Page 102 of The Spare
“Like I said.” He shrugged. “Sometimes you need a push.”
CHAPTER51
Marcus & Sloan
MARCUS
Sloan ignored all my calls all day.
She was in attendance this morning but left before anyone could talk to her. She was still angry. I tried to work, but I spent the entire day staring at my phone. The only distraction I had was that I couldn’t find my journal anywhere, the one she gave me years ago, I always had it on me. That was driving me crazy.
Sloan did text me once to tell me that she was fine, but that did nothing to ease the anxiety. I left the office early, hoping by some miracle she’d be at my place waiting for me. That hope shattered when I came home to an empty house.
A lot had happened in the last week. Sloan needed time. Every reflex told me to push the pain of the argument down until I didn’t think about it. Until it stopped hurting.
I couldn’t do it. If there was one thing the last few years had taught me, it was that I couldn’t escape what I felt for her. And I didn’t want to.
Xander
She’s here, she’s fine.
I was going to lose my mind. She should’ve been here, with me.
Me
I’m coming to get her.
I couldn’t spend another night without her, and I wasn’t going to put anything ahead of Sloan ever again. I told her I wasn’t ever letting her go, and I meant it. Thirty minutes later, I was at Xander’s door.
He opened it and stepped aside to let me in. My eyes were pulled to hers immediately.
“I’m going out.” Xander grabbed his keys and brushed past me. Before he left, he turned in the doorway and looked at both of us sternly. “Do not have sex on my couch.”
The door shut. Sloan stood silently in front of the couch.
* * *
SLOAN
Before I could blink, he swept me into his arms. I tensed for half a second before I melted into him. It was so easy to let myself be pulled back. Staying there like that, wrapped in his embrace, was tempting.
His chest shuddered. “Don’t ever walk out on me again.” His tone was commanding, but it sounded like a plea. That was the part he probably kept replaying in his head. My chest clenched at the thought.
I pushed him back, shifted away, and sat down. He followed and sat beside me. “I want every detail. What happened?”
He told me everything. From the start. His involvement with the board, the Ellory acquisition, the scenario he and my grandfather were trying to avoid. The one where I became CEO.
“It was never meant to take something from you. It was meant to follow the succession plan.” Marcus took my hand in his and I let him. “At first you were—”
“I was an afterthought,” I spat. What used to feel like a slicing pain from rejection didn’t hurt so much anymore. What hurt was the lie.
“I didn’t think of how it would affect you or if it would.” He didn’t look away when he said it, allowing me to see the deep remorse in his eyes. His confession made the pain worse. “When I realized how much it still weighed on you, I wanted to tell you so many times.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I was scared,” he said, as his chest caved with a soft, regretful exhale. “That I would lose you.”
A raw vulnerability painted his entire face, pulling at my heart. Every stone in the wall he put up was gone. Every defense was lowered. He was laid bare in front of me. The knowledge that he’d open himself up to devastation, again, wore at my resolve. The fact that he’d done it to repair our relationship nearly diminished it completely.
