Page 51 of Suite 7

Then I turn toward the hallway.

My footsteps echo against the hardwood. Past the guest bedroom I never use. Past the bathroom with its marble counters, bath and rainfall shower.

I stop in front of the door at the end.

The only door in this entire penthouse that stays locked.

I reach out, fingers finding the keypad beside the frame. The numbers glow soft blue under my touch. I punch in the code — six digits I’ve never written down, never shared, never forgotten.

The lock releases. Soft as a held breath.

Warm amber lights rise gradually as I step inside. The space is exactly as I left it. Perfect and controlled. St. Andrew’s Cross against the far wall, dark wood polished to a gleam. I run my hand along the smooth surface. The night I finished building it, I’d stood in this exact spot and believed I was finally whole. Then Vanessa walked in.

Five years ago. This same room. This same amber light.

I had prepared everything carefully. Done it right. Done it safe. Four years together, and I had read her responses as invitation when they were courtesy. Her laughter as yes when it was only comfort. I built the room believing it was a gift.

She called it a torture room. Said I was sick. Pathological.

I catalogued and filed those words. I know how to do that.

What I couldn’t file was the morning after. She was getting ready and I came to the doorway and she saw me in the mirror. She stepped back — not in surprise. Just back. Four years in my bed, and her face went blank the way a stranger’s does.

That was the moment. Not the words.

She left. I locked the door.

For two years I tried to be someone who didn’t need this space to exist. It wasn’t sustainable. The need to be the person someone surrenders to — to carry that weight and be worthy of it — was structural. Something I’d been designing around my whole life without ever naming what it was. Remove it and nothing held.

Then I found Eclipse, and Dominic took one look at me and knew. Three years of learning that what I needed wasn’t wrong. That it could be the opposite of harm.

And still. Vanessa’s words — sick, pathological — I never handed those back. I know now what she was wrong about. I know what this is and what it isn’t, what it costs and what it gives. I’ve seen it done with care, with honesty, with someone who chooses it freely, and I know it’s one of the most intimate things two people can build together.

I also know what it looks like from the outside to someone who doesn’t understand it. I know what it cost me when it was misread by someone I thought knew me. And I’ve never been willing to find out if the people I love most would see it the same way she did.

So Sloane doesn’t know. No one outside the community does. They see Kane Sinclair, architect. Controlled. Professional. Whatever normal looks like from the outside. They don’t see the part I locked behind this door.

For years that’s been enough. Two separate lives, clean edges, no overlap. Eclipse stays Eclipse. Everything else stays everything else. The system works because the people in one world don’t exist in the other.

And then there’s Vera.

Vera, who likes to argue with me about everything and challenges me in more ways than one. Who is woven into my life in ways that have nothing to do with this room — and who is also, undeniably, exactly what this room is for.

One person. And the clean edges dissolve.

I could stop it. The rational move — end the arrangement, return to the version of this where she’s only Sloane’s best friend and I’m only her brother. Restore the separation.

The thought lasts about three seconds.

Because if I’m honest — and I have been, with Dominic, in the way you can only be honest with someone who already knows what you are — she is exactly what I told him I was looking for. Exactly that. I just didn’t expect her to have a name I already knew.

I check every piece of equipment in the room. Test restraint points on the Cross. Verify padding on the spanking bench. Ensure everything is clean and maintained.

This room is years of learning what I need. Who I am. For five years — two locked in shame, three in cautious acceptance — it’s been a sanctuary I visited alone.

Now I’m sharing it.

By six-thirty, everything is ready.