24. Sloane
Sloane
Marcus proposes in a conference room. Not a ballroom. Not a rooftop. Not a candlelit restaurant with private security sweeping the perimeter and champagne chilled to a temperature only billionaires pretend matters.
A conference room.
Specifically, the smaller conference room beside legal, where the lighting is too bright, the chairs are aggressively uncomfortable, and someone has left a half-empty bottle of sparkling water sweating onto a stack of printed timelines.
Honestly, it’s insulting how perfect it is.
“Absolutely not,” I say.
Marcus looks up from the document in his hand. “I haven’t said anything yet.”
“You looked like you were about to.”
“I looked?”
“Yes.”
“What does proposing look like?”
“Like you’ve made a decision and are trying very hard not to make it sound like a board resolution.”
Graham coughs into his fist at the end of the table, and Adrian suddenly finds something fascinating on his phone.
Declan, who was supposed to be joining remotely, is instead leaning against the wall near the door like he enjoys watching emotional disasters develop in real time, smiles slowly.
“This is already better than the legal call.”
Marcus turns his head slightly. “Leave.”
Declan’s smile widens. “No.”
“Everyone leave,” Marcus says.
“No,” I say immediately.
His gaze cuts back to mine, and the room goes still. Not dramatically. It’s more like everyone realizes, at the same time, that we have stepped onto ground no one else belongs on.
I set the folder in my hands down on the table. “If this is about public positioning, everyone stays.”
Marcus’s expression changes subtly. I now know the difference between irritation and restraint, between calculation and honesty, between Marcus preparing to take control and Marcus realizing control is not the point.
“This is not about public positioning,” he says.
My pulse slips once, sounding very loud in my ears.
Graham pushes back from the table first. “We’ll give you the room.”
“Finally,” Declan mutters.
Adrian stands with the smooth efficiency of a man who absolutely intends to pretend he heard nothing. “For the record, I was never here.”
“You spoke six times,” I say.
“Allegedly.”
Despite myself, a laugh escapes, and the sound loosens something tight in the room.
Graham pauses near the door and looks at Marcus. Not as CEO. Not as the man managing fallout with him. Something quieter passes between them, something old and understood.
Then Graham looks at me. “Take your time.”
That almost breaks me more than it should. Because for weeks, time has belonged to everyone else. Reporters. Board members. investors. Julian. Apex. The public. Every person with a theory about my career, my relationship, my credibility, my life.
It feels like permission no one should have had to give me.
The door closes behind them, leaving Marcus and me alone with the terrible lighting, the sweating water bottle, and a silence so full it could tip the room sideways.
I fold my arms. “If you pull out a ring in here, I’m leaving.”
His brow lifts slightly. “You think I brought a ring to a PR strategy meeting?”
“You are a billionaire with control issues.”
“Fair.”
“And a disturbing commitment to preparedness.”
“Also fair.”
“And this room has the romantic ambiance of a deposition.”
That earns the smallest curve of his mouth.
God help me, I love it when that happens.
The realization comes over me so quietly that I almost miss it. There’s no panic attached to it. No rush of alarm. No instinct to run in the opposite direction. Just a strange, steady certainty that feels like it's been building for months, waiting for me to catch up.
Marcus Vale, who once made every room feel like a controlled environment and every conversation feel like a negotiation, is standing across from me in a conference room full of documents, looking nervous enough to make my chest ache. And I love him. Terrible taste in coffee and all.
“You’re thinking loudly,” he says.
“You stole that from me.”
“I learn quickly.”
“Debatable.”
His expression softens, but he doesn’t move closer yet. The restraint makes my throat tighten.
“What were you going to say?” I ask.
He looks down at the document in his hand like he has only just remembered he’s holding it. Then he sets it aside.
“I was going to say that legal has enough to pursue action against the consulting firm,” he says.
I blink. “That’s your proposal?”
“No.”
“You understand my concern.”
“I’m getting there.”
“Marcus.”
His mouth almost moves again, but this time no smile reaches it.
“I was going to say the public story is shifting. Slowly, but it is. The forged emails are losing traction. Apex is still trying to redirect, but the forensic release held. Your statement helped. Graham’s helped. Dana’s follow-up language helped.”
“That sounds like a briefing.”
“It is a briefing.”
