Chapter 19
Céline
On Wednesday that week, Christina Bell hated me openly enough that even Julian noticed, which said a lot because Julian could contaminate two tissue samples in one afternoon and still look surprised when someone pointed out his hands.
She never said anything outright. Bellamont girls rarely did.
Open cruelty was too messy, too public, too easy to remember.
Christina preferred the cleaner kind, the half-second pause before she answered me, the polite smile that never quite reached her eyes, the way she looked over my shoulder whenever Professor Moreau spoke to me as if she were waiting for someone more deserving to appear behind me.
I had survived worse rooms than this one. Still, it exhausted me in a way I could not quite hide from myself.
The lab smelled sharply of ethanol and warm machinery, all sterile counters and glass cabinets and stainless steel surfaces that reflected everyone back in pale, distorted fragments.
Dr. Patel moved between benches with her usual calm, correcting Julian’s grip on a pipette while Wendy pretended not to watch the tension forming between Christina and me.
Elias sat at the computer with headphones around his neck, staring at another spreadsheet.
Professor Moreau was not there yet.
His office stood behind the glass wall with the blinds half-open, his black mug already on the desk, a stack of papers placed neatly beside it.
The chair was empty. The room looked untouched.
I knew the difference between his office when he had just left it and his office when he had not arrived yet.
I hate that some weak, treacherous part of me was waiting.
Christina reached past me for a tray without asking me to move. I stepped back just enough to make it obvious that I had noticed. She smiled. “Sorry.”
“No, you’re not.” I reply sharply.
Wendy’s head lifted immediately. Julian froze with a pipette tip still in his hand. Christina’s smile thinned. “Excuse me?”
I looked at her properly then, taking in the flawless ponytail, the red sweater beneath her lab coat, the angry little tremble she kept locked behind perfect manners.
She was furious because Professor Moreau had chosen me too visibly.
She was furious because everyone could see it.
And underneath that, maybe worst of all, she was furious because some part of her believed I had not earned it.
It was what made my own anger rise too quickly. Because she was right. Not entirely. Not in the way she thought. But close enough that her resentment touched the wrong nerve.
“I said you’re not sorry,” I replied, keeping my voice even. “You’ve spent three days trying to make sure I understand how unwelcome I am here. It’s very elegant, Christina, but it’s getting boring.”
Wendy whispered my name like she wanted to stop a car crash already in motion.
Christina’s face flushed. “Maybe if some of us had private help from Professor Moreau, we’d be less boring.”
The lab went so still that even Dr. Patel looked up.
For one second, I felt every eye on me. Wendy’s alarm. Julian’s curiosity. Elias’s sudden interest despite the headphones. Christina’s sharp satisfaction that she had finally said something to wound me.
I could have let it pass. I should have let it pass.
Instead, I smiled. “If you need help,” I said softly, “you can always ask him. I’m sure he’s very generous with students who interest him. I can’t help it if he finds you incompetent.”
Christina’s mouth parted slightly.
The door opened before she could answer.
Professor Moreau stepped inside with rain darkening the shoulders of his coat, and his glasses pushed low on the bridge of his nose. His gaze moved from Christina’s flushed face to Wendy’s wide eyes, then finally to me.
My body quickly reacted to his attention.
The sick little awareness of being seen in the exact moment I would rather disappear.
Heat pooled low in my belly before I could stop it, a traitorous warmth that had nothing to do with the lab’s temperature and everything to do with the memory of his mouth on me in the dark.
He removed his coat slowly and hung it on the back of his office door. “Did I interrupt something?”
No one answered.
Dr. Patel returned to her notes as if refusing to participate in undergraduate warfare on principle.
Professor Moreau looked at me. “Miss Martin, my office.”
Christina looked away, but not before I saw the satisfaction in her face.
Of course, he would summon me privately in front of everyone and somehow make the problem worse for me.
I placed my notebook down with more care than necessary. “Now?”
His expression did not change.
“Yes.”
The walk to his office felt longer than it should have.
I could feel the lab behind me, the silence, the speculation already beginning to form.
By the time I stepped inside, my anger had become sharp enough to hold.
