23. Vera
A text from Sloane arrives Tuesday morning while I’m mapping the press strategy for a client launch.
Sloane: Come to Kane’s gala with me Thursday night? Cocktail attire. There’s someone I want him to meet!
I read it twice. Set my phone down. Pick it up and read it again.
I knew about the gala. Kane mentioned it when we were together last week, the Sinclair Architecture annual client event, two hundred people, held at the gallery space on Meridian.
I type back before I’ve fully thought it through.
Me: Who’s the someone?
Three dots appear immediately. Sloane types fast when she’s excited.
Sloane: Lisa! My colleague. The one I’ve been telling you about — marketing exec, brilliant, loves architecture. I had drinks with her last week and Kane came up and I just KNOW. Come. I need a witness. And honestly networking is good for you too! 7PM cocktail attire.
I set the phone face-down on my desk.
Lisa.
Not Claire. Not the warm-faced events director from the hospitality company, the one she showed me on her couch three weeks ago over Thai food and cannoli, the one I sat with and said she seems lovely and meant it and meant something else underneath it simultaneously.
I thought that plan had gone quiet. I thought Sloane had let it sit, the way she sometimes does when she gets a feeling that the timing isn’t right.
She didn’t let it sit. She found a better candidate and didn’t tell me.
My coffee has gone cold. I drink it anyway.
I can’t say no without raising questions.
Can’t claim I’m busy without Sloane asking exactly what kind of busy, and then following up, and then noticing that my version of busy and Kane’s version of busy occupy an identical calendar slot.
Can’t explain that watching her engineer an evening around her brother’s love life while I’m currently part of her brother’s love life is the kind of irony that has no good resolution at a cocktail party.
Me: Wouldn’t miss it. 7PM.
Sloane: YES. This is going to be so good. Wear something that makes you feel powerful.
I look at the instruction for a moment.
Sloane doesn’t know she’s echoing Dominic.
I put the phone down and return to work. Forty-eight line items of coverage targets, media contacts, and a press release that has been rewritten four times and is still not quite right. I manage eleven minutes of productive focus before the phone buzzes with a different weight entirely.
Gerald: Sloane told me you’re coming Thursday.
Me: Did she tell you why she’s so excited about it?
Gerald: The gala. Networking. Her words.
I stare at that.
He doesn’t know.
Me: She’s setting you up with her colleague. Lisa. Marketing executive. Loves architecture. Sloane’s been planning this for weeks.
The three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again, then stop.
A longer pause than his usual response time.
Gerald: I see
Two words. Completely level. The written equivalent of his face doing nothing.
Me: That’s all you have to say.
Gerald: What would you like me to say?
Me: I don’t know. Something. You’re going to spend the evening being introduced to someone Sloane has personally selected for you and your response is I see.
Gerald: What’s the alternative? She didn’t ask my permission.
Me: You could tell her you’re not interested.
Gerald: In what? She hasn’t told me anything. As far as I know it’s the gala.
Which is true. And still makes my jaw tight.
Me: So you’re going to let her do it.
Gerald: What exactly would you like me to do?
Me: Tell her you’re seeing someone.
Three dots. A pause.
Gerald: And when she asks who?
I don’t answer immediately. Because there it is — the wall we keep walking up to and then standing in front of. The full sentence exists: tell her it’s me. Four words. The simplest possible solution. The one that ends the gala and Lisa and all of it in a single conversation.
And neither of us says it.
Me: Could you at least seem less calm about this.
Gerald: I’m not calm. I’m contained. There’s a difference.
Me: What does contained look like right now?
Gerald: Like not calling my sister to say: don’t set me up — when she hasn’t told me she’s setting me up. If I call her, her first question is how do you know? Her second is who told you? And you don’t call me, Vera. Not in the version of us she has.
I read that last line twice.
You don’t call Vera. Not in the version of us she has.
That’s the whole problem, isn’t it. We have built something real and we have built it inside a story that doesn’t include it, and the story is the only thing Sloane can see.
Me: So I go. And watch.
Gerald: You go. And I spend the evening across a room from you pretending I don’t know the sound you make when I’m deep inside of you.
Me: Bastard.
Gerald: Thursday. See you there.
Me: You better behave.
Gerald: I’ll try. Can’t promise.
Thursday arrives before I’m ready for it.
Three days of knowing what I’d agreed to.
Three days of sitting with what it would cost to walk into Kane’s professional world, his colleagues, his clients, his sister’s setup, and pretending I’m nothing to him.
Not logistics. Just the knowledge of what it would cost to stand in that room and perform indifference.
Thirty minutes in front of my closet.
