I stared at my reflection in the lecture hall window long after everyone else had escaped to their normal, non-psychologically complicated lives.

My notebook was still open to a completely blank page because apparently I’d spent the entire class having an internal crisis instead of taking notes about Victorian poetry.

“I’m nothing like her,” I whispered to my ghost reflection, pressing my fingers to my chest like I could physically slow the panic building there.

But that didn’t stop the questions from multiplying like rabbits in my brain.

What the fuck had I actually witnessed in Vaughn’s office? What did it mean for me? And why couldn’t I stop thinking about the way she’d dropped to her knees like muscle memory?

My feet carried me toward Lewis’s office before my brain could talk them out of it. Heart pounding, mouth desert-dry, fingers curled into fists as I knocked on his pretentious heavy door.

“Come in.”

I stepped inside and shut the door with the kind of finality that suggested we were about to have a conversation that couldn’t be interrupted.

He was buttoning his jacket like he’d been about to leave, but his eyes met mine—calm, unreadable, giving away absolutely nothing.

Classic Lewis. Emotional Fort Knox in a perfectly tailored suit.

“Miss Hale,” he said, switching into full professor mode. “Did you need clarification on the lecture?”

I fucking hated how he could flip that switch.

Professional, detached, like he hadn’t been systematically rewiring my brain for weeks. But I caught the flicker in his gaze—the storm brewing just beneath that controlled surface.

“I need to ask you something,” I said, stepping forward because retreating was for cowards.

He nodded once, slow and deliberate. “Ask.”

“What…” I swallowed hard, trying to find words for questions I didn’t know how to ask. “What are we?”

He tilted his head like I was speaking a foreign language. “You’re my student, Sophie.”

“That’s not what I meant.” My voice cracked slightly, betraying the chaos in my chest. “You know it’s not.”

Lewis didn’t move, but something shifted in his expression. “Why are you asking that?”

“Because,” I said, breath hitching, “I saw you. With Dr. Vaughn.”

His face finally changed. Just a twitch at the corner of his mouth, a breath that didn’t come easy. Like I’d just dropped a bomb in his perfectly controlled world.

“You saw what, exactly?”

“I heard her,” I said, pushing forward because backing down now would be admitting defeat. “I heard everything. She said you wouldn’t find another victim.”

“And you think that’s what you are?” His voice went quiet, dangerous. “A victim?”

I hesitated because honestly? I wasn’t sure anymore.

“No. But I need to understand what I’m walking into.”

He stepped around the desk and came closer, the room suddenly feeling like it had shrunk by half. “Dr. Vaughn and I had a history. That’s not exactly classified information.”

“She said—”

“I know what she said,” he cut in sharply. “She wanted more. Commitment, emotion, the whole domestic fantasy. I told her from the beginning I wasn’t capable of that. But she thought she could change me.”

I looked at him, really looked. His jaw was clenched, hands perfectly still, but his eyes were telling a different story entirely.

“So she threw a tantrum?” I asked.

“She thought her submission gave her power over me,” he said, voice dropping to that register that made my stomach flip. “And when I didn’t play the role she’d imagined, she lost control. So I ended it.”

“And me?” The question came out smaller than I’d intended. “What am I to you?”

His gaze darkened, pinning me in place. “You’re mine.”

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