Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Romance isn’t the opposite of intellect.
If anything, it’s a hypothesis too—an ongoing experiment in desire and vulnerability that dares to ask why wanting more has always been treated like weakness.
The problem, at least to me, isn’t that romance novels are unrealistic.
It’s that reality demands we pretend we don’t feel as much as we do.
In books, love is allowed to be loud, unruly, all-consuming.
But out here? Out here, we’re expected to be careful with our emotions.
To ration them, suppress them, wrap them in professionalism.
They say love makes you irrational—but being a woman in science means you're already viewed through a lens of doubt. So what’s one more risk? What’s one more variable thrown into the equation if it’s mine to test?
I think about all of this as I make my way to Dr. Kymbert’s office, two days after learning of Damon’s passing and Holden’s quiet confession.
There’s a stack of books under my arm and a steadiness in my spine that didn’t exist before.
Maybe it’s grief. Maybe it’s courage. Or maybe it’s the quiet, growing certainty that I don’t need to choose between being brilliant and being a woman.
I knock on her door and wait for the clickity-clack of her keyboard to stop and her voice to call me in. I open the door just as she lifts her eyes over the ridge of her glasses, scanning me with the kind of precision that makes it easy to forget she’s also human.
“Coralie,” she says, taking off her glasses and leaning back. “Have you had a chance to read over the documents I sent about the reef project?”
I smile and sit down across from her. “I have. Thank you.”
She smiles too, warm but measured. “Anything you want to go over before signing?”
“There is, actually,” I say. “Though not about the project—that part’s an easy yes.”
Her brows pull slightly together. “All right. Go ahead.”
I take a slow breath. I’ve never liked confrontation, especially not with someone I admire as much as Dr. Kymbert. But disagreement isn’t disloyalty, and I believe in the kind that comes with respect.
“Something you said in the Galápagos stayed with me,” I begin. “You mentioned that women don’t have the same luxuries as men when it comes to how we’re perceived.”
Her mouth presses into a line, but she doesn’t interrupt.
“And… I get it,” I continue. “I really do. I’ve already felt it. The gaze that lingers too long. The assumptions. The extra mile we have to walk just to be seen at the starting line.”
I pause. Her face gives nothing away.
“But still—there’s something that feels backwards about accepting that as the unshakable truth.
Science is supposed to reward curiosity.
But women in science are often punished just for wanting more.
For being too eager, too ambitious, too open.
Like wanting too much disqualifies us from being taken seriously. ”
She leans forward, elbows on the desk, rubbing the bridge of her nose like the words touch something raw.
“I understand,” she says at last, voice careful. “And it’s a noble sentiment. But Coralie—wishing and getting don’t always coincide.”
She holds my gaze as she speaks, and there’s something in it that borders on sorrow.
“I’ve been in this field for decades,” she says.
“And yes, we’ve made progress. But not nearly enough.
And certainly not fast enough to match the urgency of your generation.
The system still asks women to prove they belong before it lets them contribute.
Every advance we make comes with a whisper of doubt. And I fear you won’t be the exception.”
Her words settle over me like smoke. Heavy. Familiar.
I hesitate. Just a second. Then I feel it—my spine straightening, my pulse evening. That subtle but unshakable sense that I know who I am and what I’m worth.
She has a point, I know she does. But ambition is the art of refusing the smaller script, even when it fits you like a glove. Gloves are warm; they also keep you from touching what you came for.
I tap the tip of my fingers on the stack of books on my lap. “You asked me a few weeks ago about STEM romances.”
She nods, but I can tell she’s not following me, or where this is leading.
“I’ve read more of them than I should probably admit outside of my journal,” I continue with a small laugh. “The female main character is often mocked for wanting too much. But wanting deeply seems to always be the first act of courage.”
Her face changes in that subtle way it does when the wheels start spinning behind her gaze. “I take it this is about Mr. Wilkes.”
I want to be shocked at how clearly she reads the situation, or maybe has read it for a while, even. But as much as Holden is who I want, I’m here for me.
“This is about me,” I correct with a smile. “You see, if there’s one thing I learned from reading too many of these books, it’s that not giving it a try will always result in not getting what you want. But you will never run out of second chances if you keep making first attempts.”
Before she can refute, I power through.
“This one is my favorite,” I say, dropping the first book of my pile on her desk like a mic.
“The main character? She’s a PhD student—brilliant, awkward, relentless.
She strikes this fake-dating deal with her professor—mutually beneficial, strictly transactional—except it’s not.
Because beneath it all, it’s about two scientists navigating the tightrope of academia and falling for each other in the safest, slowest, most considerate way. ”
“Coralie, what is this supposed to—”
I cut her off with the next book. “This one’s about a neuroscientist—top of her field, but constantly belittled by the men she works with. Until one of them—one who’s secretly admired her work for years—gives her the space, the tools, the support to be exactly who she is without shrinking.”
I’m on a roll now. I drop the third book beside the others. “And this one? It’s about a woman in theoretical physics and the man who challenges her without ever trying to dim her. A man who holds real power over her future and still chooses, over and over, not to misuse it.”
Dr. Kymbert picks up the books, turning them over, inspecting the colorful illustrated covers—bright hues, smiling characters, mid-embrace. Whimsical, yes. But layered with something far more serious.
“These seem great,” she says, a little puzzled. “But I’m not sure I’m following your train of thought.”
