Please Harder, Professor

Chapter 255

Sophie’s POV

The apartment is too small for all this emotion.

Adrian's arms around me, Bellamy's blood on the floor. The half-packed suitcase on the bed. Ayden is standing near the door watching all of us with careful eyes.

And the tension. God, the tension thick enough to choke on.

"Ayden." Adrian's voice is muffled against my hair. "Take Sophie’s stuff and wait for us in the car. Please."

"On it." Ayden nods, already moving toward the door. "I'll give three of you some privacy."

He leaves, the door closes behind him with a soft click.

And then it's just the three of us.

Adrian finally releases me, steps back. His eyes sweep over me one more time—checking for injuries, for signs of trauma, for anything that would justify killing Bellamy right here and now.

Then he looks at Bellamy.

Bellamy who's moved to the couch, sitting there with blood still dripping from his split lip, one eye already swelling shut, looking like exactly what he is: defeated.

Adrian stares at him for a long moment. This man who was like a brother to him. Who worked with him for years. Who saved his life more than once in dangerous situations. Who he trusted implicitly.

Who betrayed him in the worst possible way imaginable.

"Why?" Adrian's voice is rough, raw. "Just tell me why."

Bellamy doesn't look up, stares at his bloodied hands in his lap.

"Because I couldn't watch her marry you when I thought I loved her."

The words land like stones.

"You thought you loved her," Adrian repeats flatly.

"I didn't love her, I know that now. I loved the idea of not being alone anymore. I loved the fantasy of having what I lost when Olivia died."

Bellamy finally looks up, meets Adrian's eyes.

"I loved the possibility of filling the void. But Sophie? The actual person? I didn't know her well enough to love her. I just convinced myself I did because the alternative was facing my grief properly."

Adrian's fists clench at his sides. I can see it in his body—the desire to cross the room and finish what he started. To end this permanently. To make Bellamy pay for every moment of the past month.

My hand finds his arm—a gentle touch, a plea without words.

‘Don't. Don't become a murderer. Don't let this destroy you too.’

Adrian looks at me, sees the pleading in my eyes.

Something in his jaw tightens. He takes a breath, then another.

"Get out." His voice is deadly quiet. "Take your son and disappear. If I ever see you again, if I catch even a glimpse of you anywhere in the world, I won't stop myself next time. I won't let Sophie get between us. I will end you. Do you understand?"

Bellamy nods slowly. "I understand."

He stands. Moves carefully, like everything hurts. It probably does.

He looks at me.

"I'm sorry." The words sound inadequate. Insufficient for what he's done. "For everything. For stealing time you can never get back. For the trauma. For the manipulation, even if I didn't see it that way at the time. For..."

His voice catches. "For all of it. Take care of yourself, Sophie."

Then he's moving past us, toward the door. He pauses with his hand on the handle. Looks back one more time. "For what it's worth—I really was going to take you home today."

Then he's gone. The door closes behind him. And after that… Silence.

I stare at the closed door, at the empty space where Bellamy was standing just moments ago. Tears well up in my eyes before I can stop them: unbidden, unwanted, but there nonetheless.

I lean forward almost imperceptibly. Not consciously, not meaning to. But my body starts to move toward the door as if I want to run after him, to say something more, to…

I catch myself at the last moment, stop. Force myself to stay still.

But Adrian sees it—all of it. When I look at him, undisguised pain appears on his face. Raw and unfiltered and absolutely devastating.

It's the look of someone realizing something terrible. Something that changes everything.

That something has shifted. That he's losing me. Maybe already lost me.

"What was that?" His voice is quiet, too quiet.

"What?"

"Just now. You were going to go after him."

"I wasn't…"

"Sophie." He cuts me off. "Don't lie to me. Not now. Not after everything. Were you going to go after him?"

The question hangs in the air between us. I want to deny it. Want to say no, of course not, don't be ridiculous. Want to pretend that moment didn't happen.

But I can't lie to him. Not about this.

"I don't know," I say quietly. Honestly. "I don't know what I was doing. I don't know what I feel anymore."

Adrian's face... God, his face. It's like watching something break in real time.

"You have feelings for him?" Adrian's voice doesn't even sound alive anymore.

"I'm so confused, Adrian.” Tears are running down my face now. “These weeks... they changed something. He was my captor but he was also the only person I saw every day. We talked, we cooked together."

I take a sharp breath.

"He told me about Olivia. I told him about Amelia. It was..." I let out a bitter laugh that catches me off guard. "God, it was Stockholm syndrome, wasn't it? Is that what this is called?"

The realization hits me like I'm saying it out loud for the first time, even though some part of me has known it all along. T

he absurdity of it, the clinical term for what I've been living through, makes me laugh again, humorless and strange.

"I know what it is now, hearing myself say it. But knowing doesn't make it go away. And now he's gone and I should be relieved but instead I'm…"

"What?" Adrian's voice is tight. "Instead you're what?"

"I don't know!"

The words come out louder than I intended.

"I don't know what I feel. I'm grateful you found me. I want to go home. I want to see Amelia. But I also feel this weird grief that Bellamy is gone and I know that's fucked up, I know it makes no sense, but I can't help it. These weeks changed something in me and I can't just undo it."

Silence stretches between us. Adrian's face hardens. Not with anger exactly—with pain, with fear.

With the terrifying realization that finding me might not be enough. That I might be physically here but emotionally somewhere else entirely.

"Do you want to go back with me?" he asks finally.

The question stops my heart. "What?"

"It's a simple question, Sophie."

His voice is carefully controlled. Too controlled.

"Do you want to come home with me? To New York, to our apartment, to Amelia, to our life? Or do you want to stay here? Follow him? See where this goes?"

"Adrian…"

"Just answer the question. Because I need to know. I need to know if I found you only to lose you anyway."

There's something broken in his voice now.

"If everything I've been through—the searching, the fear, the desperate hope—if it was all for nothing because Stockholm syndrome took you from me more completely than kidnapping ever could."

I stare at him.

At this man I was going to marry. The father of my child. The person I loved, do love, more than anything.

Except somewhere in the past month, the lines got blurred. The feelings got complicated. And now I don't know what's real anymore.

"I..." I start. Stop. Try again. "I want..."

But I can't finish the sentence. Because I don't know what I want. Not anymore.