Page 40 of Suite 7

Can I, Vera Beckett, who has an opinion on everything, who stress-tests every tagline and reviews every brief and reorganized her bookshelf by color this afternoon because she needed to manage something, hand the reins to someone else, because I’ve decided they’re worth holding them.

I look at Kane Sinclair and I think about the way he’d checked the circulation in my wrists twice.

The amber-lit quiet afterward, his voice saying I’ve got all of it.

The door he stood at this morning with his back to me, following protocol even when I saw it costing him something.

The way he just apologized, without deflecting, when I told him he’d gotten something wrong.

And what he just said: I know what it is to have someone tell you that your nature is too much. I’m not that person.

“Yes,” I say.

He is still for a moment. Then his hand drops from the wall and he steps back, and the air between us recalibrates around the space he’s made.

“Then I’ll teach you.” His voice settles fully into the Dom register, steady and certain, the warmth underneath the control audible to anyone listening for it. “Color system applies. You understand?”

“Yes, Sir.” The honorific arrives before I’ve decided to say it, and I watch his eyes go darker at the sound of it.

“Good girl.” The warmth of it moves through me, settling something that’s been unsettled since one twelve AM.

I stay where I am for a moment, just breathing in what was just agreed. What I just said yes to. The full weight of it.

He turns toward the drafting room.

“Follow me.”

7 Vera

Kane leads me through the office, past the drafting tables to a small kitchen area I didn’t notice before. Sleek and modern, like everything else about this space. Coffee maker, mini fridge, cabinets in the same clean line as the rest of it.

“I’ve been here since noon,” he says. “Working on the Moretti Museum revisions. I haven’t eaten. Haven’t had decent coffee in hours.” He turns to face me. “You’re going to take care of that. Under my direction.”

I blink at him. “You want me to make you coffee?”

“Yes.”

A laugh escapes before I can stop it. “Seriously? That’s the lesson? Making you coffee like some 1950s housewife?”

“Do you consent to following my instructions for the next thirty minutes?”

“To make you coffee.” My voice drips skepticism.

“To find out whether you want this when it isn’t dramatic.” His eyes hold mine.

“Suite 7 is easy, Vera. Amber light, silk, the whole architecture of it designed to make surrender feel inevitable. Tonight is this room and a coffee maker and my instructions. No atmosphere. No equipment. Just whether you can follow my lead when it’s ordinary. Do you consent?”

The challenge pricks at my pride, which is probably exactly what it’s designed to do.

“Fine. I consent.”

“Good girl.”

I roll my eyes.

“Excuse me?” His voice drops. “Did you just roll your eyes at me?”

“I — no — I mean—” Caught.