Page 130 of Suite 7

I work the room. The Harrington group near the east window — their nonprofit rebranding has been in the press for the wrong reasons and they know it. I spend twelve minutes with them and leave with a follow-up meeting on Tuesday. A journalist from City Profile who covers architecture and culture and who is currently very interested in the story of a firm that builds sustainably in a city that mostly doesn’t. I give her Vera Beckett, PR, and my card, and she gives me her editor’s name unprompted.

I am, objectively, very good at this.

My phone buzzes.

Gerald: Private viewing room. End of the east corridor. Five minutes.

I look up without meaning to, and find him across the room immediately, the way I always do. He’s not looking at me. He’s listening to someone, patient, one hand in his pocket.

Then his eyes move to mine. Hold. Move away.

I shouldn’t.

I find Sloane across the room. She’s deep in conversation with two women I don’t recognize, wine glass in hand, fully occupied. She won’t miss me for five minutes.

I set my glass down on a passing tray and drift toward the edge of the room. Unhurried. The way you move when you’re going nowhere in particular.

The east corridor is dim, separate from the noise of the gala. My heels are quiet on the stone floor. A door at the end, no signage, no light underneath it.

I glance both ways. Empty.

I slip inside and close the door behind me.

The room is dark except for the city bleeding through a floor-to-ceiling window at the far end. Large canvases on three walls, unlit, shapes in the shadows. A space that exists between events, between openings, between the public version of this building and whatever happens when no one is watching.

Kane’s already here. Leaning against the window ledge, arms crossed, tie loosened, jacket gone somewhere. The city lights spread behind him.

“You came,” he says.

“You knew I would.”

The corner of his mouth lifts. “Lock it.”

I turn back to the door. The click sounds impossibly loud.

“Now come here.”

I cross the space. He uncrosses his arms and I walk straight into them. His hands find my waist and pull me against him.

“You wore it,” he says, against my hair.

“You asked me to.”

His lips brush my temple. “Good girl.”

The praise lands differently here — not the dungeon, not a scene. This is Kane in a dark room at his own professional event, slightly undone, telling me I did well.

“You’re evil,” I breathe.

“Tell me.” He pulls back to look at my face. His eyes are dark. “What was it like?”

“You know. You had the remote.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

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—”