Kaleb shakes his head slowly. “But at what cost, Raina?”
“Hold on,” I reply. “The rest came a little bit later. We’ve always had chemistry, okay? Alex, Max, Vincent, and me… we just clicked.” I pause as he rolls his eyes. “I know it’s not what you want to hear, but it’s the truth. It happened because it was meant to happen. No judgment, no remorse, no shame because it was natural; it felt natural.”
“It’s wrong on so many levels.”
“But it’s my life, Kaleb. They’ve given me something I’ve never experienced before: real emotional safety, real respect, real support. They built me up when I wasn’t even sure I could hack it. And it wasn’t charity, it wasn’t pity, it was pure.” I pause again for him to roll his eyes. “We want to be together, all of us.”
“How would a relationship with them even work? Have you thought of that at all? What will the public say?”
I chuckle softly. “Do I even care about the public?”
“You should. You’re a highly respected chef in Portland. And if you carry on with The Black Swan, more and more people will hear about you. What will they say when they hear you’re hooking up with three men at once, three men who also happen to own one of the dirtiest businesses in the country?”
“Kaleb, it’s not like that at all.”
“Oh, come on! People pay top dollar to get in there so they can get spanked, hog-tied, and fucked in every possible hole. It’s just dressed up in fancy outfits and snazzy dinners, high-priced liquor, and luxury furniture. But that’s all there is.”
“No, Haus of Sin is a lot more than that, and you’d know it, too, if you’d simply take part in one of their private events,” I reply. “Yes, it’s got the whole kink thing going, but there are layers. And it was a wonderful challenge for me to put together those menus, to prepare those dishes, and to end the season with a round of applause. I couldn’t have done it without Alex, Vincent, and Max.”
I take a deep breath. The world is still spinning, along with the café and all the chairs and tables around us. The people seem to melt away while I hold onto the edge of our table, cold sweat bursting through my pores as everything turns white.
“Raina, are you okay?” I hear Kaleb, but I can barely see him now.
“Kaleb…”
I want to say something else, something more, but I lost my train of thought. I wanted to explain my feelings, to make him understand. But my body has hijacked the conversation, and I’ve lost control of my senses altogether. I don’t know what’s happening, but I feel weak.
Lightheaded.
The blurry image before me shifts as I fall out of my chair.
“Raina!” Kaleb calls out.
I feel the cold floor as I land, and everything goes dark.
“I came as soonas Kaleb called me,” Vivian says as she rushes into the hospital room, looking as if she literally ran straight out of court. “How are you feeling, honey?”
Kaleb gets up from his chair to greet her. “I figured you’d want to be here with her. They haven’t given us a diagnosis yet. They just ran a battery of tests, and they told us to wait in here.”
“Raina?” Vivian asks me, her brow furrowed with concern.
“I’m okay, I think. I’ve been feeling off for a little while. I just didn’t think it was this serious,” I say with a weak smile. “I figured it was work-related stress or just sudden life changes, anxiety, I don’t know. Losing my gig at The Kane, the whole thing with Jeremy, then… this,” I motion toward Kaleb. “The whole mess with Haus of Sin.”
“That was a mess of your own making,” my brother defensively replies and crosses his arms. He’s one pout away from being the eight-year-old Kaleb, who had to share his Halloween treats with me.
I give him a hard look. “Just because you don’t agree with my choices doesn’t make it a mess. What made it a mess was your reaction. You blew everything out of proportion.”
Vivian steps in. “You both need to take a deep breath right about now. We’re in the hospital and Raina passed out. You need to calm down.” She looks at Kaleb. “And you. Save that sanctimonious bullshit for another conversation. Your sister needs you.”
A moment passes in awkward silence—one of many that my brother and I have had since he found out about the guys andme. He takes his seat while Vivian settles on the edge of my bed, one hand resting on my calf.
“How are you feeling right now?” she asks. “Still dizzy or weak?”
“No, just ridiculously hungry,” I say. “Did you leave court for this?”
“We’re in recess until tomorrow. I presented the judge with some new evidence, and he needs some time to go over it before we proceed,” she says, “evidence Jeremy was supposed to log in with the rest in discovery but didn’t.”
“He keeps racking up reasons to get fired, huh?”
