9. Marcus #2
“Is that a professional assessment?”
“It’s an observable fact.”
Dana, who has the misfortune of passing behind us at that exact moment, changes direction without breaking stride and disappears through another door.
Smart coward.
Sloane reaches for a stack of printed talking points. The top sheet slides loose, drifting toward the floor before she can catch it. I move instinctively. Then stop. Her hand closes around the paper half a second later, and the smallest pause follows before her eyes lift to mine.
I see it then. The line I drew between us this morning is visible now in something as minor as a dropped sheet of paper. Suddenly, it feels both ridiculous and completely necessary at the same time.
“Careful,” she says softly. “That almost looked helpful.”
I should ignore that, but I don’t.
“You object to help now?”
“I object to management disguised as help.”
“That distinction is becoming very important to you.”
“It always was.”
Something in the way she says it makes it obvious this is no longer about the paper. Or the microphone wire. Or the question I blocked.
It is about every man who decided her competence became negotiable the moment she became inconvenient. Or every person who treated her like something to be positioned, corrected, protected, or controlled.
I know enough about her former agency to understand the outline. Not all of it. Enough.
A senior partner who used her work, then let her take the public weight when things collapsed.
A client scandal that should have ended several careers, and somehow settled on hers because she was the easiest person in the room to turn into a cautionary tale.
Sloane rebuilt from that by becoming untouchable in the one way no one could take from her.
Competence.
And I have spent the last week stepping in front of questions, repositioning her for cameras, touching her back, freeing wires, stopping before she asks, and calling it strategy.
No wonder she looks at distance like proof and help like a threat.
The realization should simplify the problem between us.
Instead, it only makes me understand her reaction while doing absolutely nothing to lessen the pull beneath it.
Because now I understand her reaction, and I still don’t know how to stop wanting to put myself between her and anything aimed at her.
“Your former agency,” I say.
Her expression shutters immediately. “Don’t.”
“I’m not asking.”
“Good.”
“I’m saying I understand why this bothers you.”
Something sharp flashes in her eyes. “No, you don’t.”
The words are quiet enough that no one across the room hears them. That is all that matters.
Sloane steps closer, lowering her voice without losing an ounce of control. “Understanding that something happened to me is not the same as understanding what it cost.”
The quiet certainty behind the sentence affects me more than anything else she has said all morning. I hold her gaze, and for once, there is nothing useful to say. She looks away first, but it doesn’t feel like retreat. It feels like discipline.
“We have six minutes,” she says. “Review the donor names.”
Then she walks past me toward Dana, leaving a clean line of distance in her wake. I let her go. That is the correct decision, even if it feels wrong.
The foundation appearance goes exactly as planned. That should be enough to calm something in me.
Sloane is flawless. She speaks to donors with controlled warmth, redirects press questions without visible effort, and keeps the event focused on The Crossridge Events Foundation instead of allowing a single reporter to turn the appearance back toward the relationship.
When a photographer asks for a closer shot of us together, she steps into position before I can decide the appropriate amount of distance.
She stays close enough to maintain the story, but not close enough to invite interpretation beyond what the cameras require. Everything about it is intentional, professional, and carefully formal.
I should appreciate the precision. Instead, I notice the absence almost immediately.
The way she doesn’t lean into the performance even slightly. The way she doesn’t let her arm brush mine unless the camera requires it. The way she turns every moment between us into a clean, controlled calculation.
This is what I wanted, but it feels like I’m losing ground.
After the appearance, the team funnels us through a side hallway to avoid the informal press line near the main entrance. Dana walks ahead with two security staff, phone in one hand, badge in the other, while Sloane reviews coverage on her tablet beside me.
“Positive response from the foundation accounts,” she says. “Business press is picking up the donor quote. Social chatter is quieter.”
“Good.”
“Yes.”
That should be the end of it.
Her answers have been like that all day. Efficient. Complete. No extra thread left hanging for me to pull. She has become exactly what I asked her to be when I used her full name and put distance back between us this morning.
I should be relieved. Instead, each clean answer feels like a door closing.
Dana slows ahead of us. “Car is two minutes out.”
“Thank you,” Sloane says.
Dana glances back once, likely sensing the temperature without wanting to step into it. “I’ll confirm the last interview cancellation.”
She moves farther ahead, leaving us alone in the hallway.
Again.
I stop walking. Sloane takes two more steps before she realizes, then turns back with professional patience already in place.
“Yes?”
Just that. One careful word without irritation, softness, or anything else I can read beneath it. The absence of reaction bothers me more than it should.
“You’ve been very formal today,” I say.
Her eyebrows lift slightly. “Have I?”
“You know you have.”
“I’m matching the tone you established, Mr. Vale.”
There it is: a clean, precise return of the distance I handed her this morning.
It does what she intends it to, and judging by the immediate tension settling under my ribs, I probably deserve it.
The hallway is quiet around us, muffled by thick carpet and closed event doors. Somewhere nearby, voices rise and fall behind a wall, but no one crosses the corridor.
For once, there are no cameras, no audience, and no strategic requirement. Only the line I put between us and the woman standing on the other side of it, refusing to pretend she doesn’t see exactly who placed it there.
“Sloane,” I say.
Not Sloane Parker. Just Sloane.
Her expression shifts almost imperceptibly. Too small to call a reaction, but too real for me to miss.
“What?” she asks.
The question is careful. So is my answer.
“This is necessary.”
A mistake. I hear it as soon as it leaves my mouth. Her face smooths out completely.
“Then you shouldn’t have a problem maintaining it.”
She turns before I can answer and continues down the hallway toward Dana and the waiting car.
I stand there a second longer than I should, watching her walk away with the exact distance I told myself we needed. Control restored, lines clarified, professionalism intact. Everything back where it belongs.
And for the first time all day, I can admit the truth without doing anything about it.
It feels forced.