23. Vera #3
His thumbs trace slow circles through the silk at my hips. The vibrator sits still inside me, present, a constant reminder.
“It was impossible. I could feel you everywhere and I couldn’t look at you and every time it changed I had to act like nothing was happening—”
“The Whitfields.” His expression warms. “You were brilliant.”
“I almost wasn’t.”
“But you were.” He tips my chin up. “I saw the exact moment you stopped fighting. The way your shoulders dropped.” His thumb traces my jaw. “You let me have it. In front of two hundred people who had no idea.”
The tenderness of it, after everything this night has been, makes my throat tight.
“The woman at the bar noticed you watching me.”
“I know.”
“That doesn’t worry you?”
“Should it?” His hands slide around my back. “All she saw was a man watching a woman he can’t stop watching. That’s not a crime.”
“Kane—”
“I spent an hour in that room,” he says, “watching you talk to strangers, watching you work a room you had no reason to be comfortable in, watching you float and come back to yourself again and again.” His forehead drops to mine. “I wasn’t subtle. I’m not sorry.”
“The Lisa thing—”
“Is not a thing.”
“Sloane thinks—”
“I don’t care what Sloane thinks about Lisa. What I care about is that you had my toy inside you all night and you’re still wearing it and I’ve been thinking about this moment since you walked into that gallery.”
The vibrator pulses once.
I make a sound that is not dignified.
“Still green?” he murmurs.
“Extremely.”
The space between us closes before I track how it happens — his hand finding the back of my head, tilting me up, and then his mouth is on mine.
Not the consuming kiss of the dungeon. Slower. His mouth moves against mine, slow. No rush in it at all.
I melt into him. My hands find his chest, the warmth of him, his heart faster than usual.
He walks me backward until my hips meet the window ledge. His hands slide to my waist, lifting me onto it. Then steps between my knees.
“I watched you all night,” he says against my mouth.
“Every time someone talked to you. Every time you laughed. Every time you pretended not to know I was there.” His lips move to my jaw, my throat.
“Do you know what that does to me? Watching you be extraordinary in a room full of people while knowing you’re wearing my mark? ”
“Kane—” His name comes out broken.
His hands slide into my hair. “In that room with all those people, you’re mine. Lisa can talk to me about sustainable design all night. It doesn’t matter. You know why?”
“Why,” I whisper.
“Because you’re the one who trusts me.” He kisses me again, deeper.
The vibrator pulses again, longer, and I gasp into his mouth and my hands fist in his shirt and I stop thinking about the two hundred people forty feet away —
His hands are in my hair and mine are pulling his shirt loose and his mouth is at my neck —
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.
“Kane? You in here?”
We freeze.
Sloane.
Kane’s eyes find mine in the dark. His gaze moves — deliberate, brief — to the far corner.
I slide off the ledge. Move fast, barefoot, heels in my hand, into the shadow behind the pillar. A canvas leans against it — large, unframed. In the dark I can just make out the blurred fields of color. A Rothko.
I press my back against the pillar. From here I can see the door, the thin line of corridor light beneath it. I cannot be seen.
Kane crosses the floor. The lock disengages.
“Hey.” Controlled. Completely controlled. “What’s up?”
“What are you doing in here?” Sloane sounds amused, easy, unsuspecting. The door opens wider and light spills in a narrow wedge across the floor. “Your assistant said you’d disappeared.”
“Needed a minute. It’s a lot of people.”
“Fair.” A pause. I can hear her looking around the room. My pulse is very loud. “Come back out. Lisa’s looking for you.”
I press myself flatter against the pillar.
“I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Well don’t be long.” Her voice softens. “Actually, Kane. About the whole Lisa thing. I know you think I meddle.”
“You do meddle.”
“I meddle because I love you.” No deflection. Just her. “You deserve someone good. Someone who makes you happy. Someone uncomplicated who won’t bring drama into your life.”
Someone uncomplicated.
I’m hidden behind a painting in a dark room with his vibrator inside me.
“I hear you,” Kane says. Not one thing in his voice.
“Just think about it. She’s lovely. And she actually understands what you do.” A pause. “Have you seen Vera, by the way? I’ve been looking for her.”
