Chapter 444: Tipsy Affection

It was her idea.

Dinner on the fifteenth had been perfect—quiet, intimate, the river doing its slow-burning thing below them like it had all night to seduce the city.

But Patricia Bloom wasn’t done with the evening yet. She looked at him across the candle stubs, wine glass empty again, and said with the casual confidence of someone who’d already decided the night wasn’t over:

"Let’s go upstairs."

The sixteenth floor was the VIPP bar. Black marble floors so polished they reflected the gold-leaf ceiling like a dark, upside-down sky. Floor-to-ceiling windows framing the same glittering Hell River view, just one story higher, so the city looked smaller and more conquerable. Backlit wall of spirits glowing amber and copper behind smoked glass shelves.

Black velvet chairs with gold frames that probably cost more than most people’s cars.

A place that treated drinking like high art and priced it accordingly.

Phei saw no reason to argue. Dinner was done. The night was still young. And when a woman like Patricia looks at you with those eyes and says

upstairs

like it’s the most natural next step in the universe, what exactly are you going to do—

start a philosophical debate about gravity?

So, they went.

And that’s where Phei learned something no classroom observation, no lingering glances across lab benches, had ever prepared him for.

Ms. Bloom could really drink.

Three bottles. Big ones. All empty on her side of the table. These bottles would have sent most people face-first into the marble after bottle two, mumbling about how they "

should probably switch to water."

Patricia Bloom? Sitting upright. Composed. Eyes clear.

Mid-sentence about her sister like she’d been sipping tap water all night.

Not tipsy. Not slurring.

Not even fashionably flushed. Just... drinking. With casual, terrifying competence.

Phei had stayed on juice. Not a virtue thing—his body had long ago stopped pretending sugar mattered. He just didn’t drink tonight. Wine existed in the world, and he could handle it when required, but right now he wanted to be

present

.

Awake and sober. Watching this woman casually dismantle an entire wine list while recounting family stories like they were catching up over coffee.

And she

was

telling him about her family.

The

Blooms.

Four older siblings. Three brothers who existed, apparently, for the sole purpose of making any man dating their baby sister perform an

immediate life audit

. Not the loud,

chest-thumping

protective type.

The quiet, measuring type.

The ones who showed up at your door, looked you over without saying a word, and if the math didn’t add up, you simply... stopped being invited to Sunday dinner. Protective wasn’t the word. Protective has limits.

These three men did not.

Then there was

Morgan.

Second youngest. The sister. The one Patricia was currently crying with laughter about while Phei sat across from her trying (and failing) to keep a straight face.

The story about a family dinner with

Morgan’s arranged fiancé

—some poor, perfectly pedigreed boy from a

Legacy-adjacent

(Immediates)

family, all contracts and connections and a match that looked flawless on legal letterhead—had reached over mid-course to touch her thigh.

Just the casual hand-placement of ownership that certain boys carry like overpriced cologne.

Morgan had kicked him square in the

nuts.

Under the table. In front of both families. During the main course.

Patricia was

wheezing

. Actual wheezing. Hand pressed to her chest, eyes streaming, the ironclad composure she’d worn all night finally cracking under the sheer joy of the memory.

"And since then—"

she gasped, wiping tears with the back of her hand. "Since then, whenever any of us wants out of an arranged match, we just... send Morgan’s name on the guest list. She doesn’t even have to

attend

anymore. The boys see her RSVP and suddenly remember they have urgent business on the other side of the continent."

Phei wasn’t laughing—stories like this only land with full force if you witnessed the impact crater. But he could

picture

it. Morgan Bloom—calm, unruffled, sitting at a formal table with the patient serenity of a woman who had single-handedly solved the problem of dynastic betrothals with one perfectly timed instep.

If he’d been in the room, he’d have been under the table.

Possibly

applauding.

"Your brothers," Phei said, voice dry. "If they found out about me. About... the my whole harem arrangements I have going..."

Patricia looked at him. One eyebrow arched—slow, amused.

"If they found out I was sharing you with other women," he clarified.

Silence.

Then she

exploded

into laughter again. Harder this time. The kind of laugh that turned heads across the sixteenth floor and made the bartender glance over like he was debating whether to cut her off or start pouring faster.

"They’d kill you," she said cheerfully, wiping fresh tears. "Slowly. With

tools

."

