Chapter 7
Vincent
Thad Rodriguez had the kind of face people trusted at charity dinners.
Open smile, straight teeth, good hair. A watch expensive enough that the right people noticed it, but understated enough to pretend it did not want attention.
He wore privilege with the bland confidence of a man who had never once wondered whether a room would welcome him.
I disliked him the moment I saw his hand settle on the small of Céline’s back as they crossed the courtyard outside Westgrave Hall. He guided her through a space she already knew how to command without any help, and she let him do it. That was the part that irritated me most.
She leaned into his side just enough to make it convincing.
The courtyard stayed busy between afternoon classes.
Students moved along the wet stone paths in small groups, coats pulled tight against the wind blowing off the cliffs.
A few of them glanced toward Céline as she passed.
They always did. Grief had made her more interesting, more luminous somehow, the way certain flowers looked brightest right before they began to rot.
Thad said something close to her ear. She smiled perfectly.
I watched from the steps of the science building with one hand in my coat pocket and the other holding the folder for Friday’s orientation.
Inside it were the accepted students’ lab assignments, safety forms, and the usual research group expectations.
Pipette protocols. Tissue culture access schedules. Instructions about contamination control. Céline Martin’s name sat neatly typed on the first page. I had placed it there myself.
They stopped near the fountain. He kept talking. She kept looking at him like she was listening, her face soft and attentive and quietly affectionate. A good performance. Not her best. Grief had slowed her down around the edges. She took half a second too long before she smiled.
There was the faintest retreat in her eyes whenever someone touched her.
A stillness around her mouth every time Katherine’s name came up.
Thad noticed none of it. He kissed her temple, then turned toward the business school buildings with his phone already in his hand before he had even stepped fully away from her.
Céline watched him go. For the first time since she had entered the courtyard, her face emptied completely.
There you are, I thought.
I waited until she turned toward Westgrave. She saw me almost right away. Her expression changed with satisfying speed. She shifted from exhaustion to alertness, from that soft social mask back to guarded poise.
“Professor Moreau,” she said.
“Miss Martin.”
The wind lifted loose strands of hair from around her face. She had dressed carefully today, a beige Ralph Lauren sweater, black skirt, knee-high boots, small gold hoops that looked tasteful. A grieving girl stepping back into ordinary life one polished detail at a time.
“How is Chad?” I asked.
Her eyes narrowed. “Thad.”
“Yes, of course.”
“You know his name.”
“I know many things I don’t find worth repeating accurately.”
A student from my morning lecture walked past us and smiled. “Hi, Professor Moreau.”
“Good afternoon, Emily.”
Céline waited until the girl moved out of earshot.
“That was rude.”
“Was it?”
“He hasn’t done anything to you.”
“No.” I glanced toward the path Thad had taken. “That is part of his problem.”
She looked at me for a moment, trying to decide whether to feel offended.
“Is there something you need, Professor?”
“Several things.” Her jaw tightened. I held out the folder. “But for now, your orientation materials.”
She stared at it like I had offered her something alive.
“I told you I can’t do the lab.”
“You told me you withdrew. I told you I ignored it. We have already had this conversation.”
“I’m not qualified.”
“No,” I said.
Her eyes snapped to mine. There. Anger. Clean and immediate. Much better than the careful sadness she rewarded everybody else with.
I smiled a little. “Not yet.”
She took the folder with stiff fingers. “I don’t appreciate being forced into this.”
“You are not being forced.”
“That’s what you call ignoring my withdrawal?”
“You can fail to attend orientation. You can refuse the placement. You can walk away from the lab entirely.”
Her expression sharpened because she heard the trap in my words. I continued gently, “But you won’t.”
“Why?”
“Because a part of you still wants to see whether you can survive it. Pull off another con.”
She looked away first, out toward the courtyard where the fountain water trembled under the wind. For several seconds, she said nothing.
Then, quieter, “You don’t know anything about me.”
What a foolish thing to say to someone who was actually paying attention.
“I know you are very good at being wanted,” I said.
“I know you dislike owing anyone but have built most of your life from borrowed access. I know you prefer admiration to affection because affection asks questions, admiration does not. I know you are dating Chad because he gives you a future that looks safe from the outside.”
