13. Marcus
Marcus
Sloane gives them a wedding date before I have time to stop her.
The interview has been controlled until that moment.
Not easy, because nothing about the last several weeks has been easy, but contained.
The host has stayed within the agreed boundaries, the business framing has held, and the latest leak has been addressed with enough precision that even the production team looks disappointed they haven’t managed to pull something more volatile from either of us.
Then the host smiles like a man who knows he’s about to violate the edge of the agreement without technically crossing it.
“So if the relationship is serious enough to weather this level of public attention,” he says, leaning forward in his chair, “is it serious enough that the two of you have discussed marriage?”
Beside me, Sloane stills, but I’m not concerned.
We prepared for this. By now I know her instincts well enough to predict the response before she gives it.
She'll redirect the question, draw a clean line around anything personal, and move the conversation back where it belongs.
It's exactly what we've practiced, and it would work.
The room would settle. The interview would move on.
But the hesitation lasts a fraction too long, and I understand exactly why when her gaze flicks, briefly, toward the producer standing near camera two. The question wasn’t supposed to be asked. Which means it was placed there for a reason.
The last leak didn’t do enough damage on its own, so now someone is testing the edges. Pushing for contradiction. Looking for the moment our timeline bends under pressure. Sloane sees it. I see her see it. Then she smiles. Smooth. Warm. Perfectly calibrated. Dangerous.
“Next year,” she says.
The studio goes silent.
Not completely, because studios never really go silent, there’s still the faint hum of lights, the muffled shift of someone behind the camera, the soft mechanical movement of equipment adjusting in real time. But the room changes.
The host blinks once.
I don’t.
Every instinct comes alive at the same time. Next year. Specific enough to sound planned, close enough to feel serious, far enough away to leave room to maneuver. A date without details. Commitment without a ring. Escalation without full surrender.
It’s both reckless and brilliant. It is exactly the kind of move Sloane Parker makes when backed into a corner she refuses to let anyone else define.
I reach for her hand before anyone can mistake the pause for panic. Her fingers tense beneath mine for half a second, like instinct tells her to pull away before she deliberately chooses not to. That is its own kind of danger.
“Next year,” I repeat, keeping my voice steady and my eyes on the host. “We weren’t planning to discuss that today.”
The host recovers faster than I would like. “That’s certainly news.”
“It’s personal,” Sloane says, still smiling with the kind of grace that should come with warning labels. “But given the amount of speculation, sometimes privacy creates more room for people to invent things than the truth does.”
She’s made it sound like a strategy and a confession at the same time.
The host leans in further. “So you’re officially confirming wedding plans?”
Sloane’s fingers shift against mine. A warning or an anchor. Maybe both.
“Yes,” I say.
Sloane turns her head slightly toward me, and I feel her attention like heat against the side of my face. Her gaze lingers for a fraction of a second, as if she's reassessing something she thought she already understood. Then she turns back to the host without pulling her hand away.
“That sounds like a major step,” the host says.
“It is,” I reply.
“And Crossridge leadership is comfortable with that announcement?”
Now we are back on familiar ground.
“The announcement doesn’t change Crossridge operations,” I say. “It doesn’t change governance. It doesn’t change investor strategy. What it does is remove uncertainty from a situation that has been deliberately misrepresented.”
Sloane’s thumb moves once against the side of my hand. The movement is small enough to look accidental to anyone else.
The host’s smile tightens. “Deliberately misrepresented?”
Sloane answers before I can. “Edited footage, incomplete context, and anonymous claims are not facts. They’re tactics.”
Good. The producer near camera two glances down at his tablet, a subtle reaction most people in the room would miss. I don’t.
The rest of the interview moves because Sloane forces it to move.
She pivots from the wedding date into a controlled statement about the leak, then to Crossridge’s ongoing foundation work, then back to investor confidence without giving the host a clean way to circle back to the personal angle.
I stay with her every step, reinforcing where she needs weight, staying silent when her answer is stronger without me in it.
For once, neither of us fights the rhythm. We simply move. That may be the most dangerous thing about this.
By the time the segment ends, the room has the charged, unsettled feeling of people who know they witnessed something useful but haven’t yet decided how much damage it will do.
