The hotel room is too beautiful for this.
Too polished. Too quiet. Too perfectly staged with soft lighting and a skyline that should make everything feel cinematic instead of unbearable.
But all I feel is trapped.
The door clicks shut behind Julian with a force that doesn’t echo, but somehow the silence afterwards is louder than a slam.
He stands there for a moment, chest rising and falling too quickly, like he’s trying to get ahead of his own anger. His tie is already loosened from earlier, and the dim gold lighting makes him look sharper, harsher—like this version of him was always waiting beneath the suit and control.
“Sloan,” he says, and even my name sounds like a warning.
I cross my arms, more to steady myself than to look defiant. “Don’t,” I whisper. It comes out thinner than I meant, but stronger than I feel.
His jaw flexes. “You can’t keep walking away from conversations just because you don’t like what you see.”
I laugh—short, sharp, painful. “What I saw? You mean you stepping out of an elevator with Courtney like the two of you just wrapped up a date?”
His eyes darken, and something in the air shifts. “You’re twisting this.”
“No,” I snap. “I’m reacting. There’s a difference.”
Julian takes a slow step toward me. Not loud, not aggressive—but deliberate, like he’s closing in on a problem he intends to solve with sheer force of presence.
The room feels smaller instantly.
“Sloan, I’m sick of this,” he mutters. “The assumptions. The accusations. You don’t even give me a chance to explain.”
“I don’t need an explanation when I can see what’s right in front of me.”
His voice rises, controlled but sharp. “You’re letting your insecurity rewrite reality.”
“And you’re giving me reasons to feel insecure!”
The words snap between us like a live wire.
Something in him breaks first.
He drags a hand through his hair, pacing once across the room. “You think I don’t notice? How you look at me like you’re waiting for me to hurt you? Like everything I do is a test I’m failing before I even start?”
My throat tightens painfully. “Maybe because you keep failing.”
He stops. Turns. The look he gives me is not anger—it’s something more explosive, deeper, something that feels like it’s been clawing at both of us for weeks.
“Sloan,” he says, voice lower now, rough around the edges. “I am trying.”
“Trying what?” I choke out. “To keep me around? To keep me quiet? To make me not see what’s happening right in front of me?”
“To hold this together,” he fires back. “Even while you keep pulling away.”
My breath catches. “I’m pulling away because I don’t feel safe with you anymore.”
The moment I say it, the room goes absolutely still.
Not physically—emotionally. Like the words freeze everything in place.
Julian’s expression fractures. Not visibly, not in some dramatic way—but in the subtle, terrifying way someone’s anger breaks into something more dangerous: hurt.
He steps closer again, slower this time, his voice quieter but heavy like gravity. “And what would make you feel safe, Sloan? Me cutting everyone out of my life? Me never talking to another woman again? Me proving myself every second so you don’t spiral the moment someone laughs near me?”
“That’s not what I want.”
“Then what do you want?” His voice cracks—not loudly, but enough that it hits something inside me. “God, I’m trying to understand you, but you—”
He stops himself, breathing hard.
I shake my head, tears I refuse to let fall burning at the edges of my vision. “I want you to want us,” I whisper. “Not the image of us. Not the version that looks good at events. Not the one that fits into whatever world Courtney belongs to.”
“Sloan—”
“I want to feel chosen,” I say, barely audible. “Not convenient.”
His eyes close for a second, like the words land somewhere soft and sore inside him. When he opens them again, they’re darker, conflicted, raw.
“Sloan,” he murmurs, stepping close enough that I can feel the heat of him, “I never chose convenience. I chose you.”
“But you didn’t choose transparency,” I say. “Or honesty. Or me over her.”
His breath hits my cheek, warm, uneven. “It’s not what you think.”
“Then tell me what it is.”
He’s silent.
And that is the worst answer of all.
I take a step back.
For the first time, he lets me.
Julian stares at me like he’s afraid I’m already gone.
And the terrifying part?
For the first time, I’m not sure he’s wrong.