“It’s in my latest roadmap. A whole digital footprint and brand management onboarding program for rookies. Caleb just became my Exhibit A.”
Easton nods, approving. “Good. Someone needs to teach these guys to be careful. Unfortunately, it matters almost as much as the game now.”
He pauses. Then—
“No wonder you’re so stressed. Just… don’t let it burn you out, Sloane. Guys like Cal are a dime a dozen. You’re special.”
The words, meant for comfort, land like shrapnel.
I offer him a small, grateful smile. I feel like a traitor.
“I won’t,” I say. And I mean it in the way lies are sometimes meant.
Maria returns with our pasta, and the conversation shifts—next road trip, his new trainer, why Mom still can’t FaceTime without tilting the phone at her ceiling fan.
The danger passes.
But as I push pasta around my plate, the buzz of my phone feels different now.
It’s no longer just a sweet, secret thrill.
It’s a risk.
It’s Exhibit A.
17
Garrett
The supply closet smells like industrial cleaner and forgotten equipment, but all I can focus on is the taste of Sloane’s lip gloss and the way her fingers are twisted in my shirt.
She’s pressed against the metal shelving, her green eyes dark in the dim light filtering under the door, and for thirty perfect seconds, nothing else exists.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” she whispers against my mouth, but she’s smiling when she says it, her thumb tracing the line of my jaw.
“Probably,” I murmur back, but I don’t move away. Can’t. The scent of her perfume—clean and sharp, like winter mornings—fills the small space, and I want to memorize everything. The way her breath catches when I kiss just beneath her ear. The soft sound she makes when my hand finds the curve of her waist.
“Garrett.” My name is half-warning, half-surrender. “Someone could—”
The sharp sound of voices in the hallway slices through our bubble. Sloane freezes. Her eyes go wide with panic that twists something ugly in my chest.
This is what we’ve been reduced to—supply closets, thirty-second kisses, constant fear.
Like we’re doing something wrong, instead of something right.
I step back immediately, giving her space. She smooths her blazer, checks her reflection in the dark screen of her phone. Her expression smooths out, going neutral—that same look she wears in meetings—but I catch the tremble in her hands as she fixes her hair.
“Coast is clear,” she whispers after cracking the door.
We slip out separately. Her first. Me, thirty seconds later, like we’re coordinating a covert op. I watch her walk away, heels clicking, posture straight. To anyone else, she’s the marketing director en route to her next meeting.
They don’t see the slight flush in her cheeks. Or the way her lips are still swollen from my kisses.
They don’t know she’s mine.
The thought hits like a body check to the chest.
Mine. But only in secret. Only in the quiet gaps between her real life, her visible life, the career she’s spent years building.
