Chapter 8 Sloane #2
Garrett leans against a rack of champagne, and I watch the transformation happen in real time. The tight discipline he wore during dinner loosens now, corporate polish dissolving like sugar in rain. What's left behind is raw magnetism that makes the small space feel even smaller.
"You were incredible out there."
The words hit lower than they should, rougher than professional courtesy. I turn toward the wine display, desperate for something to anchor me that isn't the heat radiating from his body.
"We were incredible," I manage, my fingertips trailing along a bottle I can't afford to pronounce. The cool glass does nothing to calm the fire spreading through me. "Not bad for a Friday night."
"Sloane."
My name in that voice—low, edged with something dangerous—makes me freeze.
I feel him move before I see it, feel the air shift as he pushes off the champagne rack and crosses the narrow space between us.
When I turn, he's close enough that I have to tilt my chin up to meet his gaze, close enough that I catch the scent of his cologne mixing with something uniquely him.
"This isn't about the job anymore," he says softly. "And I don't think it has been for a while."
My pulse hammers against my throat. "Garrett, no." The words come out breathless, desperate. "We work together. The Kowalski rule—"
"Screw Kowalski." The defiance in his voice sends heat spiraling through my chest. He steps closer, and suddenly he's everywhere—his presence, his warmth, the way he's looking at me like I'm the only thing that exists.
"It's not that easy." My back hits the wine case, cool glass pressing through the silk of my dress. "For you, breaking the rule is a fine. A slap on the wrist. For me, it's a career death sentence."
I turn away, but there's nowhere to go. My trembling fingers find the label of a Dom Pérignon, tracing its edges like a lifeline.
"I knew someone," I whisper, my voice barely audible above the soft hum of the temperature controls. "Sarah Carlson. She was my mentor when I interned at the Titans."
The air behind me goes still. I feel Garrett's attention lock onto me with laser focus, but he doesn't speak. Just waits with the patience of someone who understands that some stories can't be rushed.
"She was brilliant. Best marketing mind I've ever seen.
Could take a last-place team and make them profitable within a season.
" My voice catches, and I have to swallow past the tightness in my throat.
"She had this corner office with windows overlooking the practice facility.
Used to keep it stocked with the good coffee because she said great ideas deserved great caffeine. "
I can still see her—sharp blazers, designer heels, commanding every room she entered. Sarah who taught me that data was just storytelling with numbers. Sarah who showed me how to turn passion into profit margins.
"She fell in love with a player. Jason Pruitt. They kept it quiet, but someone got photos. Posted them on social media with captions about conflicts of interest and professional ethics."
My hands are shaking now. I press them flat against the cool glass, watching my reflection fracture in the curved surface of the bottles.
"The team fired her within a week. Said it was about 'maintaining professional standards' and 'avoiding appearance of impropriety.'" I can't look at him. Can't see whatever expression is on his face.
The silence stretches between us, heavy with understanding and something else—something that feels like barely leashed fury.
"What happened to her?" His voice is rough, carefully controlled.
"She moved to Portland. Works for a minor league baseball team now, making a quarter of what she used to earn.
Jason got traded to Chicago the next season—never missed a paycheck.
" The words felt thick and wrong. "She lost everything.
He lost nothing. That's the rule here—for women, ambition and love are mutually exclusive. "
I hear him move, feel the air displace as he steps closer. When I finally risk a glance in the reflection, he's right behind me, close enough that his breath stirs the hair at my nape.
"Sloane." His voice is low, intense, vibrating with conviction. "I'm not him."
The words hit like a physical blow. A vow. A line drawn in stone.
Slowly, I turn to face him. The space between us is nothing now—inches that feel like miles and millimeters all at once. His eyes are dark, focused entirely on me with an intensity that makes it hard to breathe.
He reaches up, fingertips barely grazing my jaw. The touch is soft, reverent, asking permission with every careful movement. But there's fire behind it—not conquest, but protection. Not possession, but promise.
