Richard’s office has always unsettled Sloan a little—not because of anything overt, but because it feels too quiet. Too curated. The soft hum of the air conditioning, the way the blinds cut the sunlight into perfect stripes, the faint scent of polished wood and old paper. Nothing here is accidental.
Today, the silence feels heavier. Like it’s waiting.
Richard doesn’t look up immediately when she steps inside, even though she knows he heard the door. He’s turning a pen between his fingers, his brows drawn together. His glasses sit lower on his nose, and his eyes track her movements with a kind of gentle calculation.
“Sloan,” he finally says, pushing the glasses up. “Sit.”
She does, though her pulse flutters with an instinctive warning. She doesn’t miss the sigh he exhales, the kind reserved for news no one wants to be responsible for delivering.
“You look tired,” he observes.
She gives a small shrug. “Long week.”
“That’s one way to put it.” He leans back, folding his hands over his chest. “Julian Hayes has a way of…making weeks long.”
Her breath catches. Not because she didn’t expect his name to come up—but because hearing it here, in this room, feels wrong. Like the outside world has invaded a sanctuary she didn’t realize she had.
“I didn’t come to talk about him,” she says, too quickly.
“No,” Richard agrees, studying her. “But you need to hear this.”
A chill crawls up her spine. She grips the armrests of the chair, grounding herself.
“Sloan,” he begins, choosing his words carefully, “you’re involved in something you don’t understand. And I should have told you earlier.”
Her stomach tightens. “Told me what?”
He pauses, then opens a folder on his desk. Her name is printed on the top. Typed, clinical, inevitable.
“I didn’t hire you,” he says quietly. “Not really.”
Her brain stutters. “What—?”
“I interviewed you,” he clarifies, “but the position was already decided. Paid for.” His eyes meet hers with something that looks like apology. Or regret. “By Julian.”
The room shrinks. The walls pulse in closer. A buzzing starts in her ears.
“No,” she whispers. Because if this is true—if he really reached into her life before she even knew his name—then nothing she’s built in the past year is truly hers.
“Sloan, I thought he only wanted to support you,” Richard continues, voice low. “That it was some patron-artist thing. It isn’t uncommon. But then the calls started. The check-ins. The…demands.”
Demands.
She feels sick.
“I told him it wasn’t appropriate. That you deserved to earn your place here on your own merits.” Richard rubs his temples, looking suddenly older. “He didn’t care.”
Sloan forces the air into her lungs, but it scratches on the way in. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because he’s crossing lines,” Richard says simply. “And I think you already know that. I think you’ve been living it.”
Her throat closes. Images flash—Julian in her apartment, Julian watching her, Julian pulling threads she never saw.
“I didn’t want to believe it,” she murmurs.
“I’m sorry,” Richard says, and it’s the sincerity in his voice that finally splinters something inside her. “I should have told you sooner. But Sloan…you need to be careful. Men like him don’t like losing control.”
She stiffens. The words echo too closely to her own fears.
Richard leans forward, expression grave. “Whatever you thought this job was—whatever you thought you chose—it wasn’t just yours. He made sure of that.”
The last piece of her composure flickers.
“And now,” Richard finishes quietly, “I’m afraid he’s not done.”
Sloan stares at the folder with her name on it, feeling her reality tilt—like the ground has quietly been replaced beneath her feet, and she’s only now noticing she’s standing on something unstable, something Julian constructed long before she ever stepped onto it.
The truth doesn’t land all at once.
It sinks.
Like a weight she can’t lift. Like a trap she didn’t see.
And now she can’t tell if she’s angry, betrayed, or terrified.
Maybe all of them.
Maybe none.
But she knows one thing with startling clarity:
Julian has been inside her life far longer than she realized—and far deeper than she ever consented to.
And if Richard is right, he has no intention of stepping back.
Not now.
Not ever.