Four Of A Kind

The car ride blurred together in Vivienne’s memory like watercolors bleeding into each other. Smooth leather seats that smelled faintly of expensive conditioning oil. Classical music drifting from hidden speakers at just the right volume. Her father’s voice as he pointed out constellation patterns through the sunroof, naming each cluster of stars and sharing the ancient stories that gave them meaning. Orion the eternal hunter. Cassiopeia the vain queen who challenged the gods themselves. Perseus and his impossible quests that somehow always ended in victory.

Vivienne fought to stay conscious through sheer determination. She wanted to absorb every story, memorize the exact cadence of his voice when he explained how ancient sailors used these same stars to navigate vast oceans and find their way home across impossible distances. But her eyelids kept growing heavy. Her head kept dipping toward her chest.

“Sleep if you need to, ma chérie. Don’t fight it.”

“But you’re still talking,” she protested, words slurring together as sleep tugged at her consciousness. “I want to hear all the stories.”

“The constellations will still be there tomorrow night, and the night after that. The stories aren’t going anywhere.”

“Do you promise?”

“I promise with absolute certainty.”

She let her head drift to rest against his shoulder. The suit jacket felt impossibly soft against her cheek. He smelled like cedar wood and something sweetly complex—his cologne probably, layered with the lingering fragrance of roses still cradled in her arms.

Papa’s hand settled on her hair with butterfly lightness. His fingers moved in gentle strokes, the same rhythm he’d used when she was tiny and scared of thunderstorms that shook the manor’s windows.

“I’m so incredibly proud of you,” he said quietly, his voice pitched for her ears alone. The words felt secret and precious, like a gift meant only for her. “Not simply because of the performance, though it was breathtaking to watch. But because you worked so relentlessly hard. Because you refused to give up when the turns were difficult and frustrating.”

Warmth flooded her chest—pure love and safety and the bone-deep certainty that someone truly saw her. Not the heiress in training. Not the perfect daughter performing for cameras. Just Vivienne, exactly as she was.

“Love you, Papa,” she mumbled into his shoulder.

“Je t’aime, mon étoile. Plus que tu ne le sauras jamais.”

The car rocked gently as they navigated the city’s evening traffic. Streetlights blurred into streams of gold and white outside the windows. Papa’s heartbeat thrummed steady and strong beneath her ear, each pulse a silent promise that he would always be there, always catch her when she stumbled, always postpone meetings in Chicago because his daughters mattered infinitely more than any business obligation.

Sleep claimed her completely, pulling her down into perfect darkness.

Safe. Loved. Warm. Protected.

The dream held her in its embrace like her father’s arms—until reality crept in at the edges.

Vivienne surfaced from sleep slowly, consciousness returning in reluctant waves.

The memory clung to her awareness like morning mist, sticky and persistent and refusing to dissipate. She could still smell cedar wood lingering in her nostrils. Still feel the phantom warmth of her father’s protective arm around her shoulders.

But something was wrong with the sensory details.

Not cedar. Coffee and clean soap and something fundamentally masculine that definitely didn’t belong to Papa.

The heartbeat beneath her ear carried an entirely different rhythm than her father’s.

Awareness assembled itself piece by careful piece. Her current position registered first—she was lying completely on top of someone else, her cheek pressed against a chest that rose and fell with steady, unconscious breaths. An arm encircled her waist, holding her with loose, natural possession. Her legs had somehow tangled themselves with someone else’s limbs.

The Range Rover. The drive home from Hartwell Academy. Rock paper scissors and the ridiculous seating arrangement that had followed.

She’d won the game.

Memory clicked into place like puzzle pieces finding their proper configuration. She’d climbed deliberately into Isaiah’s lap, positioning herself sideways across his thighs with calculated precision. Felt his hand settle on her waist, fingers spreading over the strip of bare skin where her costume ended and her thigh-highs began.

The car had started moving with Sabrina behind the wheel. Cassidy had slouched against her window in sullen silence. Harlow had chattered from the front seat, her voice bright and endless as always, filling the space with commentary about everything and nothing.

Vivienne had intended to stay awake throughout the journey. Had fully planned to maintain perfect composure, keep her spine straight and controlled, demonstrate that winning the game meant nothing beyond efficient space allocation.

But exhaustion had staged a successful ambush.

The performance demands. The festival setup requirements. Her mother’s endless phone calls about quarterly projections and brand positioning. The gala preparations. The kiss in the bathroom that had consumed every spare thought since it happened.

Sleep had conquered her defenses completely.

And now she’d apparently repositioned herself entirely during her unconscious state. Moved from a controlled sideways perch across Isaiah’s lap to sprawling fully on top of him like he was a custom-fitted mattress designed specifically for her comfort. Her head rested on his chest as if it belonged there. Her arm draped across his stomach with casual intimacy. One of her legs had somehow worked itself between both of his.

This transcended efficient seating arrangements.

This was cuddling.

In a moving vehicle.

With three witnesses who would never let her forget it.

Her face burned. Heat flooded her cheeks so fast it made her dizzy. Vivienne considered moving. Sitting up. Restoring the professional distance that should exist between an heiress and her employee.

But Isaiah’s hand tightened slightly on her waist. Not conscious. Reflex. His breathing stayed deep and even.

He was asleep too.

The realization made something flutter in her chest. Isaiah Angelo, who never stopped moving, who worked himself into the ground, who survived on coffee and four hours of sleep—he’d fallen asleep with her on top of him. Trusted her enough to lower his guard.

Vivienne’s throat went tight. The dream replayed itself behind her closed eyes. Her father’s voice. His warmth. The absolute certainty that someone loved her without conditions or quarterly reviews.

Isaiah’s heartbeat thudded steady beneath her ear. Slow. Calm. The rhythm matched her father’s almost exactly.

She pressed closer. Let her weight settle more fully against him. Her fingers curled into his shirt, the vest from his vampire costume. The fabric was soft beneath her grip, worn from use in a way that spoke of thrift stores and careful maintenance. Not silk or cashmere, but somehow more comforting for its honesty.

The dream was gone. Papa was gone. Two years in the ground, leaving her to carry the company alone while Mama traveled and her sisters drifted and everything fell apart. The board meetings where she was the youngest person by twenty years. The contracts she reviewed until her eyes burned. The strategic decisions that kept her awake until three in the morning, second-guessing every choice.

But this warmth was real.

This heartbeat was real.

Isaiah was real.