Page 124 of Suite 7

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?