9. Marcus
Marcus
By eight the next morning, I have already decided that distance is the only workable strategy. Not avoidance or hesitation, but something more deliberate than either.
The distinction matters.
Avoidance implies weakness. Hesitation implies uncertainty. Distance is structure. It creates room for judgment to function properly, keeps the work clean, and prevents a private mistake from becoming another public problem neither of us can afford.
By the time I step into the executive conference room, Sloane is already there.
She stands near the far end of the table with Dana beside her, reviewing the revised schedule on a tablet while three screens behind them cycle through the overnight coverage.
The original photos have fallen to the second tier of the story, just as Sloane predicted they would.
The coverage now clusters around us. Our appearances.
Our chemistry. Our so-called public debut.
The lie is working. That should be enough.
Sloane looks up as I enter, and for one brief second the late-night conference room comes back to me: her hand near mine, the quiet between us, the moment neither of us stopped when we should have.
Then I push it aside.
“Ms. Parker,” I say, stopping at the head of the table. “What’s the current status?”
The effect is immediate. Subtle, if you’re not looking for it.
Her expression doesn’t change, but something closes behind her eyes. Dana glances down at the tablet as if it has suddenly become fascinating.
Sloane turns fully toward me, posture straight, voice smooth. “Good morning, Mr. Vale.”
Dana goes noticeably still for half a second. I don’t react, mostly because I probably deserve that response.
“The current status,” Sloane continues, “is stable but not settled. Overnight coverage pushed the relationship narrative into the lead, which has reduced speculation around the original photos, but the trend is still volatile.”
Her tone is formal, polished, and carefully distant. Exactly the kind of professional reset I wanted after last night. It shouldn’t feel like a problem. Somehow, it does.
I move toward my chair and set my phone on the table. “Investor response?”
“Improved in early indicators.” She taps the tablet, and a chart shifts on the main screen. “Not enough to relax, but enough to support continuing the appearance schedule.”
“Any flags?”
“Valewyn wants to extend the segment.”
“No.”
“I already declined.”
At least we’re aligned on that.
I look at the screen instead of her. “Good.”
The word comes out flatter than I intend, and Sloane’s mouth tightens slightly. Not enough for anyone else to notice. Enough that I do, because apparently, I have started cataloging changes in her expression like they’re relevant data.
They’re not.
Dana clears her throat carefully. “The foundation photos are still moving, especially the ones from the donor breakfast. The comments are mostly positive.”
“Mostly?” I ask.
Dana hesitates.
Sloane answers before she can. “There’s some speculation that the appearances are too coordinated.”
“They are coordinated.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It usually is.”
Her eyes lift to mine, cool and direct, her expression composed enough that most people would never notice anything underneath it.
“The point,” she says, “is that coordination can read as managed if it’s too visible.”
“Then adjust the visibility.”
“I already did.”
The response carries more edge than it needs to while Dana fidgets beside her.
I look at Sloane for a second longer than I should. “Then there’s no issue.”
“No,” she says. “There isn’t.”
There is. It sits between us in the space of everything neither of us is saying.
I turn toward the table and pull up the briefing file on my laptop. “Walk me through the afternoon schedule.”
Sloane does.
No wasted language or commentary. No edge that could be called personal if anyone else were listening for it.
She details the investor call, the controlled press statement, the Crossridge Events Foundation appearance, and the revised boundaries for the next interview without once letting the conversation drift outside the lines I forced back into place.
She is giving me exactly what I asked for: professionalism, distance, and control restored so cleanly it almost feels rehearsed. On the surface, it’s flawless, which is precisely why it irritates me.
“After the foundation event,” she says, “we should avoid direct press access for the rest of the day. No hallway comments. No improvised questions. No one-on-one interactions unless legal clears them first.”
“Agreed.”
“The scheduled photo set stays brief.”
“Good.”
“And any physical staging is limited.”
My fingers pause above the keyboard.
Dana suddenly finds a reason to step toward the side counter. “I’m going to check with media monitoring.”
Sloane doesn’t look at her. “Thank you.”
Dana exits quickly enough to confirm that she is, in fact, very good at reading rooms.