I needed it. Anger was safer than fear, and fear was safer than whatever else Vincent Moreau made me feel when he looked at me too long.
He closed the door behind us.
I turned immediately. “Open it.”
“No.”
The word was calm, almost bored.
My pulse kicked once. “Open the door.”
“You are perfectly capable of doing that yourself if you truly want it open.”
He moved past me to his desk, unhurried, and set his glasses down beside the black mug. “You’re making things worse for me,” I said.
“I am aware.”
“You’re aware?”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t care?”
He looked at me then, his face unreadable in the soft grey light coming through the rain-streaked window.
“I care a great deal. Just not about Christina Bell’s opinion of you.”
“She’s not the only one.”
“No, she is simply the only one currently brave enough to be obvious.”
I laughed once under my breath, though there was nothing funny about it. “You enjoy this.”
“You’re angry,” he said.
“Yes, Professor. Very good. Excellent observation.”
His mouth curved faintly. “Careful.”
I folded my arms to keep my hands still. “Stop calling me into your office in front of everyone. Stop assigning me special work. Stop making people think I’m sleeping with you.”
The rain struck the window steadily behind him, blurring the campus beyond the glass into grey stone and dark water.
Professor Moreau leaned lightly against the edge of his desk. “And are you?”
The question was quiet but not teasing. Something in my stomach tightened, a low, unwelcome heat that had no business being there.
“No. Of course not!”
The words came out too fast.
His gaze dropped briefly to my mouth and then returned to my eyes. “No,” he said softly. “Not yet.”
Heat rose to my face before I could stop it, humiliating and immediate. The memory of his mouth on me flashed behind my eyes, hot and wet and relentless in the dark while Thad slept inches away.
“You’re disgusting.”
“Sometimes.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
“No, you really don’t.”
“I know more than you think.”
Something in his voice changed then. I felt it instantly, the air shifting, the conversation narrowing into something colder and far more intimate.
My anger faltered.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Professor Moreau reached for the stack of papers on his desk and pulled one file free from the middle. He did not hand it to me at first. He only rested his fingers on the cover, watching me as if he wanted to see the exact moment instinct began speaking before thought.
Then he turned the file toward me.
My proposal sat on top.
Adaptive Cellular Response Under Chronic Environmental Stress.
My name typed neatly beneath the title. Céline Martin.
The name looked clean and legitimate there. Almost convincing.
My throat tightened before I understood why.
“I’ve read this many times,” he said.
“I know.”
“It truly is exceptional work.”
I forced myself to breathe. “You’ve said that before.”
“Yes.” His fingers rested lightly on the top page. “But not yours.”
The room seemed to tilt.
For one second, I heard nothing except rain. Not the lab outside. Not my pulse. Not even his breathing. Just rain hitting glass in steady, merciless lines.
I looked at the file because looking at him suddenly felt impossible.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I do.”
“No, you don’t.” My voice stayed quiet, which was the only reason it did not shake. “You think because I’m not like your little lab prodigies, I couldn’t have written something good.”
“No,” he said. “I think you couldn’t have written this regardless.”
The cruelty of it landed so precisely that I almost flinched.
“You arrogant son of a bitch.” I spit out, my anger getting the better of me.
“There you are. The real you, I want to see more of it.”
“Don’t test me.”
He ignored that.
“Your previous reports are good when someone has clearly helped you, and careless when they haven’t.
Your classroom answers are socially intelligent but rarely technically deep.
Your methods section here has patience you do not possess.
Your literature review cites work you struggled to discuss last week when I asked you about it directly. ”
My mouth went dry.
He had asked about it casually. I remembered. One question near the incubators, while Julian looked for labels and Wendy cleaned a bench. A paper I had supposedly cited. A technique I had supposedly understood.
I had answered around it. I thought I had done it well. Apparently not.
“That proves nothing.”
“No,” he agreed. “Not alone.”
My stomach dropped further.
He opened the file and removed a second sheet. It was not from my proposal. I recognized the handwriting immediately. Katherine’s. Not just because of the words. Because of the slant. The tight controlled pressure. The way she formed certain letters sharply enough to cut into the page.
I forgot how to move.
Professor Moreau watched me take it in.
“Where did you get that?”
He did not answer.