Chapter 28 Sep 17, 2025 The next day arrived with competing memories battling for dominance. Alex's hands on my body in the fogged BMW kept surfacing-the way he'd gripped my hips with newfound authority, how his mouth had claimed mine without apology or hesitation... The memory ambushed me during Corporate Finance, making me miss three questions about derivatives pricing. But underneath that physical echo ran a deeper current: Aiden's message promising we would talk properly. In his office. The qualifier had hung over me through morning lectures like a storm system waiting to break. By four o'clock, I stood outside his office door, my palms pressed flat against my notebook as if the cool paper could steady what thundered in my chest. Through the glass panel, I could see James at his desk, marking papers with violent red slashes. "Ruby." He looked up, his greeting layered with something wry and knowing. "Here for office hours?" "Professor Green asked to see me." The lie came smooth as silk. "About my midterm paper." "Your midterm paper." James's expression suggested he wasn't buying what I was selling, but he stood anyway, gathering his materials with deliberate slowness. "Well, I'm stepping out. Work swallowed lunch, and I intend to fix that right now. The Vietnamese place downstairs does excellent pho." He paused at the door, his hand on the handle. "Close up when you leave; the lock sticks." The door clicked shut with finality, leaving me alone with Aiden and the particular silence that always seemed to sharpen in his presence. He stood by the window, sleeves rolled to his elbows, the city flattened into geometry behind him. No greeting, no charm, no pretense of this being anything other than what it was-an ending. "We need to stop." The words landed between us like dropped glass. "This thing between us-whatever we want to call it-ends now." "That's it?" I moved closer, anger sparking at his clinical tone. "You summon me here to dismiss me like a failed investment?" "When you left my apartment without a word that morning, it clarified things." He turned from the window, his expression carved from stone. "The way I've been reacting to you-permitting myself to react-it's indefensible. I'm your professor. You're engaged. We're playing with explosives in a room full of matches." "Don't make this noble." I set my notebook on his desk with more force than necessary. "You want this as much as I do. You've wanted it since that first night at Apex." "Want isn't the question." His voice carried that dangerous calm that preceded storms. "I care about you, Ruby. And that care-real care, not just desire-requires boundaries. You need to decide what you want without me in the room clouding your judgment." "I'm not a problem requiring your management." The words came out sharp, accusatory. "I'm not some naive girl you corrupted. Whatever lives between us isn't one-sided fantasy." "No, it's not." He moved closer, close enough that I could smell his cologne mixing with afternoon coffee. "Which is exactly why the line matters. Every day this continues, the explosion gets bigger. The casualties multiply." He grabbed a marker, turned to his whiteboard still covered with hostile takeover strategies, and started sketching with violent precision. "Your reputation-destroyed when this surfaces." He drew a harsh X. "My career-ended, rightfully, for crossing every ethical boundary that exists." Another X. "Your engagement-already hanging by threads you're pretending not to see." A third X. "The version of yourself you might want to preserve for later-gone." "You think I don't know the risks?" I knocked the marker from his hand, watched it roll across the floor. "You think I haven't calculated every possible disaster? But being with you-being seen by you, wanted by you exactly as I am-it woke something I can't unknow. You made me realize I was sleepwalking through my own life." "Then I did my job." His voice gentled, which somehow hurt more than the coldness. "I woke you up. Now you get to decide what to do with that consciousness. But I can't be part of the decision." "Can't or won't?" "Both." He retrieved the marker, capping it with finality. "Your fiancé-Alex-he's trying, isn't he? Whatever happened in your life, something shifted." The truth sat heavy in my throat. "Yes. Things with Alex have begun to right themselves. We're finding our way back to each other, or forward to something new. I don't know which yet." "But it's working." Not a question. "It's working because you taught me to demand more." The admission burned coming out. "Every time Alex touches me with real hunger now, it's because you showed me what hunger looks like. The heat between us exists because I learned what heat feels like with you." "Then I gave you what you needed." He returned to the window, his back to me now. "Use it. Build something real with someone who can actually be in your life." "This is real." I moved behind him, close enough to feel the tension radiating from his shoulders. "What we have is the realest thing I've-" "What we have is stolen time in locked offices and empty pools." He turned suddenly, backing me against his desk. "It's messages that self-destruct and kisses that could destroy careers. It's not sustainable, Ruby. It's barely survivable." "So we just stop?" My hands found the desk edge, gripping hard enough to hurt. "Delete the messages, pretend the pool never happened, sit through lectures like strangers?" "We stop the texts." His voice carried the weight of decision. "The private meetings end. The heat masquerading as academic debate-over. You'll take your final exam like any other student. I'll grade it without bias. We'll both pretend we're civilized." "And if I can't pretend?" "Then you transfer to another section." He stepped back, creating professional distance with surgical precision. "Dr. Mitchell would approve it without question. Strategic differences with the instructor-happens every semester." The fight drained from me as suddenly as it had arrived. He was right. Of course he was right. We'd been playing with nuclear materials in a paper house. "I hate that you're doing the responsible thing," I said, attempting levity that fell flat. "It doesn't suit you." "Someone has to be an adult." A ghost of his usual smirk appeared. "Might as well be the one with more to lose." "You think you have more to lose?" "I know exactly what I'm losing." The smirk vanished. "But you-you have things to gain. A real relationship with someone who can hold your hand in public. A future that doesn't require lies. The chance to be twenty-one without the weight of an affair that could define you for decades." "Those sound like things you think I should want." "Those are things you already want." He moved to his door, hand on the handle-a clear signal. "You just needed permission to want them without guilt." I gathered my dignity, the pieces of whatever we'd built and just demolished. At the door, I turned back one last time. "For what it's worth," I said, "being wanted by you-even briefly, even wrongly-it changed me. Saved me, maybe. From a life of careful contentment." "You were never meant for careful." His expression softened. "That's what made you so dangerous." "Thank you," I said, meaning it. "For the truth. For the ending. For knowing when to stop." "Ruby." My name on his lips one last time. "I wish you courage." I walked out into the corridor, expecting devastation. Instead, I felt lighter-like setting down luggage I hadn't realized I'd been carrying. The ache remained, would probably always remain, but it had gone quiet. Manageable. The late afternoon sun painted the hallway gold, and I realized with surprise that I was hungry. Actually hungry, not emotionally starved. My phone buzzed-Alex, asking about dinner plans. For the first time in weeks, I replied immediately: Yes. Anywhere you want. I'm all yours tonight. And for the first time in weeks, I meant it.