CHAPTER 17 #2
“I think so.” I hoped so. But then that sleepy smile of his popped back into my mind as he whispered that he liked me. My chest warmed with the memory. If there was a fraction of a chance that could be my everyday reality, it was worth the risk. I added quietly, “Yeah, he is.”
“I’m happy for you,” Vincent said. “You could stay for dinner, and we can celebrate.”
The invitation made me laugh, easing the tension that had built up around us.
“Do you remember the time you tried to use a smoker?” I demanded. “You practically fed me leather.”
“That was an accident!” he exclaimed, his voice rising in volume.
“Uh-huh.” I nodded slowly.
“I’ll have you know I’ve gotten better with the smoker—”
“No, you haven’t!” Elena interjected.
“I’m trying, and that’s all that counts!” he yelled back at her. To me, he said, “I’ve watched videos. Far too many of them.”
“I’m sure you have,” I replied as Elena’s laughter carried in from the kitchen.
I smiled slightly to myself as I shifted in the chair.
How many conversations had I had here? Business and sometimes personal?
Events and experiences had been planned here.
My orientation had been done in this very chair. “I’ll miss this.”
“We’ll see each other,” Vincent assured me, but we both knew it was a lie. Our friendship was shaped around the Society. When I moved on, maintaining this would become difficult. Proximity had made it easier.
“Can I ask you something? Since this might be my last chance ever to do so.”
“Ask away.”
“How do you afford everything?” I asked.
It was the one glaring piece of the puzzle I could never figure out.
If I was leaving the Society for good, maybe I could convince him to share with me.
“How does a foster kid from New York gain enough resources to create something like the Black Silk Society?”
“Easy.” He shrugged. “I didn’t start it.”
My brows came together slightly at the admission. It wasn’t what I was expecting.
“Vincent Hemingway is… a title, so to speak,” he continued. “A legacy that I was gifted. Admittedly, I did legally change my name, but once upon a time, I worked here as a dancer.”
“You? A dancer?” I repeated with disbelief.
“He’s a beautiful dancer,” Elena shouted.
“I never would’ve guessed,” I murmured.
“I wasn’t one for very long,” Vincent said. “I was quickly promoted to an Architect for my ability to read people, even when they think they’re unreadable.”
The look he gave me was pointed and borderline accusatory, but I brushed it off.
“Most people spend their lives learning how to hide,” he continued softly.
“They become attached to the surface of things—to the version of themselves that feels safest to say aloud. But I’ve found people are remarkably talented at lying to themselves.
They convince themselves they want control when what they want is safety.
They ask for desire when what they want is intimacy.
They ask for attention when what they want is to feel chosen.
“The trick is learning where to look. People always reveal themselves eventually. You just have to know where to find their cracks.” He sighed. “People are messy, Owen, but they are predictable. Almost painfully so when you understand them.”
That made sense. I didn’t read people the same way he did, but I did understand predictability and behavior.
“There’s a reason I don’t interact with the Society or my clients—why I have a manager who acts on behalf of Mr. Hemingway.
That’s the way the Society has always been run.
Mr. Hemingway has always kept himself distant because it allows the Society to run flawlessly with each transition,” he explained.
“Admittedly, when I was an Architect, Mr. Hemingway didn’t interact with the Architects.
That was something I chose to change. It was a trust I chose to build.
When the former Mr. Hemingway wanted to retire, I was his choice to take over the title and the Society.
It wasn’t something I could say no to. And one day, I’ll pick someone to take over for me. ”
I stared at him as my mind worked to wrap around that piece of information.
“Why Vincent Hemingway? I assume it has something to do with the artist and the writer.”
“The Society itself predates Hemingway, but yes, the first Vincent Hemingway was inspired by both men. He used certain ideologies in their works to enact a drastic change in how the Society worked and functioned. Van Gogh taught us that people ache to be understood, while Hemingway taught us just how far they go to hide it. And here, at the Black Silk Society, we shatter the walls behind which they hide and help them feel understood. You’d be surprised how one moment in time can drastically change a person.
One moment of being seen and heard—of not having to hide behind walls with another person—can dramatically change a person.
That glimpse of what could be motivates us more than we know.
“And yes, sex is almost always involved, but sex creates vulnerability. It’s a means to help them strip away the walls they’ve built.
It’s a form of connection that solidifies change within us.
We help people become who they were meant to be, but we also help them with the quiet motivation to continue that change,” Vincent told me.
“As for my role… Vincent Hemingway is nothing more than philosophy. The individual matters less than the purpose he serves. He becomes a keeper of human longing. He is a curator of desire and a protector of vulnerability. He is the first Architect of the Black Silk Society. The one that handles the emotional truths others so readily hide from.”
My gaze drifted over him slowly as my mind tried to wrap around the enormity of it all. The responsibility. The history. The weight. It was almost too surreal to grasp. My understanding of the Society seemed so limited when he broke it down like that.
And as I stared at him, a strange kind of awe filled me.
Vincent had always been a little larger than life, but in the way that a boss or leader was.
Nothing could’ve prepared me for the actual reality of what he was and what he carried to keep the Society running.
Or of what he’d given up to step into the role he was chosen for.
“Who were you before you became Vincent?” I asked.
“No one of consequence,” he answered. “Vincent Hemingway is exactly who I was supposed to be.”
I accepted the answer and let the conversation end. His evasion wasn’t a surprise. I wondered if anyone knew who he was before he became Vincent. Well, maybe Elena knew. But was that it? How much of himself had disappeared in the wake of filling the role?
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay for dinner?” Vincent asked once more as he changed the topic with a grin.
“Fine. I’ll stay for dinner, but I oversee the cooking,” I said in exasperation because I knew he wouldn’t stop asking. Besides, one last dinner before everything changed sounded nice.