All Chapters of Unprofessional - I shouldn't want my own student: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

38 Chapters

Chapter Twentyone

Adrian woke the next morning with a kind of trembling dread he hadn’t felt since he was a much younger man — that cold, hollow certainty that he had crossed a line, even if only in intention.He wasn’t afraid of what Eden had done.He was afraid of what he almost had.And of what it meant.The thought sat in his chest like a stone as he dressed, knotting his tie with hands that refused to steady.He spent the entire morning walking campus with his shoulders tight, breath shallow, the memory of yesterday’s almost-kiss haunting every corner.He could still feel how close her lips were to his.He could still feel how her breath trembled when she whispered his name.He could still feel what it meant that she didn’t step away.He was in trouble.He’d known it before, but now… now it was undeniable.He reached his office with that dread clinging to him like a second skin.He was halfway through forcing himself into grading when an email notification popped up at the corner of his screen.He

Last Updated : 2025-11-28

Chapter Twentytwo

Adrian spent the night rehearsing how he wouldn’t look at her.He didn’t phrase it that honestly, of course.He told himself he was preparing for a professional announcement.He told himself it didn’t matter where Eden sat in the room.He told himself he wouldn’t scan the rows for her the moment he walked in.Just to be safe, he arrived ten minutes late.Uncharacteristic.Unprofessional.Desperate.The class turned toward him as he entered, murmurs rising and falling in waves — but his eyes avoided the front row like it burned.He could feel her before he saw her.That same soft gravity.That same gentle curiosity.That same warmth he couldn’t trust himself near.He set his bag down, cleared his throat, and said the words as briskly as he could manage:“Before we begin, I have an announcement.”His voice sounded stiff to his own ears.Controlled.Artificial.He didn’t dare look at her.Not yet.“I’ve been offered a research residency abroad. I leave this afternoon.”A ripple of surpri

Last Updated : 2025-11-28

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

Last Updated : 2025-11-28

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

Last Updated : 2025-11-28

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

Last Updated : 2025-11-28

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

Last Updated : 2025-11-28

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

Last Updated : 2025-11-28

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.

Last Updated : 2025-11-28

Chapter Twentynine

Adrian had never been more aware of the weight of a building in his life.He stood just inside the entrance of the philosophy department, suitcase still in hand, the winter light slanting through the tall windows like a cold, watchful gaze.He shouldn’t be here yet.He should’ve gone home.Dropped off his luggage.Showered.Slept.Pretended he wasn’t walking into this place with his pulse already bruising his throat.But he’d gone straight from the airport to campus. Some part of him—tight, hungry, uncontrollable—refused to go anywhere else first.The hall smelled the same.Old paper.Coffee.Rain clinging to coats and students and the soles of shoes.His breath went thin.He hadn’t even seen her yet, and already his body felt too warm under his clothes, nerves too aware, senses tuned like an instrument drawn too tight.He set his suitcase down beside his office door and unlocked it with hands that didn’t feel steady.The room greeted him like a confession he wasn’t ready to make.The

Last Updated : 2025-11-29

Chapter Thirty

He arrived early.Earlier than usual, earlier than reasonable—early enough that the hallways still echoed with the emptiness of morning, the lights not fully warmed, the building smelling faintly of cold stone and old books.He told himself he needed time to prepare the lecture.He knew why he was really here.He unlocked his office, stepped inside, and sat at the desk without turning on the lamp. The room felt expectant, like it had been waiting for something—for someone—to disturb its stillness.He tried to read.He tried to breathe.Neither worked.And then—A soft knock.Barely a tap.Like she wasn’t sure she should touch the door at all.He didn’t need to check.His body knew before his mind caught up.“Come in,” he said, voice low, steady only in theory.The door opened.Eeden stepped inside quietly, closing it behind her with the same gentleness she used when closing books she didn’t want to hurt. She wore a simple sweater and jeans, hair loose and slightly windswept, breath vi

Last Updated : 2025-11-29

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