Chapter 22
Vincent
Thad Rodriguez came to my office the next morning.
His coat was cashmere, the watch old enough to signal inheritance rather than recent purchase, and the shoes carried the soft, polished finish of leather maintained by someone who had never had to maintain it himself.
Everything about him was expensive. That was never the issue.
The issue was that anger made him obvious.
Some men grew more dangerous when wounded.
Thad Rodriguez grew younger. He stood outside my office door with rain darkening the shoulders of his coat and humiliation sitting plainly across his face, trying very hard to look like a man in control of a conversation he had not yet begun.
I almost pitied him.
“Professor Moreau,” he said.
I looked up from the lab report I had been reviewing.
“Mr. Rodriguez.”
His jaw tightened at the calmness of my voice.
He had probably expected surprise, guilt, perhaps some flicker of recognition that would give him something to use.
Unfortunately for him, I had spent most of my life watching men like his father turn discomfort into leverage.
Thad had inherited the confidence but not the technique.
“Do you have a minute?”
“No, but I suspect you’re going to take one anyway.”
He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Men like Thad always preferred privacy when they feared losing publicly.
He glanced around my office with poorly concealed irritation.
The bookshelves lined with first editions, the antique microscope models, the framed publications from journals that had published my work when I was still in my early twenties, the rain-streaked window overlooking the cliffs.
I wondered what he saw. Probably arrogance.
Maybe a threat. Maybe simply another man’s room in which Céline had begun to exist without him.
“You need to stay away from her,” he said.
Direct, then. How disappointing.
“From whom?” I leaned back in my chair.
“Don’t do that.” His face darkened.
“I’m asking for clarity.”
“You know exactly who I mean.”
“I know several women. Most of them are capable of deciding who they do and do not see.”
“Céline is my girlfriend.”
I rolled my eyes.
“She broke up with me last night,” he said, more tightly.
“I’m aware.”
“Of course you are.” His eyes snapped back to mine.
He took a step closer to my desk.
“What did you say to her?”
“Many things.”
“Don’t play games with me.”
“You came to my office uninvited, accused me vaguely, and shut the door behind you. If this is a game, Mr. Rodriguez, you chose the board.”
His hands curled once at his sides.
Interesting. Not enough discipline there. His father would have remained still.
“You’re her professor,” he said, lowering his voice. “Whatever you think is happening, it’s wrong.”
That almost made me smile. Wrong. Such a soft, useless word.
“Did she tell you something was happening?”
The question struck exactly where I intended.
Thad’s silence answered before he did. His expression shifted, just slightly, and there was the first genuine uncertainty. Céline had not told him. Not properly, and certainly not enough. He had been left with suspicion and wounded pride.
“She didn’t have to,” he said finally.
“No,” I replied. “I imagine she rarely does.”
His anger sharpened. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you were comfortable with the version of her that required the least imagination from you.”
“You don’t know anything about our relationship.”
“Oh, but I know she was no longer happy with a dull, unsatisfying sex life.”
His face flushed.
Thad’s voice dropped. “If you used your position to pressure her—”
“You should be careful with your words.”
I rose from my chair slowly. Thad was tall, broad-shouldered, conventionally attractive in the way wealthy young men often were when raised with trainers and leisure, but he had never truly been forced to occupy a room with someone who did not need his approval. It showed.
“Are you threatening me?” he asked.
“No. I’m advising you not to make accusations you cannot support.”
“My family has supported this university for years.”
“So has mine.”
That stopped him.
The Moreau name had a way of doing that in rooms built by old money.
It wasn’t just the fact that my name was more respectable than Rodriguez’s.
Bellamont knew my family in its bones. Their name was on donor walls, research buildings, endowed chairs, and old correspondence in archives no one read unless they wanted to know who had owned what.
I had earned my position as the youngest professor in the department through grants that dwarfed anything the Rodriguez vineyards had ever funnelled into this place. Thad knew it too. I saw him remember.
His expression hardened to cover the calculation.
“You think that protects you?”