Her face went very still. “His name is Thad.”
“Yes. We have established that.”
“You don’t get to talk about my relationship.”
“I just did.”
Colour rose lightly in her cheeks.
Not embarrassment. Anger again. Good.
“You’re my professor,” she said.
“I am.”
“Then act like it.”
I stepped slightly closer. Not enough to touch. Enough that she had to feel the decision not to step back. “Break up with him.”
The words landed cleanly between us. For the first time, she looked genuinely startled. Then she laughed once, soft and disbelieving. It was not a happy sound.
“You’re insane.”
“Occasionally, perhaps. Not about this.”
“You have no right to ask me that.”
“I did not ask.”
Her fingers tightened around the folder. “You think because you forced me into your lab, you can tell me who to date?”
“No. I think because I can see you, I have very little patience for watching you waste yourself on someone who cannot.”
A flicker passed through her face. Pain first. Then something dangerously close to longing. She buried it quickly.
“You don’t see me,” she said. “You see whatever strange little theory you’ve made up in your head.”
“I see both.”
“No.” Her voice turned colder. “You see what you want to use.”
Thad appeared again at the far side of the courtyard, still on his phone, one hand tucked into his pocket.
Céline saw him too. The change in her happened immediately.
Her shoulders softened. Her mouth loosened.
The mask returned so completely that anyone else would have believed it was her real face. She started to move past me.
I caught her wrist, and her breath stopped. Students crossed the courtyard around us, laughing, carrying coffee, and complaining about assignments. It was a public place. A safe place. A respectable place. That made the contact sharper. Her skin felt cold beneath my fingers.
She looked down at my hand, then up at me. “Let go.”
I did immediately. Her wrist lowered slowly to her side.
I said, “He will never protect you.”
A faint, humourless smile touched her mouth. “And you will?”
“No.”
That surprised her more than a lie would have. I leaned close enough that my voice did not need to travel far. “I would never insult you by pretending I am safe.”
Her eyes held mine. For one suspended moment, the courtyard disappeared around us.
No students. No rain-dark stone. No memorial flowers rotting under the archway of Montgomery Hall.
Only Céline Martin was standing before me with her borrowed name, borrowed future, borrowed work, and the one thing that was truly hers, hidden so carefully beneath all of it.
Hunger. For survival. For more. For everything.
Then Thad called from across the courtyard. “Babe?”
The word broke whatever had been stretching between us.
Céline stepped back. When she turned toward him, she was already smiling.
I watched her walk away. Thad slipped his arm around her waist when she reached him.
His hand settled too low, possessive in a lazy way that required no imagination.
He said something to her, and she tipped her face toward him with a practiced little expression of affection. Then she glanced back. Only once.
Good girl.
* * *
By Friday she came to orientation. The lab sat on the fourth floor of Westgrave behind two sets of access-controlled doors and a glass wall overlooking the eastern cliffs.
On clear days the ocean turned blue enough to look artificial.
Today, the water was slate grey and violent, the wind dragging spray off the rocks below.
Four students were already seated around the conference table when Céline arrived. She was three minutes late.
I stood at the front of the room with Dr. Patel, my postdoctoral researcher, while the students reviewed their safety packets.
Wendy Chen sat near the window. Julian Price, pre-med and painfully eager.
Christina Bell, quiet and competent but ready to cry if she receives any criticism.
Elias Hart, brilliant with data and nearly useless with people.
Then Céline entered. Everyone looked up.
They could not help it. She wore dark Prada trousers and a pale silk blouse under a fitted cardigan, hair pulled back loosely enough to soften the line of her face.
No jewellery except small earrings and the thin gold bracelet Thad had given her after the funeral, the one she disliked but wore because it signaled something useful.
She looked like she belonged. That was her special gift.
“Miss Martin,” I said. “You found us.”
Her eyes met mine briefly. “I had directions.”
“Most people do. Fewer use them well. You’re still late.”
Wendy smiled faintly. Julian looked at Céline for half a second too long. Elias did not look up from his packet. Céline took the empty seat nearest the door.