Page 137 of Suite 7

“I should have said something at the gala. I apologize for that.”

She’s quiet for a moment. “I won’t say anything to Sloane.” A pause. “Whoever she is, I hope it works out.”

We say goodbye. I stand in the cold a moment, breath fogging, and think about how many people are telling me the same thing without knowing they’re telling me the same thing.

I go back inside.

Marcel settles the tab not long after. We step outside into the November cold together.

“Calling an Uber,” he says. “Had one too many.”

His ride arrives within minutes. He pauses at the car door.

“I’m not judging you for being with Vera,” he says. “If she makes you happy, that’s good.” He meets my eyes. “But the longer you wait, the more Sloane’s going to count. Every week is another week she’ll remember when she’s deciding whether to forgive you. Both of you.”

He gets in. The car pulls away.

The moment I enter my penthouse, I pour a scotch and take it to the window where I think about my sister crying alone tonight because I have been, every single day for six weeks, choosing this secret over her. Not dramatically. Not consciously.

So this: the hiding, the lying, the small daily betrayals compounding into something that might not survive. This needs to end. This weekend.

I sit with that for a moment. The way the best structural solutions arrive — not constructed but recognized. Already true before I named it. I’ve decided before the elevator doors open and Vera walks in.

She’s in jeans and an oversized sweater, overnight bag over one shoulder, hair in a messy bun. She looks like home and a problem I don’t know how to solve, both at once. Then she reads my face.

Her smile dies.

She drops her bag. Crosses to me.

“Kane. What’s wrong?”

“Sloane called me upset.”

The color leaves her face so completely I watch it go.

“She lost a client today. A big one. She’s devastated.” I meet her eyes. “She tried to reach you. All evening. You didn’t answer.”

Her brow furrows. “I was working late on the Whitfield proposal. My phone was⁠—”

She stops. Goes completely still. Then, all at once, without any single visible movement, her face settles into understanding.

“I turned my phone off.” Barely a whisper. “I turned it off because I was trying to focus and because I knew Sloane would probably call and want to talk about you and Lisa and I just — I couldn’t.”

Her hands shake as she pulls her phone from her bag. Turns it on.

We both watch the screen light up. Notification after notification.

Sloane: Can you talk?

Sloane: I need you right now

Sloane: Vera please

Sloane: I had the worst day and I just need my person, where are you?

Sloane: Where are you?

Sloane: Never mind, I’ll call Kane instead.