"And you," he says, voice rough with emotion, "are not her."
"How can you be so sure?" The question comes out as barely more than breath.
His thumb traces along my cheekbone, and I have to fight not to lean into the touch. "Because everything you said about Sarah was about what she lost. But everything I see in you is what you build."
The words unlock something in my chest. My mind flashes to the dinner—the slides, the strategy, the confidence I wore like armor. The way I commanded that room, turned skeptics into believers with nothing but data and conviction.
"What you did out there tonight?" His voice drops even lower, more intimate. "That's yours. You didn't inherit it or sleep your way into it. You earned every ounce of respect in that room. And no one—no one—can take that from you."
His other hand comes up to frame my face, and suddenly I'm trapped between his body and the wine case, caught in the gravity of his attention. The air between us crackles with electricity.
"I've watched you turn impossible situations into victories.
I've seen you rebuild trust that other people destroyed.
The last thing I want is to dim that fire.
" His voice is barely above a whisper now, intimate as a confession.
"I want to see what happens when someone finally fans it instead of trying to contain it. "
Something inside me cracks wide open. My hand moves without permission, settling on his chest where I can feel his heartbeat racing beneath expensive cotton. His sharp intake of breath echoes in the small space.
"Garrett..." I start, but I don't know how to finish. Don't know if I'm warning him away or pulling him closer.
He leans down, and I tip my face up, and for one perfect, terrifying moment we're suspended in the space between wanting and having. His lips are a breath away from mine, his hands warm on my skin, and every rational thought in my head is dissolving like smoke.
Then footsteps echo in the hallway outside.
We spring apart like we've been electrocuted. My back hits the wine case hard enough to rattle bottles, and Garrett stumbles backward, running a shaking hand through his hair. The spell breaks so suddenly it leaves me dizzy.
The footsteps pass without stopping, but the damage is done. Reality crashes back like ice water. We stare at each other across the narrow space, both breathing hard, both perfectly aware of how close we just came to crossing a line we can't uncross.
"We should..." I start, then trail off because I don't know how to finish that sentence either.
"Yeah." His voice is rougher than gravel. "We should."
But neither of us moves toward the door.
Instead, I watch him straighten his tie with unsteady fingers, watch him rebuild the corporate mask that slipped so dangerously. When his eyes meet mine again, they're full of heat and promise and something that looks like determination.
"This isn't over, Sloane." The words are quiet, certain, carrying the weight of inevitability.
I reach for the Chateau Margaux with hands that barely shake, using the motion to steady myself. "A classic." I manage, my voice steadier than I feel.
He moves to hold the door, and as I pass through the narrow space, his hand settles on the small of my back. The touch looks professional, courteous. It burns through the silk of my dress like a brand.
Back in the restaurant, Robert Blackwood is laughing at something his colleague said. The wine arrives with perfect timing, served in elegant crystal goblets that reflect the candlelight. We slide back into our seats, back into our roles, but everything has changed.
Blackwood raises his glass. "To new partnerships."
The glasses clink. The wine is rich, complex, and impossibly smooth.
Across the table, Garrett lifts his glass, and his eyes find mine. The look he gives me is loaded with everything we didn't say, everything we almost did. A shared secret that pulses between us like a live wire.
When the check finally arrives and we stand to leave, his hand finds my elbow to guide me toward the exit. Another touch that looks innocent, professional. Another touch that makes my pulse stutter.
The lobby stretches before us, marble and soft lighting and the kind of elegant space designed for power lunches and corporate seduction. He walks me to the taxi stand, our footsteps echoing in the quiet.
"See you tomorrow, Sloane," he says, his voice low and certain.
He waits until I'm safely in the car before turning away, but as my driver pulls into traffic, I catch him in the side mirror. He's standing on the sidewalk, hands in his pockets, watching my taillights disappear into the Minneapolis night.
My phone buzzes against my purse. A text from an unknown number—but I know. Three words glow on the screen:
That was real.
