Meet My Part-Time Husband

Chapter 5: The Second Event

"You didn't need to come to this one," Sophie said, adjusting a stack of name cards on the registration table. "The quarterly investor mixer runs itself, it always has."

"I like the room to be checked by me." Elle began to smoothen a wrinkle out of her blazer that wasn't actually there. "Someone has to ensure it is in order."

"You said exactly those words during the last event too, and it was run by this same coordinator." Sophie didn't look up from the name cards, but the smile in her voice wasn't very difficult to miss. "Funny coincidence."

"It is not a coincidence, he happens to be good at his job."

"Very true, he's actually good at his job." Sophie finally looked up, briefly. "I just didn't realize checking his work required you personally to come three hours earlier in your best blazer."

Elle didn't want to give an answer that would prove Sophie's point, so she remained silent instead; she stood near the bar while reviewing the drink menu as if it required her approval when Marcus spotted her twenty minutes later.

"You seem to be on time," he voiced out slowly as he was setting down a stack of folders. "Should I be proud of myself or feeling afraid?”

"I wanted to see the setup before the investors arrived."

"Or rather, do you want to see me before the investors arrived?" He inquired plainly, not unkindly with the same directness that had unsettled her the first time they met and now, it felt more like something she looked forward to.

"Alright, I wanted to see you too," she reluctantly admitted. "That's very forward of you to assume."

"Most times, I am right about people. We've covered this." Marcus leaned against the bar, close enough that she caught the same clean, understated cologne from their dinner. "How was your week? You mentioned a takeover attempt on the phone last night. You never finished the story."

"Some men flying in from Chicago think Whitfield Group is an easy target because I'm eighteen months into the job."As the words left Elle's mouth loudly, her jaw got tight. "They're wrong, but it's going to take time to prove it which I don't have

"You need to prove it." He said with none of the polished charm he used on nervous clients or difficult guests, but a certainty that had nothing performative in it. "I've watched you handle a champagne tower and a seating chart and your own father in the same week. Grown men with hedge funds don't scare me on your behalf."

"You make it sound simple."

"It isn't simple. It's just familiar to you." Marcus tucked the folder under his arm as he watched her with the same steady attention he gave the room the night of the gala. "I'd guess you've been underestimated by men in expensive suits since the day you took over that office.

You've just gotten good at making them regret it."

"Most of them don't regret it fast enough." Elle allowed herself something close to a smile. "But they get there eventually."

A tension in Elle's chest loosened immediately, something she hadn't realized she had been carrying until it eased.

"These opinions about my boardroom, you were never invited to give them," she let out the words without a real edge in it.

"I have opinions about everything. I just don't share most of them." Marcus reached for one of his folders, flipping it open like the moment needed somewhere to go before it became something else entirely. "Speaking of things I have opinions about, the caterer wants to swap the second course. I said no without asking you. Tell me if I overstepped."

"You didn't overstep. What was the swap?"

"Salmon instead of duck. Cheaper, apparently, and the caterer thought nobody would notice." Marcus's mouth curved, not quite a smile. "I noticed. And I know you specifically requested the duck because it was your mother's favorite dish to serve at these things."

Elle went still. "That information, how on earth did you get it?"

"It was once I heard Sophie mention it in passing when she assumed I wasn't paying close attention." He said it simply with no weight the detail deserved, as if remembering small things about people was just another part of doing the job well. "I figured it mattered enough to fight the caterer over."

"It did." Elle's voice was quieter than she intended, it was caught somewhere between gratitude and something else she was yet to give a name, "Thank you."

"There is no need to thank me for doing my job."

"That was you paying attention to personal details. It wasn't your job." She gave him full attention now, though the noise of the filling ballroom fading into something distant and unimportant. "Most people bother less about things like these."

"Most people bother less about the right things." Marcus fixed his gaze on her a bit longer than the conversation required. Neither of them moved to fill the silence with anything at all for a short time.

"You always do this," Elle said. "Notice things nobody asked you to notice."

"Only with people worth noticing." The words were let out without much difficulty, but below it appeared something that happens as more like a confession he hadn't planned on making and less like a line. "You wanted it to feel like your mother, not like most clients who want the room to look expensive; that is a different sort of attention to pay, and it's rarer than you can imagine."

The room was filling up with investors and board members drifting in clusters toward the bar, and Elle began feeling the familiar pull of duty tugging her back toward the version of herself the room expected to see, "I should go welcome the Henderson before they corner someone less patient than me," she said, not quite ready to step away yet.

"Go. I am still within the vicinity, just in case the salmon makes another attempt at a comeback." She had taken three steps away when she heard him speak again, low enough that only she almost couldn't hear it.

"Elle."

She turned. "Yes?"

"You belong in this room more than anyone else in it, you already look like." The words left his mouth without flourish or the easy charm he used on everyone else. "I guess you rarely hear that, many just tell you the room belongs to you."

Having no answer to give, Elle simply held his gaze for a moment longer than she intended before walking towards the crowd with full awareness of exactly how long she had let the silence stretch. The events of the evening were replayed in the quiet of her too-large house later that night when it occurred to her that he never gave further details on why belonging in a room mattered so much to him than owning one.