All Chapters of Sanctified Sin: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The bar was called Black Velvet & Lace.Nothing about it was soft, nor elegant.It was dark, loud in the quietest way, and unapologetically indecent. The kind of place your husband would condemn in a sermon—then visit on a business trip with someone who wasn’t his wife. The walls were black brick. The mirrors were stained with fingerprints. The booths looked like confessionals for sins you didn’t want forgiven.Eden had passed it a hundred times before. Always in passing. Always in judgment.Tonight, she walked in like she was the warning on the door.Her heels snapped against the polished concrete. Her dress—black, backless, feral—moved like it knew this was war. She didn’t come to be asked if she was okay. She came to taste freedom. To get drunk on defiance. To find the version of herself she’d locked in a prayer closet a decade ago and finally give her the mic.She wasn’t looking for anyone.But she knew how to be seen.Heads turned. A man spilled his drink. A woman with wine-dark

The drive felt longer than she remembered.Maybe because she wasn’t racing home anymore. There was no urgency in her chest, no voice reminding her to smile before walking through the front door. Just the hum of tires on asphalt, her hand loose on the wheel, and the steady ache in her shoulders that hadn’t left in weeks.She turned onto the bypass just as the sun started to dip behind a stretch of farmland. A streak of rust-colored light hit the windshield, and then—A sound.A slow guitar intro that pulled her back two decades before she could stop it.Then that voice—clear, aching, undeniable.“You could be my silver spring… blue-green colors flashing…”“Silver Springs.”Her hand froze on the dial.She hadn’t heard it since college—since cutoff shorts, bonfires, and singing into the wind with no one to impress but herself. Before worship sets replaced playlists. Before she started skipping songs that made her feel.Eden didn’t switch it off. She turned it up.The chorus rolled in lik

Eden didn’t knock.The driver opened the door to the private dining suite, and she walked in like she’d done it a hundred times—heels clicking against polished concrete, blazer dress hugging her like a second skin.It was black. Clean-cut. A satin lapel ran down the sharp neckline, open just enough to suggest confidence, not invitation. The hem hit mid-thigh—balanced by long sleeves and sharp shoulders that made her look like both a closing argument and a dare.Her heels matched—matte black, pointed, no embellishment.Her silver necklace caught the light, just barely.Her hair was parted down the middle, smoothed behind her ears.Her eyes did the talking.Callum Calhoun stood as she entered. He wore charcoal. No tie. Cuffs rolled once at the wrist. A man who knew what fit without needing flash.For a moment, they just looked at each other.No greeting. No tension.Just recognition.He gestured to the table. “You clean up well.”“I wasn’t dirty,” she replied, sliding into her chair.He

EdenBy 9:12 a.m., Eden had already undone three people with a single sentence and a stare.Not because she was harsh—but because people weren’t used to a woman who didn’t waste words. She didn’t apologize for asking the right questions. She didn’t soften her tone. She didn’t smile unless it was earned.And that?That made people scramble to rise to her level.The office was sleek—glass, steel, quiet corridors with expensive art that felt more like a statement than decoration. It didn’t intimidate her. She liked the quiet hum of power in the air. It matched the rhythm she was learning to trust in herself again.She had spent the first hour reviewing the rebrand strategy for a celebrity fitness mogul whose PR team was in full damage control mode. She had ideas. Clean ones. Bold. She marked up a proposal, jotted notes in the margins, and handed them off to the exec assigned to the project without asking permission.“Eden?” Callum’s voice floated through the office intercom just after te

The office was quiet—just the hum of the city beyond the glass and the low clink of ice in Callum’s glass.Eden stood barefoot near the window, one heel kicked off, the other dangling from her hand. Her jumpsuit clung to her like liquid confidence, but the tension in her shoulders betrayed the storm underneath. She didn’t know if she wanted to talk or touch. She only knew she wanted to feel something—and he was standing ten feet away holding everything she hadn’t let herself want in years.Behind her, Callum stared like a man trying not to unravel.“You always this tense after a good pitch?” she asked without turning.He took a slow sip, watching the curve of her back. “Only when the room’s not the most impressive thing I saw today.”She turned then.Her hair was down, her expression unreadable.“I thought you didn’t do flattery.”“I don’t,” he said. “That wasn’t flattery. That was fact.”The air thickened.She set her heel on the ledge, bracing her palm beside it. “Tell me something