I never wanted you to give up your career for me. I only wanted you to stop giving me up to prove you deserved it. Sloan did not ask him to forget the past because she knew the past could not be forgotten only carried differently. She said instead, "I can't change the woman who got on that plane. But I can decide who stays today."
Rowan told her then that he had not bought Whitmore Meridian to win her back. He had bought it because he had once watched good people be treated as numbers by powerful men who felt nothing. But seeing her again, working beside her, had forced him to admit that he had never truly moved past what happened between them. He did not promise her that all the old wounds had healed, because that would have been a lie, and he had never lied to her. Instead, he offered something smaller and far more honest.
He suggested they begin with a real evening together. No titles, no contracts, no secrets between them, and Sloan agreed. As the two of them stepped out of the hotel into the evening air, Sloan's phone rang with a call from the board about an urgent matter demanding her attention. 7 years ago, she had left Rowan standing alone to answer a call exactly like this one, choosing the Empire over the man without a second thought. This time, she looked at the ringing phone.
And then she looked at him. She switched it off, took his hand, and said they can wait 10 minutes. Sloan had once lost the man she loved because she believed power belonged only to those willing to leave everything behind them. In the end, she learned that leadership was never about traveling the farthest alone, but about knowing what was worth carrying with you. And this time she did not leave Rowan behind.