The red dress: too obvious. The blue: too casual. The champagne: too bridal.
Black silk wins. Elegant, sophisticated, a neckline that suggests without screaming. The kind of dress that says I belong here.
Except I don’t. Not as his.
I do my makeup with extra care. Smoky eyes. MAC Ruby Woo, my armor. Statement earrings that catch the light. Loose waves that took forty minutes and three YouTube tutorials. When I’m done, I look like someone who has her shit together.
A text lights up my phone.
Gerald: What are you wearing tonight?
Me: Wouldn’t you like to know.
Gerald: Black. You’re wearing black.
Me: How did you know?
Gerald: Because you always wear black when you need armor.
Me: Maybe I like black.
Gerald: Maybe. Or maybe you’re as nervous as I am.
Me: You? Nervous?
Gerald: Terrified. Of seeing you and not being able to touch you.
My breath catches.
Gerald: Of watching other men look at you and not being able to tell them you’re mine.
Me: Am I? Yours?
Gerald: Yes.
One word. I read it three times.
Me: Prove it.
Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.
Gerald: Careful what you ask for.
Sloane picks me up at six-thirty, talking nonstop about quarterly projections and difficult clients and how Lisa is definitely going to love Kane. She says Lisa’s name three times before we hit the bridge. I drink my water and say nothing.
“You’re quiet.” She glances at me at a red light. “Everything okay?”
“Just tired. Long week.”
“Well, perk up! Tonight there is an open bar, a gorgeous venue, and we get to watch my brother potentially meet his future wife, what’s not to love?”
Future wife.
I force a smile. “Can’t wait.”
The gallery is all floor-to-ceiling windows, the Chicago skyline beyond the river, architectural models lit like sculpture.
A jazz quartet plays something low in the corner. The whole room smells of white wine and warm stone. Clean lines everywhere. Expensive simplicity. Kane’s aesthetic made physical.
I scan the crowd and find him immediately.
He’s near a scale model of what looks like a museum, talking to an older couple. Charcoal suit. Burgundy tie. Every inch the successful architect.
Our eyes meet across the room.
The impact lands — heat and want and the memory of his hands in my hair. He holds my gaze while nodding at whatever the couple is saying. His gaze feels like a warning. A promise.
Behave.
“There’s Lisa!” Sloane tugs me forward.
Lisa is objectively gorgeous. Sleek dark hair, tailored navy dress, perfect posture, a warm smile she doesn’t have to manufacture. She extends her hand. Firm grip. No hesitation.
“Vera! So good to finally meet you properly.” Her handshake is firm. “Sloane talks about you constantly. Your PR work sounds fascinating.”
“Thanks. Sloane mentioned you two work together?”
“Same firm, different departments. I handle corporate branding.” She laughs, genuine, easy. “We actually almost ended up on the same Alderton pitch last year. Different agencies, different briefs — I heard your firm’s narrative strategy was what closed it.”
She’s exactly who Sloane described.
I want to push her into the nearest architectural model.
“Small world,” I hear myself say.
“There’s Kane!” Sloane waves him over.
He approaches. Lisa’s posture shifts, barely, but I see it. She angles toward him. Her smile brightens.
“Lisa.” He shakes her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
Two seconds. Maybe three. Long enough.
Then his gaze slides to me. “Vera.”
My name. Low, with the slight rasp that lives under his professional voice. My skin flushes.
“Sinclair.” I take a sip of champagne.
“I read about the Harwick Cultural Center,” Lisa says to Kane. “The adaptive reuse approach — converting a decommissioned textile mill into a performance space. That’s not an obvious solution.”
She did her homework. Older project. Not the one everyone leads with.
“The bones were there,” Kane says.
They look good together. Both polished. Both speaking the same language. Both uncomplicated.
My champagne sits flat on my tongue.
“They’re perfect together, right?” Sloane whispers in my ear.
I make a noncommittal sound.
Kane glances at his watch. “I should make the rounds. Excuse me.” He nods to Lisa. “Enjoy the rest of the evening.”
“Of course.” Lisa watches him go.
When he’s out of earshot, Sloane turns to her. “Well?”
Lisa tilts her head, still looking in the direction he walked. “He’s very interesting.”
Something tightens in my chest that I have no right to name.
“Isn’t he?” Sloane says.
“I’m going to do a little networking.” Lisa touches Sloane’s arm. “I’ll find you before the end of the night.” She smiles at me. “Lovely meeting you, Vera.”
She walks away. Poised. Unhurried.
“See?” Sloane grins, turning to me the moment he’s gone. “Perfect for him.”
“I think Kane should date whoever he wants. Not who his sister picks.”