The words aren't a question or a promise. They're a statement of fact. A shared truth. He felt it too.
It’s past midnight when I finally get back to my apartment. The Northstar dinner was a success—I navigated Vivian’s data sabotage, and Blackwood seemed impressed.
But I’m not celebrating. I'm terrified.
I stand in my kitchen, the navy silk of my dress feeling slick and cold against my skin. All I can see is the look on Garrett's face in the wine room. All I can hear is my own voice, telling him the story I never tell anyone.
"She lost everything. He lost nothing. That's the rule here."
I’ve spent my entire career proving I'm the exception to that rule. But tonight, surviving Vivian’s sabotage and then nearly kissing Garrett at a client dinner... it all feels like I'm walking straight into a trap.
Vivian didn't just try to make me look bad tonight. She tried to make me fail. It all feels too coincidental. This isn't professional rivalry. This is active, targeted sabotage. And now that... Garrett... is a factor, I'm terrified.
I've moved past reactive. I'm done being a target. If I'm going to protect my career, I need to know why she's so threatened by me.
I toss my heels onto the rug and head to my office, the adrenaline from the dinner still thrumming in my veins. Sleep is impossible.
I'm not just curious about Vivian's past. I'm a strategist gathering intelligence.
And the only clue I have is that single photograph on her monitor—her standing next to Jake Morrison, her expression hollow and bitter, like someone carved out from the inside.
I remember that Morrison used to play for the Columbus Blue Jackets, so that must have been where she worked before. She never talks about it.
I type a search into Google: Vivian Lamore Columbus Blue Jackets
The first three pages give me nothing but generic press releases and archived game recaps. I refine the search, add quotation marks, try different combinations.
On page six, buried beneath layers of irrelevant results, I find it.
A staff photo from the Columbus Blue Jackets' 2019 holiday party. The image quality is poor—clearly taken from an old website slideshow—but I zoom in anyway. There's Vivian, younger but wearing that same controlled expression. I scan the other faces, looking for anything that might—
My breath catches.
Three people down from Vivian stands Anna Reyes, one of the junior coordinators from marketing operations, the one who never speaks in meetings and always looks terrified of her own shadow.
Not might-be Anna. Not someone who looks like Anna. It's unmistakably her—same delicate features, same dark hair. But the woman in this photo is different. Confident. Open. Her smile reaches her eyes in a way I've never seen at the Mammoth Center.
I screenshot the image, my pulse hammering. Anna worked in Columbus. With Vivian. Could there be something there?
Too late to approach her now. But tomorrow...
I catch Anna at the coffee machine the next afternoon, timing it for that liminal window between meetings when the office empties out for lunch. She's pouring cream with surgical precision, her movements careful and contained.
"Anna?" I keep my voice light, curious. "Quick question—I was digging into some of Vivian's old press, and I saw this."
I pull up the screenshot on my phone, angling it so she can see.
The cream keeps pouring. Over the rim. Across the counter. She doesn't move to stop it, doesn't seem to notice. Her eyes—locked on my screen—go glassy with something beyond fear.
"You worked with her in Columbus, right?" I press gently.
When she finally looks at me, the color has drained from her face so completely I can see the fine tracery of veins at her temples.
"I..." The word dies in her throat.
She seems to catch herself, forcing her shaking hand to set the coffee pot down with deliberate care. When she speaks again, her voice is a monotone. Flat. Dead.
"Yes. I worked there."
"Anna, did anything happen? I've been trying to understand Vivian better…"
"I don't know what you mean, nothing comes to mind." She says it to the counter, not to me. Each word lands like a door slamming shut.
"Anna, I just need to know if—"
"I have a two o'clock meeting I need to prepare for."
She turns, dumps her ruined coffee in the sink with mechanical precision, and walks—stiffly, but professionally—back to her desk. Not fleeing. Not running. Just... gone.
I stare at her rigid back as she disappears around the corner.