All Chapters of His Forbidden Model: The Professor's Obsession: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

JasmineThe Tuesday lunch rush at Peggy’s Diner had a rhythm to it now, one I’d learned the way I learned everything—by doing it wrong enough times to finally get it right.Table four wanted their coffee refilled without being asked.The elderly couple by the window always argued over the bill before one of them secretly paid it anyway.The construction crew from the site down the road came in loud, laughed louder, and left the biggest tips if you got their food out before they had a chance to complain.I balanced four plates on one arm the way Chris had taught me my first week and set them down at the corner booth without spilling a drop of gravy.“You’re getting good at that,” Peggy said from behind the counter, watching me with pride.“I had a great teacher.” I wiped my hands on my apron and leaned against the counter for the first real breather I’d had in an hour. “Chris says I’m still one plate away from actually impressing him.”Peggy snorted into her coffee. “Chris says that to

Jasmine“Turn slightly toward the window. Chin down, just a fraction.”I adjusted, holding the pose while Davin circled to check the angle, the charcoal already moving before he’d fully settled back at the easel.We’d been at this well over an hour now, longer than any session since we’d started the paid arrangement, and my legs had started sending up quiet, insistent complaints that I was doing my best to ignore.“You said an hour,” I reminded him, and not for the first time that night, either.“I said approximately an hour,” he responded, his gaze fixed on the easel.I yawned. “That’s not what approximately means, Davin.”“It’s exactly what approximately means if you’re the one holding the charcoal.” He didn’t look up, though I caught the faint curve at the corner of his mouth. “Five more minutes.”He knew what he was doing, and that irritated me even more.I groaned. “You said that twenty minutes ago.”“Did I? Time moves strangely in here,” he muttered.I rolled my eyes. “How conve

JasmineDavin’s phone rang just as I was easing back into position under the lights. He glanced at the screen and sighed—I chuckled softly, already having a good guess of who it was.“I need to take this,” he said, already moving toward the window. “Give me five minutes.”I nodded. “Take your time.”He disappeared into the hallway that led toward the living quarters, and a moment later, I heard his voice soften.“Hi, Grandma…”The studio settled into the usual quiet it fell into whenever I was left alone. Charcoal dust hung faintly in the lamplight as the city hushed beyond the tall windows.I told myself I wasn’t going to look at the door, but I lasted about ninety seconds.It wasn’t planned, not exactly. It was more of a spontaneous decision, one made before their brain even comes to terms with it. One moment I was standing under the lights, reaching for my discarded shirt, and the next I was walking toward the storage room beside the kitchen, my eyes fixed on the plain door beyond

Jasmine“Say something, anything,” I said when the silence had stretched long enough that I couldn’t stand it anymore. “Because right now, my imagination is filling in the blanks, and none of the versions I’m coming up with are good.”Davin dragged a hand down his face, and for the first time since I’d known him, he looked genuinely uncertain of himself.“I saw you before that night,” he said finally, his voice rough. “At the library. It was about ten days before we met, maybe eleven.”I frowned as I tried to search my memory. “I don’t remember seeing you.”“I know, you wouldn’t.” His answer came almost immediately. “I was cutting through the main corridor outside the reading room, and I’d walked that hallway hundreds of times, maybe thousands. Then I looked through the window, and there you were, sitting by yourself, a book open in your lap.”Something cold settled in my stomach. “You watched me at the library.”“I saw you,” he corrected. “You were so completely absorbed in what you

DavinBy seven o’clock, I’d reorganized the same set of brushes so many times that even I had lost track. The flat brushes stood in one jar, and the round brushes were in another.I switched them once, and then I switched them again shortly after.The ritual had nothing to do with organization. It simply gave my hands something to do while my mind insisted on imagining every possible version of the evening ahead, and none of them ended well.In one, Jasmine walked in, thanked me for the opportunity, accepted the final payment, and told me she was done. In another, she never came at all. I’d spend the evening listening for footsteps that never reached the landing, staring at a door that remained stubbornly closed until I finally admitted to myself that I’d lost her.There were darker versions, too. Versions where she’d told someone. The university, the police, or even a lawyer. It was unlikely, but it was also a possibility.It had been four days since I’d heard her voice, four days wi