Chapter 14 - THE LAST INVITATION
Three months after the party, Jolene asked to meet Sloan.
Not at the penthouse.
At a quiet hotel café in SoHo.
Sloan agreed.
Jolene arrived without Tinsley.
Without Vance.
Without sequins.
She wore a navy wool coat and looked her age.
“I’m selling East Hampton.”
“I heard.”
“I hate it.”
“I imagine.”
Jolene gave her a sharp look.
Then, unexpectedly, smiled.
“Still impossible.”
Sloan did not smile back.
Jolene folded her hands around her coffee.
“I owe you an apology.”
“Yes.”
The answer startled her.
Most people softened apologies before they arrived.
Sloan was done helping.
Jolene continued.
“The basin was cruel.”
“Yes.”
“I thought you needed humiliating.”
Sloan’s expression changed.
Jolene did not look away.
“I thought you walked into our family believing money made you superior.”
“And now?”
“Now I think I needed to believe that because the alternative was admitting we were living partly on yours.”
That was closer.
Not absolution.
Truth.
Jolene swallowed.
“Vance made it easier to hate you than to ask how things were being paid.”
Sloan thought about the ballroom.
“You still chose to put your feet in front of me.”
“Yes.”
“And Tinsley chose to hit me.”
“Yes.”
“And Vance chose to provoke it.”
“Yes.”
Jolene looked toward the window.
“I don’t expect to be invited back.”
“You won’t be.”
The old Jolene flashed across her face for a second.
Offense.
Then restraint.
“Fair.”
Sloan finished her coffee.
At the door Jolene said, “Vance loves you.”
Sloan stopped.
“That isn’t the question.”
“What is?”
“Whether he knows how to love anyone without needing them to support the version of himself he wants to be.”
Jolene had no answer.
Neither did Sloan.
The divorce negotiations continued.
Vance offered financial concessions.
Sloan refused to turn accountability into revenge.
Her lawyers separated traceable diverted funds from ordinary marital spending. They negotiated rather than inventing punishment.
The lender issue remained documented.
Mercer Legacy entered a formal wind-down.
Tinsley agreed to repay a portion of transfers clearly tied to her personal expenses over time.
Then Vance asked Sloan for one thing unrelated to money.
A conversation without lawyers.
Sloan did not say yes.
May you like
She did not say no.
For the first time, he had to live without immediate access to her answer.
