Page 169 of Suite 7

Footsteps inside. The slide of a chain, the deadbolt clicking back, each sound arriving with the precision of a countdown. Then the door opens.

Sloane stands there. I wasn’t ready for how tired she looks.

Hair in a messy bun, no makeup. Jeans and a sweater, like she dressed for endurance rather than armor.

We look at each other across the threshold.

“Hi,” I say.

She doesn’t respond immediately. She looks at me, studying, assessing, taking her time with it. Then she steps aside — silent permission.

I walk past her into the apartment. Her perfume reaches me first — the same one she’s worn for years. Photos of us as kids on the shelves. The park visible through the window.

She gestures to the couch, and I sit.

She doesn’t sit beside me. She takes the chair across the room. There is careful neutrality in her expression, the look she uses when she’s holding a position.

The silence settles. I let it.

“I’m sorry.”

She doesn’t respond immediately. She looks at me with those gray eyes so like mine, studying me like she’s trying to recognize someone she thought she knew.

“You were right,” I continue. “I let you plan dinners for a man who was already taken. I let you believe you were doing something good for me when I knew. I should have told you the moment it started.”

She still doesn’t speak. Tears gather in her eyes but don’t fall yet.

“I’m sorry we lied to you for six weeks. I’m sorry we let you keep trying to set me up with Lisa while we were together, and I’m sorry I looked you in the eye at the gala and lied.”

A single tear escapes down her cheek. She doesn’t wipe it away.

“I’m sorry for all of it. The lying. The sneaking. Making you feel like an idiot when you’re not. I am. We are.” My voice cracks on the last part. “I’m so fucking sorry, Sloane.”

Her hands shake. More tears now, streaming freely.

“But you’re not sorry for being with her.”

“No.” I meet her eyes and hold them. “I’m not sorry for falling in love with her. I’m sorry for how we handled it. I’m sorry we didn’t trust you enough to tell you the truth. But I’m not sorry for what we are.”

Sloane is quiet for a moment. Then: “Is this going to end like Sidney?”

“No.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I can know that this is not the same. I was seventeen, Sloane. I wanted Sidney and I didn’t stop to think what it might cost you.” I hold her gaze. “I understand now. But Vera is the person I’m choosing, every day, knowing exactly what it costs and choosing it anyway. That’s not what happened with Sidney.”

She looks at me for a long time.

“What if it still blows up?”

“Then we’ll have blown it up honestly. And whatever happens between Vera and me, you don’t lose her. That’s not how this works. You lost Sidney because Sidney had to choose between you and what she felt for me, and she didn’t have the language for it. Vera is not Sidney. She has been terrified of losing you since the start. You are not the thing she’s willing to sacrifice.” I hold her gaze while she takes that in. “That is the one promise I can actually make.”

Sloane’s face crumples.

“You fight all the time,” she says through tears. “Every time you’re in the same room.” Her voice breaks. “The Sinclair-Beckett Smackdown. I thought you genuinely couldn’t stand each other.”

She looks away. “I feel like an idiot.”