“Are you building toward romance through bullet points?”
“Not intentionally.”
“You’re doing an alarming impression of it.”
He exhales once, looking toward the windows as if briefly annoyed with himself. “This is harder than I expected.”
The honesty strips the teasing right out of me.
I soften before I can stop myself. “What is?”
His gaze returns to mine. “Asking for something I want without turning it into something useful first.”
I don’t respond immediately because I’m not sure I can without giving away too much too fast.
Marcus takes one step closer, then stops. Not far from me now. Close enough that the terrible overhead lights catch the faint strain around his eyes.
“I know what the public thinks this is,” he says. “I know what the board thought it needed to be. I know what we said when we were still trying to survive a narrative someone else built around us.”
He pauses, and my pulse beats harder.
“But I don’t want a public engagement strategy,” he says. “I don’t want a useful answer to a crisis. I don’t want to keep borrowing the shape of something real because it protects the company.”
The room seems to narrow around us.
“I want the real thing.”
My breath catches.
His voice lowers. “With you.”
For a moment, I can’t move. Not because I don’t know the answer.
That might be the most terrifying part. I do know.
Somewhere between the first fake kiss and the first real apology, between the hallway footage and the office coffee and the way he learned to stop reaching for me unless I chose to reach back, I started knowing.
But knowing something privately is different from standing inside the moment when it asks to become your life.
“Marcus,” I say softly.
“I’m not finished.”
I stare at him.
He looks vaguely horrified with himself. “That sounded controlling.”
“It did.”
“I apologize.”
“Accepted.”
He exhales. “I’m not finished because I need you to understand something first.”
The humor slips away again.
“I don’t want you trapped inside something I asked for badly,” he says. “I don’t want you saying yes because the world already thinks this is inevitable. I don’t want the ring, or the headline, or the convenience of our existing lie to do any work for me.”
His hand flexes once at his side. Marcus is nervous, and the sight does something ruinous to me.
“If you say no,” he continues, “nothing changes at Crossridge. Nothing changes in your role. Nothing changes in how publicly I stand beside you. I will not make this harder because you give me an answer I don’t want.”
My throat tightens.
“And if you say yes,” he says, voice rougher now, “it will not be because it makes anything easier. It won’t. It will make everything more complicated.”
“That’s quite the sales pitch.”
His mouth shifts faintly. “I’m trying honesty.”
“I noticed.”
“It’s inconvenient.”
“You’re doing very well.”
“Don’t encourage me yet.”
A shaky laugh escapes me, and suddenly my eyes are burning.
Damn it.
Absolutely not in this conference room.
Marcus notices immediately. Of course he does. The teasing fades from his expression, leaving something quieter behind, something open enough to make my chest ache.
“I love you,” he says.
The words are simple. No flourish. No dramatic declaration. No attempt to make the moment bigger than it already is. Just the truth. And standing here in the least romantic room imaginable, I think that's exactly why they matter so much.
“I love you,” he repeats, quieter now. “I love the way you see through every room you walk into. I love that you challenge me even when it would be easier not to. I love that you stayed sharp when the world tried to make you smaller. I love that you came back to me on your own terms.” His voice roughens slightly.
“And I love that when you look at me now, you don’t only see the damage.
You see the reason behind it and still hold me accountable for what I do with it. ”
My breath leaves me unsteadily.
“That is a very specific thing to love.”
“It is one of my favorite things.”
I blink hard, and he takes another step closer.
“I don’t have a ring,” he says.
“Good.”
I see the laugh threaten and fail against whatever emotion is sitting in his chest.
“I didn’t plan this.”
“I can tell.”
“I thought I would wait. I thought there should be something better. A better moment. A better place. Better timing. Something that didn’t happen after a legal strategy meeting with Declan lurking near the door like an emotionally repressed gargoyle.”
“He does have gargoyle energy.”
“He does.”
We look at each other for half a second, and the laughter that slips between us is small and messy and completely inappropriate. It’s perfect.
Then Marcus’s face softens again.
“But then you looked at me like you knew exactly what I was about to do,” he says. “And I realized the only reason I wanted a better moment was because I was still trying to control how you received it.”
My heart twists.
“So this is me not controlling it.” He swallows once. “This is me asking badly, in a terrible room, with no ring and no plan that deserves the name.”