21. Marcus
Marcus
Sloane's name appears in the first email I open, and I still don't reach for my phone. That shouldn't feel like discipline, even though I know it is.
The conference room is already too warm despite the air conditioning running low enough to make half the legal team keep their jackets on. Rain taps lightly against the windows, soft and steady, turning the city beyond the glass into a blur of steel and gray.
On the screen at the front of the room, investor relations tracks public sentiment in three categories. Most of the conversation has finally started moving in our favor, but too much of it remains trapped somewhere between uncertainty and suspicion for anyone to call this over.
The labels are almost elegant enough to disguise the fact that Sloane’s reputation is still being measured in percentages.
“Mentions of Ms. Parker have improved since the forensic release,” one of the investor relations analysts says, clicking to the next slide. “The direct fraud language is dropping significantly, but there’s still a cluster of accounts pushing the relationship-manipulation angle.”
I study the chart without moving.
Somewhere along the way, Sloane Parker has become a collection of narratives on a presentation slide: the executive with Crossridge's full support, the victim of manipulated evidence, the woman reporters still refuse to stop questioning.
Three versions of the same person, flattened into talking points for investors and analysts.
My phone sits beside my notebook, faceup and silent. I know there aren't any new messages because I checked less than three minutes ago.
I look anyway. Still Nothing.
It has been one full day since Sloane stood beside me in front of those cameras, and the silence between us already feels heavier than it should. Across the table, Adrian notices.
He doesn’t say anything, which is considerate enough to be irritating.
“The legal findings helped,” Graham says from the head of the table. “But we should assume Julian’s team won’t leave the correction uncontested.”
“They’re already testing new language,” Declan says. “Less fraud, more emotional manipulation. Same target, cleaner angle.”
Sloane is still the target. The language changes, but the goal doesn't. Her credibility, her judgment, and now our relationship are simply the latest tools being used against her.
I set my phone facedown, which manages to solve the problem for approximately four seconds.
“We don’t respond to every shift,” I say. “If we chase each adjustment, we teach them how to move us.”
Graham’s eyes flick briefly toward mine, and I know he hears the difference before anyone else does.
A week ago, I would have already drafted three response paths. One public, one private, one held in reserve. I would have shaped the next move before the room finished identifying the current one, because hesitation felt like weakness and silence felt like exposure.
I’m just not treating the feeling like a command.
The analyst continues walking us through the data.
Legal weighs in next, then investor relations follows with a list of stakeholders who need direct calls before the end of the day.
I answer when I need to, give approval where it’s required, and let conversations pass without turning every unresolved variable into an immediate action item.
It is less efficient than controlling the room and considerably harder.
My phone remains facedown beside my notebook, but that doesn't stop me from being aware of it. Or from knowing that Sloane still hasn't reached out.
Yesterday's press conference should have changed something. So should the conversation in the hallway afterward, and the fragile, almost-impossible moment when Sloane chose to walk back into that room with me.
I thought maybe we had reached a place where honesty no longer felt impossible to navigate. Then the day swallowed us again.
Legal. Board calls. Investor outreach. Public reaction. Evidence releases. Julian's counter-narratives. Graham scheduling us into separate meetings for most of the day, which left very little room to figure out what, exactly, had changed between Sloane and me.
By the time I got back to my office last night, Sloane had already left.
Dana told me she went home alone. I spent longer than I care to admit staring at my phone afterward.
The first message asked if she was all right. I deleted it almost immediately because the question was absurd. Of course she wasn't all right. None of this was.
The second told her I was there if she needed anything, which sounded helpful until I realized it placed the burden back on her to ask. The third began with I don't want to push, but—
That one lasted less than ten seconds.
Wanting recognition for restraint isn't restraint. It's just a more polite version of pressure. So I sent nothing.
This morning, I've continued sending nothing, and the silence between us feels like a thread stretched tighter every hour.
“Marcus?”
Graham's voice pulls me back into the room, where I immediately discover several people watching me.
That’s unfortunate.
“The partner call at noon,” Graham says. “Do you want to take it, or should Adrian handle it?”
Normally, I would take it. Not because Adrian can’t, but because the call touches multiple points of exposure, and my instinct is still to get close to anything that might shift under pressure.
I glance at the agenda item: Partnership confidence update — includes S. Parker communications continuity.
Her name is reduced to a line item inside a risk assessment. My hand starts toward the folder automatically before I stop myself. Across the table, Adrian’s gaze sharpens slightly, and I notice it immediately. I’ve been noticing too much lately.
“Adrian can take it,” I say.
The room barely reacts, but Adrian does with a small tilt of his head.
Graham gives one measured nod. “Good.”
The meeting continues around me, conversations shifting between legal exposure, investor response, and containment strategy while I force myself to let the room move without controlling every piece of it. That should feel simple by now.
By the time we break, the rain has stopped. The windows are streaked with water, and the light outside has shifted into that flat, colorless afternoon that makes everything in the city look temporary.
I return to my office with two folders, four new action items, and no messages from Sloane.
The executive floor feels strangely quieter than it should.
Evan’s workspace outside my office is empty now. The monitor dark. The chair tucked in. The small tray where he kept priority folders cleared away by security or HR or whoever handles the physical evidence of betrayal after the legal team finishes photographing it.
For four years, someone was always there before I arrived.
Coffee waiting. Schedule updated. Briefing packet stacked by urgency. Quiet efficiency wrapped around my life until I stopped questioning how much access I had given away in exchange for convenience.
Now the space is vacant. It should feel like a correction. Instead, it feels like another reminder that control was never as absolute as I believed it was.
I close my office door behind me and set the folders on my desk. My phone is already in my hand before I consciously decide to reach for it.
Still nothing.
I stare at the blank screen long enough to irritate myself before opening her contact anyway.
Her name appears immediately. No photo. Just Sloane Parker and the last message she sent me two days ago: On my way. Dana has revised packet.
At the time, it was nothing more than another update in a week full of meetings, interviews, and crisis management. Now I find myself staring at it longer than I should, struck by how ordinary it feels compared to everything that followed.
Neither of us knew the emails were coming. Neither of us knew Evan was already feeding information to Apex. We certainly didn't know we'd end up standing on opposite sides of a conversation that still follows me through every room I walk into.
I could text her now.
No rule prevents it. No corporate policy governs what comes after a fake engagement becomes public truth and then becomes something neither person involved knows how to define. No one would blame me for checking on her after the last forty-eight hours.
I could write something careful and simple. Something that sounds like it gives her room while still reaching for her anyway.
My thumb hovers over the keyboard as the familiar instinct settles in almost immediately. Reaching out would fix it. Or at least try to.
I lower the phone slowly without typing a word, but the impulse does not disappear. If anything, denying it only makes me more aware of how badly I want to close the distance between us.
I want to know where she is. I want to know whether she slept. Whether she ate. Whether the public correction helped even a little or simply made her feel more watched. I want to know if she’s angry with me, uncertain about me, avoiding me, needing me, regretting me.
I want data. That is the honest word for it. Not reassurance. Not comfort. Just data.
A way to reduce the unknown into something I can act on. That realization should be humiliating.
It isn’t.
I place the phone facedown on my desk and step away from it. The office is too quiet without the usual rhythm outside the door. No assistant fielding calls. No soft knock before a meeting change. No controlled interruption to keep the day moving in clean pieces.
For the first time in years, there is too much space around me. I should use it productively. Instead, I walk to the windows and look down at the city.
Somewhere below, cars move through wet streets, slow and steady. People cross sidewalks under umbrellas they no longer need. The building hums around me with the kind of controlled urgency Crossridge does best, but my office feels strangely separate from it all.