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Chapter Twentyeight

Penulis: M. Silendali
last update Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-11-28 20:04:43

The night before he flew home, Adrian didn’t even pretend to work.

The conference was technically still going—panels he should attend, dinners he should make an appearance at, conversations he should be part of—but he’d slipped away early with the easy excuse of “jet lag” and “early flight.”

No one argued.

Everyone understood fatigue.

No one knew what kind he meant.

Back in the flat, he dropped his keys on the table and stood in the doorway for a long moment, just listening to the radiator tick and the muted city noise beyond the glass.

He felt… wrong.

Not sick.

Not tired.

Not restless exactly.

Just misaligned, like his body was here but some essential part of him was still in a rain-wet office thousands of miles away.

He hung his coat over the back of the chair. The armchair in the corner caught his eye.

For one unguarded heartbeat, he saw her there again—knees parted, hand between her thighs, eyes locked on his as she whispered come for me—

He shut his eyes, jaw tightening.

Not now.
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  • Unprofessional - I shouldn't want my own student   Chapter Twentyeight

    The night before he flew home, Adrian didn’t even pretend to work.The conference was technically still going—panels he should attend, dinners he should make an appearance at, conversations he should be part of—but he’d slipped away early with the easy excuse of “jet lag” and “early flight.”No one argued.Everyone understood fatigue.No one knew what kind he meant.Back in the flat, he dropped his keys on the table and stood in the doorway for a long moment, just listening to the radiator tick and the muted city noise beyond the glass.He felt… wrong.Not sick.Not tired.Not restless exactly.Just misaligned, like his body was here but some essential part of him was still in a rain-wet office thousands of miles away.He hung his coat over the back of the chair. The armchair in the corner caught his eye.For one unguarded heartbeat, he saw her there again—knees parted, hand between her thighs, eyes locked on his as she whispered come for me—He shut his eyes, jaw tightening.Not now.

  • Unprofessional - I shouldn't want my own student   Chapter Twentyseven

    Prague was supposed to distract him.That was the lie he kept repeating as he walked through the narrow streets the next afternoon, collar turned up against the cold wind sweeping off the river. His conference badge hung uselessly from his coat pocket—he’d slipped out early, claiming fatigue, even though the truth was simpler:He couldn’t focus.Every hallway looked like it might contain a glimpse of her.Every stray laugh, every shadow, every passing perfume note made something inside him twist.Distance wasn’t diluting her.It was sharpening her into something he couldn’t escape.He crossed a small stone bridge near the Old Town, boots scuffing the damp cobblestone. Tourists moved around him in slow clusters, cameras raised, chatter rising like a soft mist.He forced himself to look outward.At the river.At the swans.At the tiny boats drifting beneath the arches.He needed grounding, not memory.But memory arrived anyway.Her sitting in the front row, twirling her pen, watching hi

  • Unprofessional - I shouldn't want my own student   Chapter Twentysix

    Prague didn’t care that he was unraveling.The next day passed in a blur of polite conversations, academic posturing, and forced composure. Adrian nodded through lectures he couldn’t absorb, pretended to take notes he never intended to reread, and accepted compliments from colleagues who saw only the professional veneer he’d spent years perfecting.None of them could see the exhaustion threaded beneath his skin.None of them knew he’d woken with the remnants of a dream he couldn’t fully banish.None of them would have believed how badly he wanted to check his email every twenty minutes.He didn’t.He didn’t dare.When the last conference event ended, he walked through the cold Prague evening with his hands in his coat pockets, collar turned up against the wind. The city was beautiful in the way old cities always were—cobblestone slick with recent rain, street lamps giving everything a soft amber glow, foreign voices rising and falling around him like a language he only half understood

  • Unprofessional - I shouldn't want my own student   Chapter Twentyfive

    In the dream, there was no plane.No conference.No distance.He was in his office.Of course he was. The lamp on his desk glowed warm. Rain streaked down the window in slow, steady trails, blurring the world outside into an impressionist smear.He knew it was a dream in the way dreams sometimes announced themselves: the air too thick, the silence too loud, the edges of objects too sharp and too soft at the same time.He was standing behind his desk when the door opened without a knock.Eden stepped inside.Not soaked, not shivering. Just… there. Calm. Certain. Wearing the simple black dress he’d never actually seen her in but had imagined once, shamefully, half-awake in the dark.It clung to her waist, skimmed mid-thigh, left her collarbones bare. Her hair was slightly damp, like she’d rushed here through the rain anyway.“Professor,” she said softly.His pulse kicked.“Eden,” he answered before he could correct himself.No Miss Marlowe. No syllabus. No rules.Her lips curved, slow a

  • Unprofessional - I shouldn't want my own student   Chapter Twentyfour

    Prague was supposed to be loud enough to drown her out.That had been the logic. New city. New schedule. New faces. A different rhythm of days that would smooth over the edges she’d left in him.Instead, the city only made the silence around her name feel louder.Adrian sat at the narrow desk in his rented flat, the kind of temporary space that felt more like a waiting room than a life. There was a single lamp casting a yellow pool of light over his laptop, a half-unpacked suitcase in the corner, and the distant sound of the tram rattling past three floors below.He should have been working.There were conference papers to review, a draft to edit, an email chain from a colleague about a panel he had no energy to care about.Instead, he stared at his inbox.One new message.From: Eden Marlowe.His pulse stumbled.He shouldn’t open it. Or he should at least wait. Give himself the appearance of distance, of indifference, of something besides the aching, pathetic truth that his entire day

  • Unprofessional - I shouldn't want my own student   Chapter Twentythree

    Prague greeted him with cold air and old stone — a city that felt older than sin, carved out of shadow and silence. It pressed against him the moment he arrived, heavy, ancient, indifferent.Fitting, he thought.He’d run halfway across the world to escape something simple and devastating:her breath against his lips.The taxi dropped him at the university-owned apartment, a narrow building with iron balconies and peeling paint that felt appropriately worn. He dragged his suitcase inside, shut the door, and leaned his back against it, exhaling a breath he’d been holding since the plane landed.Three weeks.Twenty-one days.He thought the numbers like they were a mantra capable of saving him.He pushed off the door and walked further in —small kitchenette, a desk by the window, a narrow bed that looked unforgiving.Everything smelled faintly of cleaning products and old books.Academic housing was supposed to feel neutral.Instead it felt like exile.He placed his suitcase beside the w

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