My Professor’s Obsession のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 71 - チャプター 78

"Put the keys down, Dominic, because if you think I’m getting into a car with a man who thinks an envelope of cash is a personality replacement, you’ve clearly forgotten who you're talking to," I said, my voice cutting through the humid morning air of the motel parking lot.He was leaning against a black sedan that looked like it cost more than the entire block, his shades pushed up into his perfectly groomed hair. He looked like an advertisement for a life I had finally stopped wanting."I’m not here to kidnap you, Sera. I’m here to give you an exit ramp," Dominic said, flashing that smile that used to make me feel safe but now just made me feel like I was being appraised for auction. "Look at this place. There’s mold on the stucco and the guy in room four definitely has a meth habit. You're better than this.""I'm exactly where I need to be," I told him, adjusting the strap of my heavy work bag. My shoulder ached from a double shift at the diner, and my fingers felt stiff from scrub

"Sit down, Sera, because watching you hover near the door like a stray cat makes my head ache, and we have entirely too much business to settle before the markets open tomorrow morning," Helena Blackwood said.She didn’t look up from her tea. She sat at the head of a lacquered dining table that felt long enough to require a microphone, her spine perfectly straight against the velvet backing of her chair. The townhouse smelled of old money, polished silver, and something faintly chemical, like high-end furniture wax used to cover up the scent of rot.Caspian didn’t sit. He stood right behind my shoulder, his hand heavy on the wood of my chair, his knuckles white. I could feel the heat radiating off him, that tight, vibrating anger he always carried when he was forced back into his mother’s house."I'll stand," I said, my voice firmer than I expected it to be. "I’ve spent the last two weeks on my feet at a diner, Helena. I’m used to people giving me orders while I look at the exit."Hel

"The very first painting wasn't actually of you, Sera, it was just the shape of my own regret dressed up in your skin," Caspian said, his voice dropping into that quiet, gravelly register that always made the hairs on my arms stand up.We were standing in the deepest corner of his personal studio, the one hidden behind the false drywall in the brownstone's basement. The air down here didn't smell like the expensive turpentine and lavender oils he used upstairs. It smelled like damp brick, iron water, and decades of old oil paint that had never dried quite right. He had his hand on the hem of a heavy grey canvas drop cloth that was nailed straight into the ceiling joists."What do you mean it wasn't of me?" I asked, shifting the heavy weight of my work bag off my shoulder. "I sat for you for six weeks, Caspian. I remember the way the stool dug into my thighs. I remember the way you told me to look at the window until my eyes watered.""You sat for the details, yes," he said, and with o

"They’re trading your father’s name on the short-selling market like it’s cheap lumber, Sera, and if we don't block the margin call by ten o'clock, the foundation won't even exist to be sued," Elias said, his thumb flicking across an iPad screen that looked like a waterfall of red and green numbers.We were sitting in a tiny, windowless security office behind the vault of the main gallery. The air smelled like hot copper from the servers and old, cold takeout coffee. Caspian was on a landline in the corner, his suit jacket off, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up to his elbows. He wasn't yelling, but the skin around his jaw was so tight it looked like stone."What do you mean short-selling his name?" I asked, leaning over Elias’s shoulder. "He’s a dead painter, Elias. He doesn't have a stock price.""The Brandon Estate has a valuation attached to the remaining inventory, honey," Elias explained, not looking up from the glass. "When Vanguard pulled out of the merger last night, He