The Year I Stopped Being His novel Chapter 535

Then, he spoke in a low, gravelly whisper.

"I don't know."

"All I know is that for those five years, there wasn't a single day that I didn't think about her."

"And there wasn't a single day I didn't regret every terrible thing I had ever done to her..."

*

One month later. Riverdale University, the President's Office.

The afternoon sun spilled through the blinds, casting harsh parallel lines of light across Lawrence Sterling's mahogany desk.

He was looking down, flipping through an English medical journal with his reading glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. To his left sat a cup of completely cold Earl Grey tea.

The office was dead silent, save for the rhythmic *tick-tock* of the antique grandfather clock in the corner. The pendulum swung at an unhurried, agonizingly steady pace—just like the man who had occupied this room for decades.

Two knocks echoed from the door. Not too loud. Perfectly restrained.

"Come in."

The heavy oak door swung open, and the sharp click of high heels against the marble floor signaled her entrance.

Vanessa Vaughan walked in, carrying a small pill bottle and a manila folder.

She stepped up to the desk, placed the bottle down, and slid it directly toward Sterling's hand.

It was a standard white pharmaceutical bottle, its label displaying nothing but a sleek, complex molecular formula. It lacked any flashy marketing, yet in the afternoon light, it seemed to radiate a cold, terrifying power.

Sterling pulled his glasses off, pinching the bridge of his nose as his eyes locked onto the bottle. A sliver of raw, unconcealed greed bled into his gaze.

"Is this Vitas-1?"

"Yes, Professor."