Please Harder, Professor

Chapter 101

Sophie’s POV

We meet Cassian at the same café as before. Neutral ground.

I insisted on being there when he finds out. Adrian argued—said it was unnecessary, said Cassian didn't deserve the courtesy after everything he'd done. But I held firm.

Whatever Cassian's sins, he spent weeks believing he might be a father. He deserves to hear the truth face-to-face, not through a phone call or a letter or secondhand gossip.

I owe him that much.

The café is quieter than last time, the afternoon lull settling over the mismatched tables and hand-painted signs.

We arrive first, claiming the same corner booth, and I watch the door with a knot in my stomach that tightens with every passing minute.

Then Cassian walks in. He looks like he already knows.

There's something in the set of his shoulders, the careful blankness of his expression, that tells me he's been preparing for this moment.

Maybe the hope drained from him weeks ago, during all those sleepless nights waiting for results that would determine his future. Maybe this is just confirmation of a grief he's already processed, already mourned, already begun to move past.

He slides into the seat across from us, his eyes moving briefly to Adrian before settling on me.

"Thank you for meeting me in person." His voice is steady, controlled. "I know you didn't have to."

"I wanted to." The words feel inadequate. "You deserved to hear this directly."

Adrian doesn't waste time on pleasantries. He reaches into his jacket, withdraws the folded document, and slides it across the table with clinical precision.

"The results."

Cassian picks up the paper. His hands don't shake as he unfolds it, as his eyes scan the text I've already memorized. I watch his face for signs of the devastation I expected—the crumbling, the denial, the desperate bargaining.

None of it comes.

His jaw tightens. A muscle jumps beneath his skin. But he doesn't crumble. He reads the results—99.98% probability of paternity, Adrian Lewis confirmed as the biological father—and he nods slowly. Once and then twice.

Then he folds the paper with careful precision, creasing the edges until they're sharp, and sets it down on the table between us.

"I see."

The silence stretches. I don't know what to say. Don't know how to bridge the gap between the words on that paper and the complicated history we share.

Cassian speaks first.

"Thank you for telling me in person. Both of you."

He glances at Adrian, and something passes between them—not warmth, but perhaps a grudging respect. An acknowledgment that this conversation could have been crueler, and wasn't.

"I appreciate that more than you know."

"What will you do now?" I ask, because I need to know. Because I can't let him walk out of this café and disappear into uncertainty.

"I've accepted a position at a university abroad." He manages something that's almost a smile.

"Edinburgh. They have a strong literature program, and they were willing to overlook... recent complications in my employment history. I'll be gone by the end of the month."

"Cassian..."

"It's a good opportunity, Sophie. A fresh start." He meets my eyes, and the rawness there makes my chest ache. "I think we both know I need one."

I want to argue. Want to tell him he doesn't have to run away, doesn't have to put an ocean between himself and everything that happened here.

But the words stick in my throat because maybe he does. Maybe distance is the only thing that will let either of us heal.

"I meant what I said." His voice drops lower, intimate despite Adrian's presence beside me. "My feelings haven't changed. They won't change just because of what's written on that paper."

Adrian stiffens. I feel it in the air between us, the tension coiling in his body.

"But I understand," Cassian continues, ignoring Adrian entirely. "You've made your choice. And I... I wish you happiness, Sophie. Genuinely. Whatever that looks like for you."

The sincerity in his voice breaks something inside me. This isn't anger or bitterness or the wounded pride of a man who lost. This is grace. This is letting go.

Cassian stands. He looks at Adrian for a long moment, then extends his hand.

"Take care of her."

Adrian hesitates. I can see the conflict playing across his features—the instinct to refuse, to maintain the hostility that's defined their relationship. But something shifts, and he reaches out, clasping Cassian's hand in a brief, firm shake.

"I intend to."

No hostility. Just resignation. An ending neither of them expected, but both of them accept.

Then Cassian turns to me one last time. His eyes are soft. Sad. Full of everything we'll never have the chance to explore.

"Goodbye, Sophie."

He walks away. Through the café, past the mismatched tables, out the door and into the gray afternoon light. He doesn't look back. And I watch him disappear, as something inside me cracks.

Not breaks—I'm not shattered, not destroyed. But something fractures, a hairline split in a part of my heart I didn't know was still holding on. The last thread connecting me to another possible life has been cut, and I feel its absence like a phantom limb.

"Sophie." Adrian's voice is gentle, his hand reaching for mine. "It's over now. It's finally over, no reason to be upset."

I pull away.

The emotions surge without warning—a tidal wave that crashes over me before I can brace for impact. Pregnancy hormones and genuine grief tangling together until I can't separate them, can't tell where one ends and the other begins.

"You don't understand." The words come out sharper than I intend. "You're sitting there relieved, like we just won some kind of competition. But Cassian wasn't a villain to me, Adrian. He wasn't just an obstacle to overcome."

"I know that."

"He was kind to me. Once, before everything went wrong, he was kind. He cared about me in his own flawed way, and now he's leaving the country because of choices I made." My voice cracks. "So forgive me if I'm not celebrating."

Adrian's expression shifts, something wounded flickering behind his eyes. "I'm not asking you to celebrate. I'm asking you to let me comfort you."

"I don't need comfort. I need..." I stop, struggling to articulate the chaos inside me. "I need to know what happens now. What are we, Adrian? What are we actually building here?"

"We're building a family."

"Are we?" The question cuts through his words like a blade.

"Because from where I'm sitting, I'm a pregnant woman living in your apartment, surrounded by your security, cut off from my life and my friends and everything I used to be. And you still haven't said whether you want to marry me. Whether this is permanent or just... convenient."

His silence is its own answer.

"That's what I thought."

I grab my coat from the back of the chair, shoving my arms through the sleeves with jerky, furious movements.

"I could end up a single mother when the dust settles, Adrian. Has that even occurred to you? Have you considered for one second what happens to me if you decide you're done playing house?"

"Sophie, that's not…"

"I need air. Space." I'm already moving toward the door. "Don't follow me."

I walk out before he can respond.

The cold hits me like a wall, but I don't stop. I keep walking, away from the café, away from Adrian, away from the wreckage of a conversation that was supposed to bring closure.

Instead, it's just torn open a new wound.