Four Of A Kind

I was halfway through my second waffle when I realized Sabrina had gone quiet.

Not her usual quiet, the kind that made you feel like she was cataloguing your weaknesses for later use. This was different. Her hand had gone still in mine under the table, and when I glanced over, her eyes were fixed on something in her lap. Her phone, probably. Whatever she’d read had drained the soft warmth from her face, replacing it with something cold and sharp.

"Brina?" Harlow tilted her head like a curious puppy. "You okay? You’re doing the thing where you stare at nothing and your jaw gets all tense and scary."

"I’m fine."

Two words. Flat. Final. The kind of fine that meant absolutely nothing was fine.

Cassidy snorted from across the table. "Yeah, that’s convincing. What happened? Did someone die? Did Mother finally text you about the boy toy sleeping in your bed?"

The silence that followed was answer enough.

Vivienne’s head snapped up from her tablet. Harlow’s fork clattered against her plate. Even Mrs. Tanaka, who had been quietly refilling coffee cups, paused mid-pour.

"She knows?" Vivienne’s voice had gone sharp. "Already? How?"

"Take a guess." Sabrina’s tone could have frozen the coffee in my cup. Her purple eyes flicked to Mrs. Tanaka, and the housekeeper had the decency to look away.

Ah. Right. The spy in the house. I’d known about that, theoretically. Sabrina had mentioned it yesterday during our walk through Central Park, how her mother had eyes and ears everywhere, how nothing in the Valentine household stayed secret for long. I just hadn’t expected the consequences to arrive before I’d finished breakfast.

"What does she want?" Cassidy demanded.

"A meeting. Thursday. Her office."

"That’s three days from now." Vivienne was already typing something on her tablet, probably adding this new development to one of her color-coded spreadsheets. "That gives us time to prepare. We can strategize, develop talking points, anticipate her likely objections and prepare counterarguments."

"This isn’t a board meeting, Vivi."

"Everything with Mother is a board meeting."

Harlow had gone pale, her earlier enthusiasm evaporating like morning dew. "What do you think she’ll do? She can’t actually stop us from dating Isaiah, can she? We’re seventeen. Almost eighteen. That’s practically adults."

"She can do whatever she wants." Sabrina’s voice was quiet, but there was steel underneath it. "She controls the money, the brand, the inheritance. She could make Isaiah’s life very difficult if she decided he was a problem worth eliminating."

Every eye at the table turned to me.

I took another bite of waffle. Chewed slowly. Swallowed.

"Cool," I said. "So I’m being threatened by a billionaire CEO before I’ve even finished my coffee. Monday’s gonna be rough."

Cassidy barked out a laugh, startled and genuine. "You’re insane."

"Probably." I set down my fork and met Sabrina’s eyes. "But I’m not running. I told you that last night. I meant it."

Something flickered across her face. Relief, maybe, or gratitude, or that particular brand of fear that comes from actually getting what you want and realizing you could lose it. She squeezed my hand once, hard enough that I felt her nails dig into my skin.

"We should talk about this later," Vivienne said, glancing meaningfully at Mrs. Tanaka. "Somewhere more private."

"Agreed." Sabrina pushed back from the table. "Isaiah, come with me. We need to discuss some things before you leave."

I grabbed my coffee and followed her out of the kitchen, leaving her sisters to stare after us with varying degrees of concern and curiosity. Harlow looked like she wanted to chase after us. Cassidy looked like she wanted to punch something. Vivienne was already back on her tablet, fingers moving rapidly across the screen.

One night. I’d stayed one night, and already the dominoes were falling.

Sabrina led me through the manor’s winding hallways, past rooms I hadn’t seen yesterday and artwork that probably cost more than my apartment building. She didn’t speak until we reached a door at the end of a long corridor, one that looked older than the others, the wood darker and the handle tarnished with age.

"This was my father’s study," she said, her hand resting on the doorknob. "I need to show you something."

The room beyond was exactly what I’d expected and nothing like it at the same time. Bookshelves lined every wall, stuffed with leather-bound volumes and loose papers and photographs in ornate frames. A massive desk dominated the center of the space, its surface covered in files and documents that looked like they hadn’t been touched in years. The whole place smelled like old books and expensive cologne, a scent that had somehow persisted long after the man who wore it had gone.

But it was the wall behind the desk that caught my attention.

Floor-to-ceiling photographs. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands, covering every inch of available space. The Valentine sisters at every age, from infants to toddlers to gangly preteens to the devastatingly beautiful teenagers I’d somehow ended up dating. Birthday parties and Christmas mornings and summer vacations. First days of school and graduation ceremonies. Candid shots of laughter and posed portraits of perfect smiles.

And in nearly every photo, a man who could only be Richard Valentine. Tall and handsome, with the same wine-red hair as his daughters and a smile that radiated genuine warmth. He looked nothing like the distant, calculating figure I’d imagined when Sabrina spoke of her parents. He looked like a dad. A real one. The kind who showed up and paid attention and actually gave a damn.

"He took most of these himself," Sabrina said quietly, coming to stand beside me. "He believed in documenting everything. Said memories were the only thing worth keeping."

I stared at a photo of a much younger Sabrina, maybe eight or nine, perched on her father’s shoulders with her arms thrown wide and her face split by an enormous grin. She looked like a completely different person. Open and joyful and utterly unguarded.

"You were happy."

"We all were. Before."