I nod and follow her there, pulse pounding in my ears.
She closes the door behind us with shaking hands, then leans against it like she needs the support.
"If I tell you this," she says, "and it gets out... if she finds out I told you..."
"Then we go down together," I say simply. "But at least we go down fighting."
Anna nods once, sealing a pact. When she speaks again, her voice is stronger but still trembling.
"I was unemployed for eight months after Columbus. No interviews. Nothing. It was like I'd been blacklisted." She presses her hands flat against the table. "I don't know everything. But people said Morrison was involved with someone. Not Vivian—someone else. A woman whose family had big connections to our top sponsors."
"An affair."
She nods slowly. "That's what people whispered. And when his wife found out, she didn't just threaten to expose the affair. She threatened to blow the whole thing open—financial irregularities, shady contracts, sponsor money getting funneled through back channels."
Ice floods my stomach. "Morrison needed a scapegoat."
"Vivian was young. Talented. She'd been working on his personal branding. It was easy to spin that into something inappropriate."
"But nothing happened between them."
"Nothing." Anna's voice hardens. "Vivian was married. Happy. She was building something real. But once the rumors started... who was going to believe her? He was the face of the franchise. She was a marketing girl."
The air in the room thickens. This wasn't a relationship gone bad. This was a calculated sacrifice.
"Her marriage fell apart?"
Anna nods, voice breaking. "The whispers. The looks. The way people treated her husband at events... He couldn't handle it. Filed for divorce six months after she got fired. She lost everything, Sloane. And she didn't do a damn thing wrong."
I sit back, numb as the ugly picture becomes suddenly, sickeningly clear. Vivian's glare at the gala wasn't about jealousy. It was fear. Panic. Recognition.
She wasn't seeing two colleagues in the early stages of an office romance. She was seeing herself. Watching history repeat.
"Anna?"
She takes a breath, then looks at me—really looks at me. Her voice drops to a whisper.
"Last night, I saw the way Vivian was watching you. Watching Garrett. And I recognized it."
Her eyes go glassy, full of memory.
"It's the same way she used to look at herself in the mirror. After it all fell apart." A pause. "Like she was seeing a ghost."
26
Garrett
The morning light cuts through my loft windows like spotlights on ice, and I'm watching Sloane the way I used to study game film—completely locked in, analyzing every move. She’s turned my dining table into a command center: laptop open, printouts fanned out in perfect rows, her phone charging beside a stack of color-coded folders.
I’ve seen that look before—on captains in the tunnel before Game 7. It’s the look of someone who knows what’s at stake and has no intention of losing.
The doubt that haunted her after Easton’s ultimatum is gone. In its place: something forged and unshakable. She made her choice—choseus—and now she’s doing what she does best: preparing to win.
She tucks that one stubborn strand of auburn hair behind her ear without glancing away from the screen, her entire world reduced to whatever data she’s dissecting. Her coffee mug sits empty at her elbow, and I catch the subtle bounce of her left knee under the table—a tell only I’d notice. She’s channeling her nerves into precision.
I push off the counter and roll my shoulders, trying to work out the pre-game tension that’s settled there overnight. Old habits. My body still thinks today’s a playoff game. Maybe it’s not wrong.
I grab the protein shake I made earlier, take a long pull, and move to the coffee pot.
