19. INVITATION
ariella
He arrives just after sunset.
My heart stutters hearing his measured footsteps.
I’m in the living room when he finds me, perched on the edge of the sofa like a trespasser who wandered too far and now forgot how to leave.
His presence fills the space before his voice does. “Good evening, Ariella.”
It’s the way my name rolls off his tongue that has me looking up at his direction. It’s the first time I’ve heard him call me by my given name. I feel even my ears are catching colors.
His hair is slightly disordered from the wind, or perhaps he ran his fingers through those smooth black locks before he came into his place.
He looks… ordinary yet impossibly out of reach.
“You brought me here,” I say, skipping everything else.
He studies me like I’m a dataset that suddenly learned to breathe. “Yes.”
No apology. No hesitation.
His wife, whose first name I still don’t know, materializes out of nowhere. “Hey, my love,” she coos, tiptoeing to kiss him on his lips.
A sudden burst of jealousy swipes through me again. Although it’s barely a quick kiss, I had to look away.
He clears his throat, the sound low but deliberate, reminding her to stop the PDA.
“Delilah,” he says evenly, his ocean blue eyes flicking toward me then back at her, “would you mind giving us a moment?” Alistair pushes her off and proceeds to remove his coat with unhurried precision.
The name settles inside me with an uncomfortable grace. So that’s her first name. It fits her in a way that I resent immediately—refined, effortless, something meant to be spoken softly.
She glances at me with polite curiosity, then looks back at him, smoothing an invisible crease along his collar before stepping back.
Her fingers linger just long enough to make the intimacy unmistakable, with a composed expression while assessing me.
“Sure,” she replies with a feigned smile and takes his coat.
Delilah smiles softly and moves toward the stairs.
He stares at her departure form, making sure she’s out of earshot while subconsciously loosening his tie.
The movement draws my attention to the strong column of his neck, to the subtle flex of muscle beneath pale skin as he inhales deeply. His eyes close for the briefest second, and in that flicker of unguarded stillness. He looks stressed.
He seems as though preparing for a negotiation rather than a conversation.
It unsettles me for never being associated with that expression of his.
On screen, he’s always composed.
In lectures, he’s controlled.
In person, he’s usually unreadable.
Seeing that crack, however small it is, makes me wonder about the reason behind it. I lowkey feel like it’s related to me.
When his eyes open again and settle on me, they are steady, attentive, and far too aware. The strain is entirely gone.
“You shouldn’t be involving yourself in matters that exceed your coursework,” he says, not unkindly but without softness.
“I–I don’t understand?” the question stumbles out before I can polish it.
I suddenly feel caught under a spotlight for a crime that hasn’t been named yet.
He exhales slowly and sits on the couch across from me, leaning forward with his elbows resting over his knees. “Stop pretending, Ariella. It isn’t doing you any favors.”
That makes it twice tonight he has said my first name.
If my brain were a CPU, it would’ve short-circuited already. Steam would hissing through my ears from every rational process overheating.
“Ariella,” he repeats, and this time there’s a quiet warning threaded beneath the calm.
Thrice. If he keeps saying my name…
“Y-yes, Professor,” I manage, hating the way my voice betrays me.
I blame it on him for using my given name repeatedly.
My instincts are screaming code red. He shouldn’t know about the bike. About the fact that it’s me who’s been following him in the shadows. I was unconscious for five weeks for fucks sake, and on top of that, he somehow had access to my phone. Who knows what he saw?
He could’ve even broken into my apartment.
“Oh my God,” I whisper, not from excitement this time, but from the calculation.
“Hm?” his brows draw together slightly, noticing my expression shift.
It’s then I realize I’ve reacted out loud.
I close my eyes for a second, inhale, and smooth my voice into something steadier.
“I’m sorry,” I say, surprising even myself with the composure.
“I shouldn’t have enrolled in a course that even most last-years thinks twice before taking.
I have… connections. I wanted the challenge.
I was too overwhelmed with the academics.
I’m sorry that I got into an accident and you,” my eyes dart around for a second, “took care of the mess.”
It’s a partial truth wrapped in performance. My father did pull strings, but I also studied for two years to prove I deserved it more than half the seniors sitting in that lecture hall.
Alistair almost rolls his eyes. “You know very well that’s not what I’m implying.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re pursuing something that extend beyond academic curiosity.”
I let the silence stretch instead of reacting. If he wants more, he can ask for it. And he does
“How long have you been known me, Ariella?”
The sound of my name from his mouth shouldn’t affect me this much—to be on my knees and confess my sins. He must’ve noticed that, and is clearly using it to his advantage.
If calling a Keinston by their first name would be a mistake, Alistair should be hung for dead four times by now. But then again, I can never get tired of hearing my name roll off his lips.
“What do you mean?”
My gaze drops briefly to his lips as his tongue drags slowly across them. The color stands out sharply against his pale skin.
I force myself to look back at his eyes before he notices.
“We both know you haven’t been here long enough to form the kind of conclusions you’re already forming,” he says evenly.
“Yet you have questions about the last four weeks, about my schedule, about the gaps that were never publicly discussed. So instead of pretending otherwise, why don’t you be honest with me for once and let me extend you the same courtesy? ”
The seriousness in his gaze isn’t theatrical. This is the first time I’m seeing him stripped of the casual detachment he usually wears.
And suddenly I’m afraid—afraid to find out he’s not the man my na?ve heart believed is just a crush.
He’s not just a predator either, rather the predator.
The predator wrapped in sheep’s clothing, the ever-so-smiling, friendly professor.
All my life I’ve escaped consequences. My family erased my mistakes. When I crossed the lines at sixteen, Asher cleaned the blood from the floor before it could stain me. There was always someone standing between me and the fallout.
But right now there’s no shield. I’m exposed, completely exposed in front of the man of my dreams.
This is what it must feel like to step over quicksand, feeling your ankles being pulled down, realizing nobody can save you anymore. This is what it feels like to have nowhere to hide when the mask slips free.