The door closes behind her, and for a moment, the only sound is the low hum of the screens and the faint rhythm of the city moving beyond the glass.
I look at Sloane. “Physical staging.”
Her expression remains composed. “That’s what it’s called.”
“You mean proximity.”
“I mean proximity, touch, repositioning, and anything else likely to be turned into a slowed-down video clip by someone with too much free time.”
“That’s specific.”
“It’s been a specific week.”
A fair point, annoyingly so.
I lean back slightly in my chair. “Are you saying we should look distant?”
“I’m saying we should look intentional.”
“We have been.”
Her gaze holds mine. “Have we?”
The question is asked too quietly to sound like a challenge, which somehow makes it more unsettling.
Last night flashes again before I can stop it. Her standing across the conference table, not moving away. The way her breath caught when I looked at her mouth. The fact that I stepped back because something in the room had shifted too far outside the boundaries I could justify.
Not because I didn’t want her. Because wanting her is the exact kind of unstable variable that makes people careless.
I push the memory aside. “This morning, yes.”
Her expression doesn’t move, but her tone cools another degree. “Then that shouldn’t be difficult to maintain.”
Whatever she thinks happened last night, she has filed it somewhere I can’t reach and labeled it in a way I probably won’t like. I shouldn’t care, but I care enough to notice, which is its own problem.
“Sloane Parker,” I say, keeping my voice controlled, “the point of this strategy is not to create new exposure.”
Her gaze narrows slightly at the full name. Good. No. Not good. Necessary.
“I’m aware of the point of the strategy,” she says.
“I know you are.”
“Then you don’t need to keep repeating it like I’ve forgotten.”
“I’m repeating it because last night—”
I cut myself off too late. Her eyes hold mine, and the room suddenly feels narrower around the unfinished sentence.
“Last night?” she asks.
Her words are calm enough that I immediately recognize the danger in them. I could redirect the conversation, let the moment pass cleanly, pretend last night never shifted anything between us.
Instead, I say, “Last night proved the lines need to be clearer.”
For half a second, nothing about her expression changes. Then Sloane smiles, and there’s nothing warm or amused about it. It’s the kind of expression a person uses when they have just been handed a blade and decided not to use it yet.
“Of course,” she says. “Clear lines. How efficient.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Then what did you mean?”
I study her across the table, searching for the safest answer and finding nothing that doesn’t make this worse.
The truth itself is simple. I stepped back because I could have kissed her.
Because for one second, she didn’t move away, and everything in that conference room stopped feeling theoretical.
She looked at me like she understood exactly what would happen if I didn’t make the decision for both of us, and I didn’t trust myself to make a clean one if I waited another second.
None of that belongs in this room. None of it belongs between us while the company is still managing the fallout from one public misread and one manufactured relationship that’s starting to look more convincing than either of us intended.
So I say the only thing I can say.
“I mean, we need the strategy to remain stable.”
Sloane’s expression goes unnaturally still, and somehow that’s worse than if she’d reacted at all.
“Then we should both make sure it does,” she says.
She turns back to the screen before I can answer.
The meeting resumes after that, if it can be called a meeting when every sentence has a second meaning neither of us will acknowledge.
Dana returns with updated numbers, legal joins remotely, Graham drops in for nine minutes, and leaves after asking two questions that tell me he knows more than he’s saying.
Sloane handles all of it perfectly.
She doesn’t soften when I speak. Doesn’t push unless the work requires it. Doesn’t cut into my answers or linger half a second too long on any word that could be interpreted as personal. She is precise, composed, and maddeningly unreachable.
Exactly what I forced her to become this morning.
By late morning, we’re in the west conference suite preparing for the foundation appearance, the one designed to redirect the day’s coverage back toward Crossridge’s public work instead of our private performance.
Staff move in and out with lighting notes, revised press boundaries, and donor lists while Sloane stands near the windows adjusting the order of the talking points on the main screen.
I watch her for no reason I can justify. She catches me in the reflection.
“Is there a problem with the order?” she asks.
“No.”
“Then is there a reason you’re looking at it like that?”
At it. Not at me. A precise correction.
“I’m reviewing.”
“You’re staring.”