The cameras cut. The host thanks us with a smile that no longer reaches his eyes.
The producer disappears through a side door before I can decide whether following him would cause more problems than it solves.
Sloane releases my hand first, and the absence registers immediately.
“Greenroom,” I say.
She doesn’t argue.
The hallway behind the studio is narrow, lined with matte black walls and closed production doors that muffle the noise from the set. Dana is waiting halfway down, her phone in one hand, and, in her panic, she is doing a respectable job of disguising it in her expression.
“Please tell me next year was on a document I somehow missed,” Dana says.
Sloane walks past her. “It is now.”
Dana turns to me.
I look at her. “Track coverage. Pull business, social, and investor response separately.”
“Already doing that.”
“Good.”
“Also, Graham has called twice.”
“I’m sure he has.”
“And legal sent seven messages, which feels personal.”
Sloane stops at the greenroom door and turns back. “Tell legal we’ll send a statement in five.”
Dana’s eyes widen. “Five?”
“Seven if Marcus stops looking homicidal.”
“I’m not looking homicidal,” I say.
Dana makes the intelligent decision not to answer. Sloane opens the greenroom door and steps inside. I follow, closing it behind us before anyone in the hallway can pretend they are not listening.
The room is too small. It contains a low couch, a round table, and one mirror with lights still burning around the frame. Two water bottles, a bowl of untouched fruit, and an air-conditioning unit that is working too hard against the heat from the studio lights.
That’s my first problem.
Sloane crosses to the table and sets her tablet down with controlled precision, then she exhales once.
That‘s my second problem.
Because for the first time since she said next year, she looks like someone who knows exactly how far off-script she just went.
“You picked a wedding timeline,” I say.
Sloane sets her tablet down on the table between us before looking back at me. “I picked a vague timeline and made it sound intentional.”
“You said next year.”
“That’s not exactly specific.”
“No,” I say evenly. “It’s just enough of a commitment to become a headline.”
Her expression sharpens slightly. “It was also the only answer that didn’t sound evasive after the leak.”
“That wasn’t on the approved list.”
“No, Marcus, it wasn’t. Neither was the question.”
The sharpness in her voice is deserved, even if it doesn’t make the situation better.
I move closer to the table, but not to her. That distinction matters more than it should. “You should have signaled me.”
“I did.”
“You looked at the producer.”
“Because he knew the question was coming.”
“That’s not signaling me.”
“It was signaling the room.”
I stare at her, and she stares back, unblinking.
The silence between us sharpens quickly, but underneath it is something else now.
Not anger exactly. Not even the charged frustration that has carried us through most of this.
No, this is different. This is the aftershock of both of us knowing she jumped, and I caught the move before anyone else saw the fall.
Sloane looks away first, reaching for her tablet. “We need a statement before the clip posts.”
“It’s already posting.”
Her hand pauses, and I turn my phone toward her.
The first headline is already live.
CROSSRIDGE EXEC MARCUS VALE AND SLOANE PARKER CONFIRM WEDDING PLANS.
The second is worse.
FAKE RELATIONSHIP? VALE AND PARKER DROP SURPRISE WEDDING TIMELINE.
Sloane reads both headlines without blinking.
“Not terrible,” she says finally.
“Sloane.”
Her gaze lifts to mine. “Not good,” she corrects calmly. “But not terrible.”
I study her for a second, trying to decide whether she actually believes that or simply needs to. “You escalated the lie.”
Her expression sharpens immediately. “I stabilized the narrative.”
“By making it harder to unwind.”
“It was already hard to unwind,” she says. “This just makes it harder for someone to claim we invented the relationship yesterday.”
“It also makes it harder for us to get out of.”
Her eyes hold mine, and the real issue finally becomes impossible to ignore. This was never about optics or investors or legal. It wasn't even about the board.
It was about us.
The word neither of us says, because saying it out loud would make the room feel much smaller than it already does.
Sloane’s voice drops slightly. “Is that what concerns you?”
“Yes.”
I answer too quickly, and the second the words leave my mouth, I know I've given away more than I meant to. Her expression changes just enough to confirm she heard it too.
I clarify immediately. “Professionally.”
“Of course.”
“Sloane.”