Please Harder, Professor

Chapter 234

Sophie’s POV

Bellamy takes me to a café in Geneva.

It's one of those charming European places with small tables outside, red awnings, the smell of fresh bread and espresso. Beautiful—the kind of place I would have loved under different circumstances.

We sit near the edge. Bellamy orders coffee and pastries in passable French. I don't say much.

The waiter brings our order. I pick at a croissant I don't want.

That's when I notice them. At the next table, a woman sits with a baby in a stroller. The baby is maybe six or seven months old—close to Amelia's age. Chubby cheeks, bright eyes, little hands reaching for everything.

The mother leans down and makes a silly face. The baby laughs.

That pure, delighted sound that babies make when they find something genuinely funny. The kind of laugh that's all joy, no self-consciousness, just absolute delight in being alive.

And I break. Completely. The tears spill down my face before I can stop them. Before I can even try to stop them.

I'm missing everything. Amelia's first tooth. Her first words—though Adrian probably heard "mama" by now, Sophie thinks with a pang.

Every milestone slipping past without me there to witness it. Every moment of her life happening thousands of miles away while I sit in a café in Geneva eating pastries with my kidnapper.

She won't remember me if this goes on much longer. She's too young. Her brain is wiring itself every day, forming memories and attachments, and I'm not there to be part of them.

By the time I see her again, if I see her again, I'll be a stranger.

"Sophie?" Bellamy's voice is soft, concerned.

I can't look at him, can't speak. Just sit there crying while the baby at the next table laughs again and her mother kisses her forehead with the kind of casual tenderness that comes from being able to do it every day.

I hear movement: Bellamy reaching into his jacket pocket. Then something is placed gently on the table between us.

Through my blurred vision, I see it.

A small stuffed lamb. Cream-colored with a pink ribbon around its neck. Almost identical to the one Amelia sleeps with every night. The one Adrian bought her when she was born. The one she clutches when she's fussy.

Almost identical.

He must have bought it earlier, carried it with him, waited for the right moment to give it to me.

He remembered. Remembered me mentioning it weeks ago in passing. Remembered what Amelia's comfort object looked like. Went out and found something as close as possible.

I stare at the lamb, then at Bellamy, unable to speak around the tightness in my throat.

"You can keep it," he says softly. "Until you see Amelia again."

The words are meant to comfort. Instead, they make everything worse.

‘Until I see Amelia again.’ As if that's certain, as if it's just a matter of time.

"When?" The word comes out broken. "When will I see her again?"

"Soon."

"That's not an answer." I clutch the lamb, my fingers digging into the soft fabric. "Give me a date, a real deadline. Tell me when this ends."

Bellamy is quiet for a long moment. The café noise continues around us—conversations in French, the hiss of the espresso machine, silverware clinking against plates.

"I can't," he finally says.

"You mean you won't."

"Sophie…"

"Give me a date, Bellamy. Any date, even if it's a year from now. Just tell me when I get to go home to my daughter."

"The separation is only temporary." His voice is gentle but firm. "I promise you that. But I can't give you a specific date because it depends on…"

"On what? On me falling in love with you? On me forgetting about Adrian? On me accepting this insanity as normal?"

He doesn't answer.

I clutch the lamb tighter, tears still streaming down my face. The baby at the next table has moved on to playing with her mother's hair, grabbing fistfuls and giggling. Living her life. Growing every day.

While mine is frozen.

"You just need to be patient," Bellamy says finally.

Patient. As if I have a choice. As if this is something I can control.

I bring the lamb to my chest, holding it like I would hold Amelia if she were here. The fabric is soft against my cheek. It smells new, nothing like the well-loved lamb that's been through countless nights of tears and comfort.

But it's close enough that my heart aches.

Bellamy watches me with those eyes that see too much, that care too much. That make everything so much more complicated than it should be.

And something hardens inside me—something cold and resolute and absolutely certain.

I can't wait for rescue anymore.

I've been waiting, hoping, believing that Adrian would find me, that someone would track Bellamy down, that this would end through no action of my own.

But it's been over a month. And no one has come.

Maybe they're still looking. Maybe they're close. Or maybe Bellamy has covered his tracks so well that they'll never find us.

I can't bet my future on maybe.

I survived postpartum depression that made me want to disappear. I juggled motherhood and finishing my degree while barely sleeping. I navigated Adrian's control and his world and his family's expectations. I've survived worse than this.

If no one is coming to save me, I'll save myself.

I'll use Bellamy's trust against him. Use his feelings for me. Use every moment of softness, every lowered guard, every instance when he treats me like a partner instead of a prisoner.

I'll wait for the right moment. Learn the patterns. Find the weakness in his careful planning.

And then I'll run.

I'll get back to Amelia. Back to Adrian. Back to my life.

Whatever it takes.

Bellamy doesn't need to know I'm planning anything. He can't know. I need him to believe I'm softening, that his patient waiting is working, that eventually I might actually choose this.

Let him think the lamb worked. Let him think his gesture of remembering touched me so deeply that I'm reconsidering everything. Let him feel safe.

Because the moment he's not watching as carefully, the moment there's an opening…

I'm gone.

"Thank you," I say finally, my voice still thick with tears. "For the lamb. It means... It means a lot."

It's not a lie—it does mean a lot. Just not in the way he thinks.

It means I have something of Amelia's while I'm planning my escape. Something to hold when the fear gets too big. Something to remind me why I'm doing this.

Bellamy's expression softens with relief. Like he's been worried I'd throw the lamb back in his face. Like this small gesture might actually be building the bridge he desperately wants between us.

"I thought you might like it," he says. "I know it's not the same as seeing her, but…"

"It helps." Another truth wrapped in misdirection. "Really. Thank you."

We finish our coffee in relative peace. The baby at the next table eventually falls asleep.

I clutch the lamb and plan.

Plan for locks and keys and moments of distraction. Plan for how to move through a city I don't know, in a country where I don't speak the language, with no money and no phone.

Plan for what I'll say to Adrian when I see him again.