“No,” I said. “I think it complicates your fantasy of yourself as the first rich man in Blackwater to assert your influence.”
His mouth tightened. For the first time, I saw something in him that might have been useful if he had been better trained. Anger, pride, possessiveness, and beneath all of it, something very close to genuine hurt.
He had loved her, perhaps. In his way.
The thought irritated me more than expected.
Not because it threatened me. It didn’t.
Whatever Thad had felt for Céline existed inside a structure too shallow to survive knowing her fully.
But there was still something unpleasant about the idea that he had touched even the version of her he understood badly.
“She was fine before you,” he said.
I laughed. “No, she was not.”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
He stared at me. I let the silence hold. Céline had not been fine before me. She had stood beside him at dinners, worn his bracelet, accepted his family’s approval, and let him imagine that steadiness was intimacy. He had not noticed that she was starving for more.
Thad looked toward the window, jaw tight, and for a brief moment, he seemed younger again.
Then his expression closed. “If you hurt her,” he said, “I’ll make sure everyone knows exactly what kind of man you are.”
I smiled faintly. “That would require you to know.”
He stared at me for one long second. Then he turned and opened the door.
Céline stood on the other side.
She stood in the corridor with her bag over one shoulder, still damp from the rain, wearing a cream coat over a black blouse and skirt. Her face displayed shock.
Thad looked at her, and whatever remained of his pride failed him for half a second. “Céline.”
She looked between us. “What are you doing here?”
The question was directed at him, but her eyes returned to me before he answered. His face tightened again. “I wanted to understand what happened.”
Her mouth softened with something like guilt, but only briefly.
“Thad…”
“No,” he said, voice quiet now. “It’s fine. I understand enough.”
Thad stepped past her into the hallway. For a second, I thought he might touch her arm. He didn’t. Perhaps he had learned something after all.
Instead, he said, “I hope he’s worth whatever this costs you.”
Then he left.
Céline watched him walk away until he disappeared down the corridor. Only then did she step into my office and shut the door behind her. She turned on me immediately.
“What did you say to him?”
“Less than I wanted to.”
“This is not funny.” Her eyes flashed.
“I am not laughing.”
“You made him come here, didn’t you?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I didn’t make him do anything.” I paused, watching the rainwater cling to one dark strand of hair near her cheek. “You broke up with him. He came here because he assumed I had something to do with it.”
“You did have something to do with it.”
She crossed the room toward me, stopping a few feet from my desk.
Her hands were trembling slightly, though she hid it by gripping the strap of her bag.
I wondered if the shaking had started in Thad’s hallway last night or in the car afterwards, or only now, after seeing the discarded future walk past her with hurt on his face.
She stepped closer before she could stop herself, anger overriding caution.
“I could ruin you too, you know.”
“Yes.” I knew she was referring to the way she ruined Katherine, but I didn’t let it slip out.
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
“You think I won’t because you have that file.”
“I think you won’t because ruining me would require explaining why I had that file in the first place. It doesn’t take a genius to guess you didn’t just steal her research, clothes and car. There’s more to it, isn’t there?”
The truth settled between us coldly.
Then, very quietly, she said, “I hate you.”
The words had become familiar by now, but they did not sound the same each time. Today, there was exhaustion and grief beneath them.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. You think my hatred is part of whatever sick game you’re playing. It isn’t.” Her voice shook once, barely. “I had a life before you.”
“You had hiding places.”
“They were still mine; I built them.”
I said nothing for a moment. The rain filled the silence.
She looked beautiful like this, which was inconvenient and entirely beside the point.
Damp hair, pale face, eyes bright with fury, she refused to let become tears.
She had dressed carefully this morning, but the storm had undone enough of the polish to make her look more real than she probably intended.
I wanted to touch her.
“You’re right,” I said at last.
She looked startled.
I moved around the desk, slowly enough not to crowd her.
“They were yours.”
Her face tightened as if she did not trust the concession. Smart girl.
“And yet you came here,” I said.
“I have lab.” Her jaw set.
“Not for another forty minutes.”
“You are so unbearable.”
“Frequently, and only for you.”