A soft laugh escapes me, and I don’t even try to hold it back.
“I guess what I’m saying is… these books aren’t just escapism.
They’re a vision. They’re written by women who know what it’s like in these fields.
Women who have been silenced, dismissed, underestimated—and still dream anyway.
These stories are the hypothesis. What if scientific brilliance and emotional honesty weren’t mutually exclusive?
What if women in STEM didn’t have to compartmentalize themselves to be taken seriously?
What if respect, desire, and intellectual admiration could live in the same room? ”
I gesture toward the stack. “They’re not fantasies. They’re blueprints. They’re what it could look like. What it should look like.”
She sits back in her chair, visibly taken aback, and looks at me. Then at the stack of books, then back again. Her expression softens—less startled now, more amused—and she lets out a small, breathy laugh that seems to say, Well, I didn’t see that coming.
I smile, because neither did I.
I lean forward, my voice steady despite the emotion swelling under my skin. “Dr. Kymbert,” I say, and I can feel the edges of my smile tugging at my cheeks. “I would love nothing more than to be a part of your team. I’ve dreamed of a chance like this for so long.”
Her gaze is warm now. Clear. The kind of look that says I see you, from one woman who’s carved her place in science to another trying to do the same.
But I’m not finished. Not yet.
“But I cannot—will not—compartmentalize myself to fit into someone else’s definition of credibility,” I continue, my voice threading tighter. “I want to be all of it. A scientist. A thinker. A woman in love, if that’s what I choose. I want to be the full equation, not the sum of acceptable parts.”
She doesn’t interrupt. Just runs her fingers down the spines of the books like she’s tracing something far more meaningful—possibility, maybe. A future she never allowed herself to imagine.
“You know, Coralie,” she says quietly, “I had a feeling you were one of a kind when your tutor emailed us every day for two weeks, demanding someone look at your independent research.”
I blink, surprised. I hadn’t known she knew about that.
“We get recommendations all the time,” she adds. “Most get lost in the shuffle. But yours… yours was relentless. And it turns out, you’ve earned every word of it. Every single day since.”
I open my mouth to speak, but she lifts a hand, stopping me with that same quiet authority I’ve always admired.
“I’ll be honest,” she says. “I’m wary. Not of your talent—but of the weight this path might put on your shoulders.
I’ve never had the courage to step outside the boundaries I was taught to survive within.
Especially when it came to the personal bleeding into the professional.
But if anyone can redraw the map...” She smiles. “It’s you.”
A tear slips down before I can stop it. But I don’t reach for it. I don’t flinch.
Because maybe strength isn’t the absence of emotion. Maybe it’s letting someone see that you feel deeply—and refusing to apologize for it.
And for the first time, I think she sees that in me too.
She welcomes me onto the project with open arms, and I thank her—for hearing me out, for being a sounding board or, at the very least, for trusting me to weather the storms that might come my way.
Then I sign the papers. In four weeks, I’ll officially join her research team. Just like that—pen to paper, pressure to potential.
As I click the pen shut and slide the forms back across her desk, her expression shifts. A glint of mischief replaces her usual scholarly calm, and she leans back with a grin that makes her look ten years younger.
“Miss Taylor,” she says, voice lilting, playful. “Now that we’ve handled all the research talk and academic gravitas... do tell me—who’s the man that’s made all this trouble worth it?”
I laugh, caught off guard by the directness. “I’m no stranger to trouble,” I say.
She lifts a brow, entirely unconvinced. “I don’t doubt that. But I know you didn’t come in here armed with a romantic trilogy for nothing. So really—what was it in Mr. Wilkes that caught the attention of a brain as sharp as yours?”
I pretend to gasp, but it’s all show now. There’s no need to hide. Not in this office. Not after what we’ve just shared. Not after being seen, and still chosen.
“He’s…” I pause, then smile. “He’s never needed me to be anything but exactly who I was, at every stage I was ready to give it.”
And it’s true. Holden has stood still through every version of me since I arrived.
From the wide-eyed girl still homesick for Nova Scotia, to the stubborn one challenging his critiques.
The restless, overthinking student. The one who rambled about cephalopods and couldn’t look grief in the eye.
The girl who kissed him under salt-thick air and tried not to regret it. He held steady, even when I couldn’t.
Maybe I’ve been one of the storms he spent years trying to understand—shifting, complex, impossible to measure in absolutes.
Dr. Kymbert nods thoughtfully. “Seems like a good man, then.”
I gather my tote and rise from the chair, smoothing the edge of my skirt. I glance back and give her a knowing wink. “You picked a good TA.”
“I suspected that long before he did,” she says, and we both laugh.
I reach the door, hand on the knob, when she calls my name again and gestures toward the trio of romance novels still stacked on her desk.
“You’re leaving these behind?”
“I’m trusting you with them,” I say. “They’re instructional.”
She lifts one with skeptical fingers. “In what, exactly?”
I shoot her a smirk, already halfway out. “You were the one skimming the steamy STEM shelf, remember?”
She rolls her eyes, but her lips twitch.
“Any, ah, recommended chapters?”
I pause in the doorway, grin wide. “Sixteen. In the first one. Think of it as... supplemental reading.”
She shakes her head with a soft laugh, already slipping the first book into her top drawer.
The door clicks closed behind me, and just like that, I walk away knowing I’m no longer asking for permission.