Page 111 of The Spare
“Tonight, you’re mine.”
She looked seductively over her shoulder to me. “I’m always yours.”
And I’m yours.My fingers rhythmically tapped the box in my pocket.
Extended Epilogue
SLOAN & MARCUS
Two years after that…
SLOAN
Before we were married, I hardly ever visited Marcus at his office. The occasional romp on his desk was the only real exception. Something about an Amari on Sutton territory felt forbidden. It did make the desk sex extremely gratifying, though.
But now that we’d been married a while, I found myself here more often. It probably had less to do with the name change and more to do with the fact that pregnancy made my patience even thinner. I needed to take breathers from work more often these days. And Marcus’s office was closer than home.
“He free?” I approached his office, and his assistant nodded.
Engulfed in whatever he was reading on his screen, he didn’t notice when I walked in. That, or he was allowing me to live in the illusion that my eight-month pregnant belly was still ‘barely showing.’ Marcus looked up from his screen and gave me that smile. After all the time that had passed, it still made my knees wobble. He immediately got up and ushered me into a seat.
“Please tell me you didn’t walk.”There was concern etched all over his face. He took another chair and pulled my feet up onto it.
“I needed to get some air.”
He sighed and brought me a glass of water. Marcus went from protective to downright overbearing when I told him I was pregnant. And he wasn’t the only one. Henry treated me like I was made of glass. Xander, who held out the longest, started to become almost as bad as Marcus when I entered my last trimester.
Their well-meaning protectiveness didn’t bother me like it used to. It came from a place of love.
“What happened?”he asked as he leaned against his desk.
“One of the associates made me angry.”
“How?”
“I don’t really know.” I laughed when I thought back on it. One of the associates asked me something about a litigation case. It wasn’t my area of expertise, so I sent him to see Maya Malhotra, one of our senior associates. She was fantastic and happened to be Rohan’s little sister. I didn’t know why I was so annoyed by the encounter, but he seemed annoyed at my refusal to help him. He was audacious, and I didn’t love it. I did feel a little bad that he became Maya’s problem. “Your daughter is making me crazy.”
He laughed and knelt beside me. He rubbed my belly, and our little girl kicked beneath his hand. “Maybe she’s reminding you to slow down.”
He spent most nights trying to convince me to start my maternity leave early. I was due in three weeks, and I probably should, but I hated the idea of someone else doing my work. Besides, I felt great.
“The doctor said I’m fine.”
He sighed again. We went round and round with this exact conversation most nights. “Why don’t we take the rest of the day off?”
That was something new, too. After we moved in together, we continued our ritual of making dinner together some nights. Regardless of what we were doing, we both made it home around seven. Since announcing the pregnancy, he was a lot more willing to delegate his work and would come by my office almost daily to pick me up.
Whenever he wanted me to slow down, he would slow down with me.
“The senior partners met.” I didn’t leave the office only because of an inane question from one of the associates. “When managing partner comes up next year, I’m on the shortlist.”
He beamed for a moment. I ran my hand through his hair and sighed. His smile morphed into a knowing grin. “You don’t want to be CEO of the firm?”
That’s basically what a managing partner was. It was a step back from any of the actual legal work. I would be in charge. I would make some of the most important decisions regarding the firm's direction. My impact would be global.
It sounded terrible. I loved my work; I didn’t want to give it up to run the firm. Watching Henry and Marcus made me more thankful every day that I had dodged that bullet. Turns out, I already had everything I wanted. And I was happy with myself. “No offense. But your job sucks.”
He laughed. It was deep and joyful. Our little girl kicked in my belly at the sound. “Then say no.”