"Good to know."

"My oldest brother once made a boy cry just by

standing

near him. Didn’t even speak. Just loomed."

"Wonderful family."

"The

best

."

And she meant it. Under the laughter, under the wine, under the loose, happy glow of a woman finally letting her guard collapse in public—Phei could hear it. The Blooms were real. Close. The kind of family that fought dirty, forgave fast, showed up when it mattered, and occasionally resolved

marital diplomacy

with a swift kick to the

groin.

It took two more bottles before she finally gave up.

Not surrendered—

gave up

. Like the alcohol had submitted enough paperwork and was now allowed to take effect. Her words stayed clear, but the edges had gone velvet-soft.

Her posture loosened.

The professional scaffolding that kept Ms. Bloom bulletproof in lecture halls had quietly packed itself away for the night. What was left was just

Patricia

. Warm. Happy. Slightly drunk.

And completely unbothered who saw it.

She’d said it earlier—

tonight I want to let loose, let go, just enjoy myself with my man

—and Phei had zero intention of arguing.

Her warmth was the first thing all evening that didn’t cut when he held it. After the car ride with Eira, after Victoria’s raw confession—Patricia’s easy, tipsy

affection

felt like medicine.

She kept leaning into him. Resting her head on his shoulder. Hugging his arm with both hands like she’d finally found something solid in a world of shifting sand,

and she wasn’t about to let go.

And sometimes—when a woman at a nearby table stared at Phei too long, too hungrily, wearing that Paradise-specific predatory gaze like designer perfume—Patricia would simply...

stick her tongue out at them

.

Just—full-on, tipsy childish,

five-year-old-defending-her-toy

tongue-out. No words. No glare.

Just

bleh

.

And every single time, the other woman would flinch, look away, suddenly fascinated by her own drink.

Outmaneuvred by a gesture so juvenile it had zero comeback.

Phei smiled every damn time. Loose Patricia was

fun

.

The elevator down was quiet.

She leaned into him—not because she couldn’t walk

(she’d proven she could by crossing the marble in heels without a single wobble)

, but because Phei was there, and when Phei was there, standing upright without leaning on him felt optional.

He was a pillar.

A safe place to stop holding herself together.

His arm slid around her waist. Steady. Same unconscious gentleman placement he’d had all night—the hand that knew exactly where it belonged without being told.

Lobby. Night air. Valet brought the car around.

The

Park Seraph

rumbled to the kerb—matte pink catching every gold light from the café, P-with-wings grille gleaming like it was personally offended by speed limits, engine purring with the patient confidence of something that could eat supercars for breakfast.

Phei looked at it.

Sighed.

Gods. Was he really going to drive this cotton-candy murder machine?

This wasn’t a car. This was a Park Motors existential crisis wrapped in bubblegum paint and an insurance premium that probably required its own trust fund. Jade’s family didn’t build vehicles—they built rolling declarations of war with heated seats.

Patricia caught the look on his face—the exact expression of a seventeen-year-old staring down something worth more than most people’s houses and being expected to operate it without divine intervention.

She chuckled. Soft. Warm. The laugh of a woman who found his quiet panic adorable instead of pathetic.

She walked to the passenger side, opened the door herself, slid in. Black dress against pink leather. Cabin light catching her bare shoulders like it had been paid to do so.

"I’m drunk," she said, smiling up at him through the open door. "So, I can’t drive."

A pause. Her eyes found his. Held.

"Come on, honey. Take me to my apartment."

Her apartment.

Her apartment.

Phei’s heart did a small, involuntary gymnastics routine.

Any

seventeen-year-old

boy

would know

what waited on the other side of driving a beautiful, slightly drunk woman home in her own car. Drunk or not, he was terrified his teenage wiring wouldn’t survive contact with a body like hers—

and he knew

—with the bone-deep certainty of someone who’d spent the whole night being watched by her—

She knows exactly how badly I want her.

He walked around to the driver’s side.

Patricia settled into the passenger seat. Tucked her legs sideways. Leaned her head against the headrest and looked at him with eyes that were warm, half-lidded, and no longer bothering to hide anything.

"Babe,"

she said.

He looked at her.

"If you drive me well..." Her smile widened—slow, deliberate, the smile of a woman who knew precisely what she was offering and was enjoying every second of watching him realise it.

"...I’m all yours."