She produced a water bottle from literally nowhere, holding it out like it was a sacred offering. How did she even have that? We were in a car two seconds ago. Did she have so kind of ergency water bottle pocket sewn into her costu?
"Why would I need water?"
"Because girls crying dehydrate themselves faster than you’d think." Iris shoved it into my hands with the kind of authority that suggested this was based on extensive research rather than fourteen-year-old speculation. "And because you’re going to be there a while."
"I’m not—"
"Big brother?" She went up on her toes, kissed my cheek like she used to when she was little and I’d walk her to elentary school, back when our biggest worry was whether the free lunch program would have enough food for everyone. "You’re allowed to care about people. It’s not illegal."
My chest did sothing weird. Tight and warm and painful all at once, like my heart was trying to rember how to feel things it had forgotten how to process.
"When did you get so smart?"
"I’ve always been smart. You just never notice because you’re too busy being a martyr." She patted my shoulder, actually patted it, like I was the kid and she was the adult trying to talk sense into a particularly stubborn teenager. "Now go. Before she starts color-coding her emotions again or whatever rich people do when they’re sad."
Iris disappeared through the front door with the kind of confident stride that suggested she owned the place. Mrs. Tanaka materialized from the shadows like she’d been waiting there all along, which she probably had. The woman had an uncanny ability to appear whenever emotional crises were brewing, ard with practical solutions and maternal wisdom wrapped in professional discretion.
"Miss Vivienne is in the Archive," she said, her tone carefully neutral, the kind of professional poker face that revealed nothing while sohow communicating everything. "She requested not to be disturbed."
"Did she specifically say not to be disturbed, or did she just not say she wanted company?"
Mrs. Tanaka’s lips twitched in what might have been amusent if she were the type of person who showed such things while on duty. "You’re learning."
"Is that a yes or a no?"
"That’s a ’the Archive doors are unlocked, Mr. Angelo, and I will be in the kitchen if anyone requires tea.’" She bowed slightly, the gesture carrying decades of practice and genuine respect. "I suggest chamomile. It helps with crying headaches."
Then she vanished with the silent efficiency that all the manor staff had perfected, leaving alone in the foyer with a water bottle, terrible life choices, and the growing certainty that I was about to do sothing monuntally stupid that would probably end with my employnt contract being terminated and my body being found in the Long Island Sound.
The smart play was obvious. Go upstairs to my temporary room, pack my minimal belongings, drive back to Philadelphia, and forget that Valentine quadruplets existed outside of magazine covers and internet gossip forums. Let them fight over soone who actually belonged in their world instead of so scholarship case who’d stumbled into their lives because he was too broke to afford reliable transportation.
My feet started walking toward the west wing.
Traitors.
The mansion was different at night. Quieter, sohow more imposing, all the staff having retreated to whatever quarters they disappeared to when the family didn’t need them hovering in the background like well-dressed ghosts. The portraits lining the halls watched climb the stairs with their usual judgntal expressions, generations of Valentine ancestors who’d probably never had to worry about student loans or whether the electricity bill was getting paid on ti. I was pretty sure Great-Great-Grandfather Valentine on the second-floor landing actually scowled harder than usual, his painted eyes following my progress with obvious disapproval.
"Yeah, yeah," I muttered under my breath. "I’m trash. We’ve established this. Your great-great-granddaughter kissed anyway."
The third floor hallway stretched forever, lined with more paintings and disapproving dead people who’d probably roll over in their expensive graves if they knew what their descendants were up to. The carpet was so thick my footsteps didn’t make a sound, which was probably intentional. Rich people loved their dramatic silent approaches, their ability to appear and disappear without warning like aristocratic ninjas.
The Archive doors were at the end of the hall, exactly where Harlow had said they’d be. Double doors, gold handles that probably did cost more than most people’s cars, but the important part was the thin line of light bleeding through the crack between them.
Still open.
Mrs. Tanaka had been right.
I stopped with my hand on one of the handles, the tal cool under my palm, expensive in the way everything in this house was expensive—substantial, weighty, designed to last longer than the people who used it. I could walk away. Should walk away. Go back to my room and pretend this night had never happened, pretend I hadn’t spent the last hour thinking about the way Vivienne had felt when she’d fallen asleep against , warm and trusting and completely unlike the controlled corporate princess she presented to the world.
The water bottle in my other hand was plastic. Cheap. The kind you got in twelve-packs at warehouse stores when you were watching every penny. Normal. Real. A reminder of the world I actually belonged to.
I pushed open the door.
The Archive was exactly as ridiculous as I’d imagined, and sohow worse. Fifty feet of climate-controlled designer excess, racks organized by color and season and designer and probably astrological compatibility for all I knew. Glass cases displaying shoes that cost more than my annual rent. Display tables with accessories arranged like museum pieces, each item carefully lit and positioned to show maximum aesthetic impact.
And in the middle of it all, sitting on the polished marble floor with her knees pulled to her chest, her vampire cape pooled around her like spilled wine, was Vivienne.
She looked up when I entered, and the sight of her red-rimd eyes hit like a physical blow to the chest.
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