20. Sloane #2
When the formal questions end, the room doesn’t explode back into chaos the way I expected.
It breaks into pieces. Reporters file updates from their seats.
Camera crews reposition. Legal ushers the official press packet toward verified outlets.
Dana appears near the back wall with two phones and the expression of someone who has personally held the internet together with caffeine and rage.
Her eyes find mine, and she gives me the smallest nod.
The simple gesture nearly undoes me, but I manage to gather my notes from the podium and step back before it shows.
Marcus moves with me, not leading, not guiding, just matching my pace as we exit through the side door behind the staging area. The noise of the press room immediately dulls once the door closes behind us.
The hallway beyond it is narrow and quiet, and for several seconds, neither of us speaks.
Graham is still inside with legal. Dana is managing follow-ups. Adrian and Declan are somewhere in the building, no doubt already preparing for the next wave of consequences.
For the first time in hours, Marcus and I have a moment without reporters, board members, or cameras surrounding us. It isn't true privacy. Nothing in this building ever is. But it's close enough that I find myself stopping halfway down the hall.
Marcus stops too.
“That went better than expected,” I say.
“Yes.”
I glance at him. “You sound surprised.”
“I am.”
A tired laugh escapes me before I can stop it. It feels strange in my chest, unfamiliar after so much pressure. He looks at me then, and something in his expression softens enough to make the hallway feel smaller.
“You did well,” he says.
I should deflect. Make a joke. Tell him not to sound shocked. Instead, I let the words sit for a second.
“Thank you.”
His eyes hold mine as the silence stretches.
This is the part where last week we would have turned it into tension distance. Into a fight about control or strategy or what one of us meant by standing too close. Now the tension is still there, but it feels different. Less like denial and more like awareness, with nowhere simple to go.
Marcus lowers his voice. “I meant what I said in there.”
“I know.”
“Not just about Crossridge.”
My pulse shifts. I should not want him to finish that sentence in a hallway outside a press room after the most publicly humiliating forty-eight hours of my career.
But I do.
A door opens somewhere behind us, and voices spill into the hallway.
The moment breaks, though not completely.
Marcus steps back before anyone rounds the corner, putting a small but deliberate distance between us.
Still careful. Still unmistakably Marcus.
But this time, the space doesn’t feel like rejection.
It feels like respect.
I look toward the press room door, then back at him. “We still have a problem.”
“We have several.”
“The public reaction is shifting, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe.”
“No.”
“And Julian isn’t going to stop because we corrected one narrative.”
“No.”
“And whatever this is between us…” I trail off, because even now, naming it fully feels like stepping onto unstable ground.
Marcus’s gaze stays on mine. “We don’t have to define it in a hallway.”
“That might be the smartest thing you’ve said all week.”
His mouth moves slightly. “I’m improving.”
God help me, I almost smile.
Then both our phones buzz at the same time, and the fragile almost-lightness between us disappears. I look down first.
Dana.
My stomach tightens before I even open the message.
The live response is shifting positively, but Apex-linked accounts are already pushing another angle. A second message follows almost immediately. They're saying Marcus took the fall because the relationship is real.
I stare at the screen, the irony of it settling in almost immediately. Of course, honesty doesn't end the story. It just gives people a different version to twist. When I look up, Marcus is already reading his own phone. The moment his gaze lifts to mine, I know he has the same update.
The hallway suddenly feels colder.
No more pretending with the press, the board, the public, or ourselves. But truth doesn't make us safer. If anything, it makes the risk impossible to ignore.
Marcus steps closer, stopping well short of anything a camera could misinterpret if the wrong door opened at the wrong moment.
"What do you want to do?" he asks.
The question catches me off guard because this is what equality actually feels like. Not someone stepping aside completely. Not someone taking over. Someone willing to stand beside you in the fire and ask which direction you want to move.
I glance toward the press room where the noise is already rising again, then down at the phone in my hand before finally looking back at Marcus.
The real risk was never the lie alone. It's what happens when the truth becomes harder to hide than the performance.
"We go back in," I say.
Marcus's expression shifts, but he doesn't argue. He simply nods once, and when we turn toward the sound of the press room, I realize this isn't the end of the fallout.
It's the beginning of the part where everything real gets tested.