
The reporter keeps going, encouraged now. “Come on. Give us something better than a corporate statement.”
Another voice cuts in. “Kiss her!”
The crowd shifts, not into chaos, but with anticipation. Cameras rise higher. The front line leans in. Even security seems to tighten without visibly moving.
Sloane goes still beside me, and there's a difference between stillness and panic. Panic reacts. Sloane calculates.
I already know the options. Refuse, and the story becomes distance. Deflect, and the relationship looks manufactured. Walk away, and every outlet gets the headline they came here hoping for.
A brief kiss closes the gap. Controlled enough to serve the narrative. Limited enough that it shouldn't mean anything beyond that.
I turn toward her.
For the first time since we stepped in front of the cameras, Sloane looks directly at me, and the noise around us seems to drift to the edges. Not because it disappears. The flashes keep coming. Voices continue pressing. Somewhere behind us, a security radio crackles softly.
But her eyes hold mine, cool and assessing and full of warning, and I know she understands exactly what this is supposed to be.
Proof. Not affection. Not indulgence. Just proof.
I lower my voice so only she can hear me. “Controlled.”
Her mouth barely moves. “Then keep it that way.”
There’s enough edge in the words that something in me stirs. I lift my hand from her back to her jaw, keeping the movement clean, steady, visible. Her skin is warm beneath my fingers. Softer than anything about her has any right to be.
Irrelevant. I lean in.
The kiss is exactly what it needs to be. Brief. Precise. A measured press of my mouth against hers, enough contact to give the cameras what they need and nothing more. No pressure. No indulgence. Nothing anyone can mistake for hunger.