The classroom emptied in a wave of relieved exhales and hurried footsteps. Around me, students whispered as they packed their bags, their voices carrying that particular mix of fascination and dread that brutal professors inspire.
"Did you see how he tore apart that guy's answer?"
"His grading rubric is insane. Participation is forty percent."
"I heard he failed half his class at Stanford."
I stayed seated, moving slowly, deliberately. My hands fumbled with my notebook, buying time while my mind raced through options. I could drop the class. Walk to the registrar right now and—
No. The scholarship conditions were crystal clear: maintain full-time status through final semester. No exceptions. Drop even one core credit and the funding disappeared. Four years of work, gone.
My stomach twisted.
"Ms. Vance. A word."
His voice cut through the remaining chatter like a blade. He wasn't looking at me. He was erasing the whiteboard with methodical strokes, his back rigid, professional.
He already knew my name.
He'd looked me up.
The realization hit like ice water. He'd prepared for this.
I stood on shaking legs and followed him out.
The hallway felt endless. Our footsteps created a rhythm—his polished leather shoes sharp and certain against the tile, my worn sneakers squeaking apologetically. The distance between us was exactly calculated: professional, distant, nothing like the way he'd pulled me close in that elevator.
His cologne hit me as we walked. The same expensive, clean scent from the hotel. My body remembered before my mind could stop it—his hands in my hair, his breath against my neck, the way he'd whispered my name like a prayer and a curse.
I'd expected... what? An apology? An acknowledgment? Some trace of the man from the bar who'd looked at me like I was the only real thing in his world?
Instead, I got a straight-backed professor who wouldn't meet my eyes.
His temporary office was as cold as his demeanor. Bare walls. Minimal furniture. A single box of books unpacked in the corner. No photos, no personal touches, nothing warm or human.
He didn't sit. Didn't invite me to sit. Just stood behind his desk like it was a barricade.
"You have until five p.m. today to withdraw from this course."
The words landed without preamble, without explanation. Just a flat command delivered in that same measured tone he'd used to dissect a student's answer twenty minutes ago.
"What?"
"I do not teach students I've slept with." He met my eyes then, and there was nothing soft in his gaze. "It's unethical."
A beat of silence.
"It's a liability."
No apology. No regret. Just professional brutality wrapped in perfect diction.
Something hot and sharp flared in my chest. "I can't withdraw."
"You will."
"I'm on the Dean's Scholarship." My voice came out stronger than I felt. "If I drop a core credit, I lose my funding. I lose my degree. I'm not ruining my future because of one night."
His jaw tightened. "That's not my problem."
"Actually, it is." I took a step closer, and I watched his shoulders tense. "You're the one teaching Business Ethics. Is it ethical to bankrupt a student because you lost control?"
The silence that followed felt dangerous. His eyes darkened, and for a second, I saw the man from the bar—the one who'd looked at me like I was something he shouldn't want but couldn't resist.
Then the mask slammed back into place.
"You should never have come to that bar."
"You were there too."
His hands flexed once, then stilled. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter but no less controlled. "You stay."
I tensed, waiting for the trap.
"But under conditions."
He moved to the window, putting distance between us like he needed the space to think clearly. "Three rules. Non-negotiable."
I waited.
"One: We are strangers. What happened in that hotel does not exist in this classroom."
I nodded slowly.
"Two: You sit in the back row." His reflection in the window showed nothing. "Where I can see you."
The phrasing sent heat up my spine. Where I can see you. Not "where you're less distracting." Where he could watch me, monitor me, control the space between us.
"Three." He turned to face me fully. "If you tell anyone about what happened..."
He paused, letting the weight of it settle.
"You fail."
Not "you'll be disciplined." Not "we'll discuss consequences." Just: You fail.
A power flex wrapped in professional language.
He pulled a document from his desk drawer—already prepared, already printed—and slid it across the surface. "Sign."
I scanned the pages. Legal language. Confidentiality. Professional conduct expectations. An addendum to the standard syllabus that felt like a contract for something far more dangerous than academics.
This wasn't improvised. He'd thought this through, prepared for the possibility of running into me again.
That hurt more than it should have.
I grabbed the pen and signed, my signature angry and sharp. When I handed the document back, our fingers brushed.
The contact was electric, instant, wrong. We both felt it. His hand jerked back first, and I watched him hate himself for the reaction. Watch him bury it under layers of control.
I hated that I'd noticed. Hated that my pulse had quickened. Hated that three weeks later, my body still remembered his.
"You're done." He turned away, dismissing me. Not cruel, just... closed. Shut down.
I made it to the door before the words came out. I didn't turn around, didn't look at him. Just said it to the doorframe.
"You told me not to do that again."
A beat of silence.
"I haven't."
I opened the door and stepped into the hallway before he could respond.
And nearly collided with Jake.
"Maya?" He steadied me automatically, his hands on my shoulders, his expression shifting from surprise to confusion. "What are you doing here?"
Then his eyes tracked past me to the office door. To the nameplate beside it.
Dr. Julian Thorne.
I watched the color drain from Jake's face. Watched recognition and something darker—something like old anger—flash across his features.
"What were you doing in there?" His voice had gone cold.
I opened my mouth. Closed it. No answer would sound right.
Jake stared at the nameplate like it had personally offended him. When he spoke again, his voice was barely above a whisper.
"And why is my brother's name on your professor's door?"
The hallway tilted.
Brother.
My brother.
Julian Thorne was Jake's brother.
The stranger from the bar. The man whose bed I'd woken up in. The professor who now controlled my academic future.
Was Jake's estranged older brother.
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Could only stare at Jake's face as the pieces rearranged themselves into something impossible and devastating.
Behind me, through the still-open office door, I heard movement. Heard Julian's sharp inhale as he processed what was happening in his doorway.
Jake's eyes moved from the nameplate to me, then past me into the office. I didn't need to turn around to know what he was seeing—his brother, frozen, caught.
"Jake." Julian's voice was different now. Rough. Almost vulnerable.
"Don't." Jake's hands dropped from my shoulders like I'd burned him. "Don't say my name."
The air felt too thin. Too charged. Like lightning about to strike.
Jake looked at me again, and this time his eyes were full of questions I couldn't answer. Didn't want to answer.
"How do you know my brother?"
Author's Note:
Tension is officially on. Expect slow burn, power struggles, and consequences before comfort.
Thank you for reading—your comments and support truly mean a lot.