Page 35 of The Spare
The hours passed like seconds with her. We spent the morning and afternoon lost in conversation, but I didn’t think much of it. She was up for junior partner at the time, the youngest at the firm, and was rightfully excited. I was enraptured. It wasn’t until the party that I realized it.
The party mainly centered around the pool and drifted out to the beach. I remember looking for her at some point when I saw Xander spin her around in a tango before handing her off to her boyfriend at the time. It was her ex.
The next ten seconds felt like they happened in slow motion. He whispered something in her ear. She threw her head back in a laugh, leaned up, and pulled him into a kiss. I recoiled and felt winded. That’s when it all dawned on me.
The sound of her laugh and the terrible gnawing in my chest stayed with me the rest of the night. I decided that I had to get some work done and left early.
The feelings only grew over the next few months. I wanted to spend more time with her but put space between us instead. I understood the boundaries I wasn’t supposed to cross.
My feelings for her stirred up everything else I buried. It became too much to get a handle on, so Sutton Industries’ rapid expansion was the perfect way to remove myself from it.
Recent revelations didn't change anything. They only put a finer point on what I was up against. Plenty of people ignored those types of things. There were books filled with those stories, albeit mostly tragic, but that was a minor detail. It was a puzzle, and I would have to figure it out.
Once I did, everything would go back to how it was.
CHAPTER18
Sloan & Marcus
Sloan
I broke in to Xander’s place.
Technically, I had a key. It was early and I hadn’t expected him to be awake yet. I needed to steal something. I was crossing the kitchen when I was caught.
“Where’s my picture?” he called. He walked out of his bedroom and stopped in the hallway.
Xander had a photographic memory. For him, it was a gift and curse. Not that you needed it to notice what I’d taken. While most people looked at him and saw a handsome banker, they often didn’t recognize that there were deep undercurrents of brilliance beneath.
“Hmm?” I gave myself up. He knew I was there, and I knew taking the framed photo of the four of us from his hallway would be noticed. I was hoping I’d be halfway to the firm when it was.
He walked into the kitchen, poured a cup of coffee into a mug, and turned to face me. His dirty blonde hair was neatly coiffed, his gray suit fitted perfectly, and his emerald eyes narrowed on me before they glanced down at the framed photograph wrapped in my arms.
He raised an eyebrow.
“Consider it photo-napped.” There wasn’t any point in hiding my intention; he knew it by now. “It’ll be at Sutton Industries if you’d like it back.”
He rolled his eyes and groaned.
Xander was one of the most understanding people I knew. He’d forgive Marcus’s absence with time, but I had a vested interest in that being sooner rather than later. I was leaving for London in a few weeks, and I needed to know he was okay before I left. Holding onto anger always manifested in destructive ways for him, hence the rare violent outburst at Thanksgiving.
“You know, you don’t need to fix everything.” His eyes were soft, but his tone prickled with annoyance.
I brushed past it. “Any more complaints?”
He tilted his head and looked around, surveying what else I may have disturbed. “Stop moving the refrigerator magnets,” he added. I moved one about an inch lower than its original position. Xander liked things in his home orderly, in his slightly compulsive way.
He handed me a cup of coffee and gestured for me to sit. “What’s up?” I asked, putting the photo beside my Birkin.
“Are we going to ignore that you and Marcus are going to be in London at the same time?”
He seemed disinterested, but also like he knew something. He couldn’t have; it was the one secret I managed to keep from him. Letting that bit of information loose was dangerous. It would change things for our entire group. It was too complicated.
Besides, nothing was happening. Unless you counted the X-rated dreams.
“Does it matter?” I asked. Marcus hadn’t seen me once when he visited over the last couple of years. Being in the same city meant we might see each other. I was sure Henry and my grandfather would ask him to check in on me, but other than that, I probably wouldn’t see him till we were back in Manhattan. Or whenever Xander came to visit. “We probably won’t see each other.”
I pushed past the acrid stab of disappointment. We may not have been all that close, but he was one of the few people who truly knew me. It wasn’t enough to make him want to see me.
