Home / Romance / My Best Friend’s Brother Is My Professor—And He Wants Me / Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

All Chapters of My Best Friend’s Brother Is My Professor—And He Wants Me: Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

208 Chapters

131

Elena CarsonThe shot is still echoing in my bones when the car door shuts hard beside me.Killian is in the back seat with me, one arm locked around my shoulders, the other held slightly away from his body. Blood has already darkened the sleeve of his shirt in an expanding, ugly bloom. It seeps between his fingers when he presses them over the wound. The metallic smell fills the closed space of the car fast.Ronald is in the front, phone at his ear, giving clipped directions to a private medical center. The warehouse falls away behind us in a smear of black trees and weak exterior light. My wrists burn where the cords cut. My ribs ache from the device’s vanished weight. None of it compares to the bright red fact of his blood on my hands from when I grabbed him.“You’re bleeding too much.”“It’s a graze.”“That’s not a graze, Killian.”“I’ve had worse.”The casualness in his voice scrapes. I want to shout at it. I want to press my forehead to the window and disappear into the dar

132

Elena CarsonThe shower is the first place I go into.Hot water runs over my shoulders and turns the dust of that concrete floor into pale swirls around my feet. I wash my hair twice. I scrub my wrists carefully around the bandages until the residual adhesive and skin-scent of fear start to give way to Killian’s soap. When I step out, the mirror is fogged and my reflection is only a blurred shape. I am grateful for that.He has left clean clothes on the bed, his shirt, soft drawstring pants that require me to roll the waistband twice. I dress slowly. Every movement reminds me of the chair, the timer, the way the scarred man’s voice sat against my skin. I push the memory back into a smaller room in my mind and leave it there for later.In the living room the romantic setup is still waiting. Candles slumped in their own wax. Roses darkening at the edges. I start clearing it because leaving it untouched feels weird. Killian appears from the hallway with his injured arm held clos

133

Killian Davenport Morning arrives as pain first.The arm that felt manageable under adrenaline and artificial light now from last night, now throbs in a deep, insistent pulse from shoulder to elbow. The dressing is tight. The sutures pull when I shift. For a few seconds I lie still and inventory the rest of the damage, the residual bruise along my ribs from the gravel, the grit of exhaustion behind my eyes, the fact that Elena is asleep against my uninjured side with one hand curled in the fabric of my shirt like her body has not yet accepted that the war is over.I ease out of bed without waking her.The penthouse is pale with early light. I start coffee one-handed and make breakfast with the same limitation: eggs, toast, the fruit she will actually eat. Ordinary motions. Useful ones. The alternative is standing in the quiet and replaying the timer on that chair until my thoughts turn useless.Nora arrives before eight, skipping class without apology, hair thrown up

134

Elena CarsonBy late afternoon the penthouse has finally stopped feeling like a command center.The detectives are gone. Philip is gone. Ronald’s updates have thinned. Nora left after lunch with a reluctant hug and a promise to come back if either of us even sounded wrong on the phone. I find him in the kitchen doorway watching me finish a cup of tea I have already reheated once.“We’re going out,” he says.I blink. “Out where?”“Dinner. The reservation I made for Sunday is transferable. Or it is now.” A faint dry edge enters his voice. “I called in a favor.”“You planned that before everything.”“I planned it for you. The circumstances changed. The intention didn’t.”I look down at myself, his shirt, soft pants, hair still damp from a second shower I took more for nerves than need. “I’m not exactly dressed for five stars.”“Then change. Or don’t. I’ll take you as you are.”Something in the simplicity of it undoes me more. I go to the bedroom and stand in front of the limited c

135

Killian DavenportThe executive floor of Davenport Co is oddly quiet quiet today.I have been back three days. Long enough for the staff to stop staring at the sling under my jacket. I move through it carefully. Not timidly. Carefully. I listen more than I speak in meetings. I watch who goes quiet when my name enters a sentence. I note which assistants suddenly have errands when I appear at a doorway. Social cues are data. In a building like this, data keeps you alive.Emma has been useful in ways I did not fully expect.I told her because the alternative was operating half-blind inside a company still recovering from one crisis while another bled under the floorboards. Besides Ronald, she is the only person here I trust with incomplete information and the discipline not to turn it into theater. She keeps the public narrative stable. She flags internal chatter before it becomes a problem. This morning she left a folder on my desk with three soft leads and a note in her precise ha

