The Bentley Mulsanne glided through Eldenwood's wrought-iron gates. Vivian Vaughn pressed her forehead against cool tinted glass, watching moonlight gild Adrian Stone's bicycle as he pedaled toward the financial district's edge. Three blocks behind them, subsidized housing hunched in concrete shadows—the world Adrian navigated nightly.
Melody snapped her Chanel compact shut. "Dean Blackwood summoned me today. His exact words: 'Restrain your sister's hormonal theatrics around Stone.'"
Vivian traced a fog circle on the window. "How thrilling for you—playing messenger pigeon."
"The Stone Sentinel," Melody enunciated each syllable like a curse, "is applying to Cambridge. Your juvenile stunts jeopardize his recommendation letters."
Leonard's knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. Twenty-three years driving for the Vaughns taught him this: Miss Vivian's tantrums were thunderstorms—loud but brief. Miss Melody's silences were poison ivy—itchy and persistent.
Melody: (Leaning forward) "Leonard? Does Stone's bicycle seem... perilously vintage?"
Leonard: (Clearing throat) "Appears functional, Miss Melody."
Vivian: "Unlike your concern for Adrian's academic future." She mimed gagging. "Crush looks pathetic on you, Mel."
Melody: (Flushing) "Don't project your desperation onto—"
Vivian: "Admit it! You've imagined those glacial fingers grading your papers!"
Melody's gasp filled the cabin. Leonard activated the privacy partition.
Melody: (Hissing) "He's a scholarship case! Father vanished, mother's incarcerated! Even if I were interested—"
Vivian: "—Cassandra would ship you to Swiss finishing school?" She laughed coldly. "Spare me the Cinderella fantasy. You'd discard him faster than last season's Prada."
Melody's composure cracked. Vivian had struck the fault line in her perfection—the secret she'd overheard when Blackwood reviewed Adrian's file. Scholarship case. Parental liabilities. High-risk investment.
Yet...
As Stone leaned into a turn, his Eldenwood blazer billowing like a rebel's cape, Vivian's breath caught. Moonlight sculpted his jaw into marble, transforming the bicycle into a steed conquering urban wastelands. This image—poverty transmuted into poetry—would haunt her long after the Bentley outpaced him.
Should've rolled down the window, she thought. Shouted something devastatingly witty. Made him remember me beyond that stupid kiss.
Leonard's eyes flickered to the rearview mirror. Miss Vivian's expression—raw, yearning, unguarded—revealed what her bravado hid. Miss Melody's was calculation incarnate.
Vivian: (Slamming her palm on glass) "Leonard! Slow down near the sycamores!"
Leonard: "Miss Vivian, the traffic—"
Vivian: "NOW!"
The Bentley decelerated. Adrian's silhouette grew larger.
Vivian: "See how his shoulders move? Pure kinetic sculpture."
Leonard: (Diplomatically) "The young man possesses... determined posture."
Vivian: "Determined?" She scoffed. "He's Achilles reborn! And that bike?" Her grin turned feral. "I chose him."
Melody snorted. "Delusion requires medication, sister."
Red lights suspended time. Adrian's left foot planted on asphalt, right calf flexed against gravity. Streetlamp haloed his profile—a study in focused solitude. Vivian mapped the geometry: the angle of his wrist on handlebars, the tension in his neck tendons, the way city lights glinted off his watch—a ten-dollar digital model that somehow looked like a Cartier on him.
Why doesn't he glance over?
Privilege became tangible in that moment. The Bentley's Napa leather. The scent of Melody's Cristalle perfume. The weight of Cassandra's expectations. Adrian's world was carbon-fiber frame and second-hand textbooks, yet he radiated more power than Richard Vaughn's entire boardroom.
Green light.
Adrian pushed off, blazer flapping like victory banners. The Bentley surged forward, severing the connection.
Melody: (Softly venomous) "Chase all you want. Men like Stone only marry pedigree to escape theirs."
Vivian kept her face turned to the vanishing speck. "You mistake him for you, Melody."
Melody: "At least I see clearly! You romanticize poverty like it's some... Dickensian fantasy!"
Vivian: "And you reduce people to stock portfolios!"
Leonard: (Interjecting) "Ladies—"
Melody: "Silence, Leonard!"
Vivian: "Ignore her. Tell me honestly—wouldn't you follow that boy into battle?"
Leonard met her gaze in the mirror. "War's messy, Miss Vivian. Some fires consume everything they touch."
The financial district's glass towers swallowed the Bentley. Vivian closed her eyes, replaying Adrian's departure: the precise coil of muscle, the economy of motion, the absolute lack of acknowledgment.
Next time, she vowed, I'll make you see me.
Melody's phone illuminated the dark cabin—Adrian's contact photo on her screen. A text drafted: Disregard my sister's antics. Your Cambridge application remains my priority.
Delete. Rewrite: Blackwood suggested tutoring Tuesday. Your place or library?
Send.
Vivian watched her stepsister's reflection in the window—the predatory curve of her smile. The war for Stone had just left the battlefield and entered the shadows.