Chapter 29 Sep 17, 2025 POV Aiden *YESTERDAY* Monday's lecture should have been routine-hostile takeover defenses, regulatory frameworks, the usual corporate warfare that made MBA students salivate. I'd delivered this material fifty times, could recite the case studies in my sleep. But Ruby Pearson's gaze hit me like a searchlight, editing the room until nothing existed except her eyes and my rapidly fracturing composure. She sat in her usual spot-three rows back, center-left-but today she wasn't taking notes. She was taking me apart with her stare, each glance a scalpel cutting through my professional armor. The other students blurred into background static while she remained in sharp, dangerous focus. I kept moving through the material, writing clean diagrams on the board, asking the strategic questions that usually sparked debate. But her attention climbed my spine like fingers, making my skin feel too tight for my body. The marker felt slippery in my grip. My voice caught on certain words-'acquisition,' 'surrender'-turning them into something else entirely. Twenty minutes in, I cracked. Pulled out my phone mid-sentence-something I never do, a violation of my own classroom rules-and typed with barely steady thumbs: Stop looking at me like that. I'm on the edge here, and it would be deeply inconvenient if someone noticed what your stare is doing to me. The moment she read it, her cheeks flamed red. The color spread down her neck, disappearing beneath her collar, and I had to turn back to the board before my expression gave everything away. Almost laughed. Almost lost it completely in front of forty witnesses. I made it through the rest of the lecture on autopilot, carefully not looking at her again, though I felt every shift of her body, every breath she took. When the last student filtered out, she remained. The air between us crackled with everything we weren't saying. I watched her approach, already tasting her mouth, already reaching- The door hinges screamed their warning. James entered first, casual as Sunday morning. Then Sarah Mitchell walked in, and my blood turned to ice water. Sarah's eyes swept the room with surgical precision, cataloguing the distance between us. Ruby's pivot was flawless. She straightened, smiled with exactly the right temperature of student enthusiasm, and thanked me for "last week's Strategy Lab notes" with such convincing detail I almost believed I'd posted them. She praised my analysis of regulatory capture, discussed Delaware court precedents I'd never mentioned, and created an entire academic interaction from pure fiction and adrenaline. It was the kind of save that wins championships. She excused herself with perfect propriety, leaving me alone with James's knowing look and Sarah's unreadable expression. We discussed logistics for the faculty seminar-Singapore exchange details, budget allocations, the tedious machinery of academic bureaucracy-while my pulse gradually returned to human levels. Sarah left with a reminder about my tenure review, the words carrying weight that might have been warning or might have been routine. The moment her heels faded down the corridor, James dropped all pretense. "End it." His words hit like fists. "Whatever this is with Ruby Pearson, end it now." "James-" "You're gambling your entire career on a twenty-one-year-old student. Your tenure file, the department's reputation, her future-you're dancing on a landmine." He stood, pacing to the window with barely controlled agitation. "What if Sarah had walked in thirty seconds earlier? What if she'd seen whatever happened?" "Nothing happened-" "Don't insult my intelligence." James turned, his expression harder than I'd ever seen it. "I played baseball with you for four years. I know what you look like when you want something you can't have. And Ruby Pearson? You can't have her." "You don't understand-" "Pearson ." He emphasized her last name like a verdict. "Do you know who her father is? Kenneth Pearson. Tech mogul. Venture capitalist. The kind of man who destroys careers over breakfast meetings. If you think you're playing with fire, you're wrong. You're playing with napalm." The truth of it landed hard. I'd known about her family's wealth. But James was right-I'd been focusing on the wrong dangers. "I'll handle it," I said, the words tasting like surrender. "You better." James moved to the door, paused. "You're brilliant, Aiden. Maybe the best strategic mind I know. But this? This is the stupidest thing you've ever done." He left me alone with that assessment. I had two hours before my next obligation, spent this time grading papers without reading them, making marks that meant nothing on work I couldn't process. At six-thirty, when the building had emptied of everyone except security and ghosts, Alexander Whitmore appeared in my doorway. I recognized him immediately-the man from Apex who'd dragged Ruby away, whose possessive grip had made my hands clench. But the party gloss was gone. In its place stood someone harder, more focused. Someone who'd inherited more than money. "Professor Green." His voice carried the particular confidence of generational wealth. "We need to talk about Ruby." "I don't discuss students-" "Cut the shit." He entered uninvited, closing the door behind him with deliberate control. "I know about you two. The messages. The meetings. Whatever happened while I was trying to salvage our relationship." My mind calculated exits, consequences, the radius of potential destruction. "What do you want?" "I want you to step back." He didn't sit, didn't pace, just stood there radiating contained violence. "Ruby and I have been together for five years. We're engaged. Our families have expectations that go beyond personal preference." "Sounds like a prison, not a relationship." "Maybe." The admission surprised me. "But it's our prison to figure out. You're a complication she doesn't need." "She's an adult who makes her own choices." "She's twenty-one and confused." His jaw tightened. "I failed her. I know that. I took her for granted, treated her like an accessory instead of a partner. She drifted toward you because I created a vacuum. But I'm fixing it." Something cold settled in my chest. "She chose you," I said, though the words carried less conviction than intended. "She's choosing us. We're finding our way back. But that only works if you're gone." "And if I refuse?" "Then I make some calls." His tone remained conversational, which made it worse. "Columbia's board includes three Whitmore family friends. The development committee needs our donations. Your tenure review is, what, next semester? Would be a shame if questions arose about your professional conduct." "You're threatening me." "I'm being clear about consequences." He pocketed his phone. "I could destroy you, but I'd rather not. Despite everything, I think you actually care about her. So do the right thing. End it." I thought about Ruby's face when she'd kissed me in this office, desperate and decisive. Thought about her leaving my apartment without goodbye, without explanation. Thought about James's warning, Sarah's suspicious eyes, the sword hanging over my career by a thread. "I'll end it," I said, the words scraping my throat raw. Alex nodded, no triumph in his expression. "Thank you. For what it's worth, I get it. She's impossible not to want. But she's mine to lose or keep." He left with the same controlled quiet he'd entered with. The office felt smaller in his absence, the walls closer, the air thinner. I sat at my desk, opened a new message to Ruby, and typed the only honest thing left: We need to talk. Then I put my head in my hands and wondered how I'd let myself fall this far, this fast, for someone I could never actually have.