136

Killian DavenportYLEKI stays on my mind for the rest of the day.I stay later at the company than I mean to, pulling old vendor lists, side-entity registers, archived transfer summaries from the months before the London exposure started. Emma has already cross-checked the public filings twice. Ronald has Ian peeling the shell. None of it returns the private click of memory I need. By nine the floor is mostly empty and my arm aches in a low, continuous complaint under the dressing. I shut the laptop, take my jacket, and leave the unanswered letters where they are.The day is incomplete without her.I stop for ice cream on the way because the shop’s lights are still on. Two large bowls. The city is cooler at this hour. Traffic thins. By the time I park beneath her building the residual tension of Davenport Co. has loosened.I press the doorbell with my good hand.Elena opens the door with a smile. Hair loose. Soft clothes. The diamond at her neck catches the hallway light.“I’m

137

Elena Carson My body is still trembling when the aftershocks finally thin out. I lie there catching my breath, the sheets cool against my bare back, the feel of ice cream and him still against my skin. Killian settles beside me with one arm careful of the dressing. For a few seconds neither of us speaks. My pulse slowly remembers a normal speed. I reach for a nightshirt from the chair, pull it over my head, and slide back under the covers against him. “That was so good,” I murmur. “You want more?” “No. Nora will be back soon.” He makes a low sound that is almost a laugh and nips lightly at the edge of my jaw. “Coward.” “Practical.” “Same thing when it keeps me from touching you.” I smile into his shoulder and let the talk drift to a café I found near campus with ridiculous pastries and windows that fog in the morning. A professor who assigns too much reading. The way Nora pretends she hates romantic movies and then cries at the second act every time. He listens like

138

Elena Carson By the time Nora pulls into campus, I have checked my phone six times. “You know he’s not going to disappear if you stop looking at the screen,” she says. “I’m not looking for him.” “You’re smiling at your phone.” “I can smile at my phone.” “You can. You’re just terrible at pretending you aren’t waiting for a text.” I turn the screen facedown on my lap. “I hate you.” “No, you don’t.” She parks and kills the engine. Students move across the walkway in small groups, some rushing toward buildings with coffee cups in their hands, others standing around talking as though they have nowhere else to be. My phone vibrates. Nora looks at me. I look at her. She raises both eyebrows but I I pick up the phone anyway. Killian: Made it. A smile immediately pulls at my mouth. Me: Good morning to you too. The reply comes almost instantly. Killian: Good morning. Did you eat? I glance at Nora. She is already laughing. “Don’t.” “I didn’t say anything.” “You were about

139

Killian DavenportMy mother shows up at my office without warning, which is how she has always preferred important conversations to begin.The executive assistant only has time to buzz once before Barbara Davenport is already in the doorway of the temporary office, holding a covered dish in both hands and wearing the expression she reserves for me. She looks smaller against the glass and steel of the building, but her posture is straight.“I only came to check on you,” she says, setting the dish on the side table. “And to ask about Elena.”She’s fine and “I’m fine too.”“You were shot.”“Grazed.”“You were shot,” she repeats, and the correction is not open to debate. She peels back the lid long enough for the smell of her lemon chicken and roasted potatoes to fill the cool office air. “Eat when you can. Not the cafeteria nonsense.”“Thank you.”“How is she?”“Stronger than she should have to be.”My mother’s mouth softens by a fraction. “Good. She’s a good girl. Stubborn. That wi

140

Killian Davenport My anger is already fully formed by the time I clear the garden path and push through the side entrance into the mansion’s lower hall. The word YLEKI is still burned behind my eyes. Every step toward the building converts memory into heat. Elena on a concrete floor, a timer against her ribs, a bullet track in my arm paid for by a shell company named with my brother’s childhood code.I walk into the mansion and down the hall. Voices carry from the open study doors. Derek’s low register. Ronald’s measured replies. Kyle’s smoother cadence layered over both.I walk straight in.Kyle is standing beside Ronald’s chair, one hand in his pocket. He has half a second of surprise before my good fist connects with his jaw. The impact travels up my arm in a bright, satisfying line. He staggers back into the edge of the desk hard enough to rattle the glass of water there.Ronald is moving before Kyle fully recovers, arms locking around my chest from behind.“Killian…”Kyle

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