I stop breathing.
“Vera? No. Why?”
“She keeps disappearing. She seemed off all night — flushed, distracted. I’m a little worried.”
She was worried. She has been walking around this gala, looking for me, worried about me.
While I was in here kissing her brother.
I press my forehead to the cold pillar and stay very still.
“She probably stepped outside,” Kane says. “You know her. If she needs air, she takes it.”
“I checked the side entrance.”
“Try the front. I think I saw her heading that way earlier.”
“Okay. Yeah.” Sloane sounds reassured. “Will you come help me look in a few minutes? Just — I want to know she’s okay.”
“I’ll be right there.”
“Thanks.” Genuine warmth. “You’re a good brother, you know that?”
His voice through the door gives nothing away. I know what that costs him.
“You’ve mentioned it.”
She laughs. “Don’t let it go to your head.” Her footsteps retreat, and then the door closes.
Kane doesn’t move. Ten seconds. Then he exhales — one long, controlled breath — and turns toward the corner.
I step out from behind the canvas. My heels still in my hand. My dress twisted. My heart hammering.
He looks at me.
“Not a word,” I say.
“You hid behind a Rothko.”
“I said not a word.”
He holds out his hand. I take it, as I’m standing on legs that aren’t entirely reliable. I catch my reflection in the dark window: lipstick slightly destroyed, hair displaced, eyes too bright.
The two of us here in the quiet while his sister walks the gala floor looking for me in good faith.
I let the weight of it settle fully before I open my mouth.
“She was worried,” I say. Flat. “Walking around that whole gala, actually worried about me.”
He doesn’t say anything.
“And she told you right to your face that you deserve someone uncomplicated and you said I hear you and she has no idea—”
“Vera.”
“She doesn’t even know it yet and I’m already the thing she’d want to protect you from.”
His jaw works. He lifts his hand toward me. “You’re not—“
“Go.” I turn to the window, find my reflection in the dark glass, apply my lipstick with hands that are barely steady. “She’s waiting.”
He looks at me for a moment — the complicated expression still there, still unresolved. Then he nods.
Becomes Kane Sinclair, Principal Architect, good brother, professional host.
I know all the versions of him. That’s the problem. That’s why I can’t stop.
He leaves without another word.
I count to sixty.
I sit on the ledge and put my heels back on. Then the door opens quietly. The corridor is empty. I move back through it the way I came and find a side exit near the end of the hall. Once outside I press my back against the brick and breathe.
My phone buzzes.
Gerald: She’s going to look for you near the main entrance.
Gerald: I should have been more careful tonight. I’m sorry.
The apology is precise, contained, entirely Kane. Not I’m so sorry but the specific thing he got wrong, named directly. I stand in the cold and read it twice.
Then I walk around to the main entrance. Through the glass doors.
Sloane finds me immediately.
“There you are!” The relief on her face is genuine. “Where have you been?”
“Outside.” At least this part is true. “Got overheated.”
“You’ve been acting strange all night. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. Can we go soon?”
She hesitates. “Let me say goodbye to Kane. He helped me look for you.”
He kept her occupied while I hid and panicked.
I follow her with my eyes until she finds him. The guilt settles heavy in my sternum.
She trusts me. Loves me. Was genuinely worried.
And I’m destroying that with every breath.
In the car, Sloane talks about the gala. About how well it went. About Lisa.
“Lisa seemed interested! I totally saw Kane smile at her during the architecture discussion.”
Sloane drops me at my loft with a cheerful hug. “That was fun! Love you, weirdo.”
“Love you too.”
I watch her taillights until they disappear. Then I climb the stairs, close the door, and sink onto my couch in the dark, still wearing the black dress.
My phone buzzes.
Gerald: Thank you.
Me: For what?
Gerald: For trusting me tonight. Even when it was hard. Even when it was risky.
Me: You wouldn’t have let me fail.
Gerald: No. I wouldn’t.
I set my phone aside and close my eyes.
We need to tell Sloane the truth, soon. I know that the way you know things in your body before your mind has finished the sentence — not as a warning anymore. As a fact.