Please Harder, Professor

Chapter 99

Bellamy’s POV

I don't sleep well. Never have—not since Olivia.

The guest room in Adrian's apartment is comfortable enough. Expensive sheets, blackout curtains, a mattress that probably cost more than my first car. All the trappings of luxury that should make rest easy.

But I lie here in the darkness, staring at the ceiling, and sleep refuses to come.

Instead, I replay the moment in the hallway. Over and over, like a film stuck on loop.

The way Sophie stepped into my space, closing the distance between us until I could smell her shampoo—something floral, something soft.

The fire in her eyes when she demanded answers I couldn't give. The stubborn tilt of her chin, daring me to dismiss her, to shut her down the way I've shut down everyone else for years.

Just like her.

I shouldn't have said it. The words slipped out before I could stop them, a crack in armor I've spent years reinforcing. I saw something flicker across Sophie's face—confusion, curiosity, the beginning of a question I couldn't afford to answer.

‘Like who?’

I can still hear her voice asking. Still feel the weight of her gaze, searching my face for truths I've buried so deep they shouldn't be visible anymore.

But she saw something. She always sees something. That's the problem.

My phone buzzes on the nightstand. I reach for it automatically, expecting another security alert, another update from Adrian about tomorrow's schedule.

Instead, it's a photo from the nanny.

Noah sits in his highchair, face smeared with applesauce, grinning at the camera with pure, uncomplicated joy. His dark curls—Olivia's curls—stick up in every direction. His eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles, just like hers did.

Two years old and already the center of my universe. The only good thing to come from the wreckage of my life.

I stare at the photo until my vision blurs.

Then I let myself think about Olivia, just for a moment, just long enough to remember why I built these walls in the first place.

She had the same fire Sophie does. That's what I couldn't say in the hallway, what I couldn't explain when Sophie asked who she reminded me of.

It's not just physical—though there are similarities there too, in the dark hair and the expressive eyes and the way they both gesture when they're angry.

It's the way they fight.

Olivia never let me retreat into coldness. When I tried to shut down, to pull away, to hide behind the walls I'd started building long before I met her, she'd follow me there. She'd pound on those walls with both fists until I had no choice but to open the door.

"You don't get to disappear on me," she'd say, fire in her eyes, hands on her hips. "I didn't fall in love with a ghost, Bellamy. I fell in love with a man. So be one."

She'd drag me back into the light every time. Force me to feel things I'd trained myself to suppress. Made me believe, against all evidence, that I could be something other than the cold, efficient soldier I'd become in Adrian's world.

I'd loved her for it. Loved her with everything I had, everything I was capable of giving.

And then I'd lost her.

The pregnancy had been complicated from the start. High blood pressure, gestational diabetes, a placenta that refused to cooperate.

The doctors used words like "high-risk" and "careful monitoring" and "prepared for any outcome." Olivia smiled through all of it, one hand on her swelling belly, telling me not to worry.

"I'm stronger than I look," she'd say. "This baby and I are going to be fine."

I wanted to believe her. Needed to believe her.

But the delivery was worse.

I held her hand while machines screamed warnings in sounds I didn't understand. Doctors shouted orders over my head, their faces tight with urgency they tried to hide.

Olivia's grip on my fingers weakened with every passing minute, her eyes finding mine through the chaos, trying to tell me something she didn't have words for.

Then she slipped away.

One moment she was there—pale, exhausted, but there—and the next, the monitors flatlined and the room exploded into activity that couldn't change what had already happened.

I held Noah while she died. They'd placed him in my arms minutes before, this tiny, squalling thing that didn't understand the world he'd been born into.

I held him against my chest and watched the light leave Olivia's eyes, and something inside me broke in a way that would never fully heal.

I buried her on a Tuesday. Stood in a cemetery with rain soaking through my coat, watching them lower her into the ground while Noah slept in his carrier, oblivious.

I became a single father on a Wednesday.

Those first months are a blur now—sleep deprivation and formula measurements and the constant, terrifying responsibility of keeping a tiny human alive when I could barely keep myself functional.

I hired the nanny. Set up systems. Built routines that didn't require me to feel anything beyond the immediate demands of the moment.

I built walls after that. Thick ones. Higher than before, reinforced with grief and guilt and the absolute certainty that I would never let anyone close enough to hurt me like that again.

No one got through except Noah. And then Adrian called in his debt.

I didn't want to come. Didn't want to return to the world I'd left behind, to the shadows and secrets and the man who'd once saved my life at the cost of everything he had. But debts are debts, and I owed Adrian more than I could ever repay.

So I walked into this apartment, prepared to do a job. Watch the girl. Keep her safe. Disappear when it was over.

Then Sophie turned around.

Something in my chest seized. A recognition I wasn't prepared for, couldn't defend against. It wasn't her face, though the resemblance to Olivia was striking enough to stop my breath. It was the way she held herself.

The challenge in her posture. The refusal to be intimidated even when she was clearly terrified.

Just like her.

I told myself it meant nothing. A ghost of memory, nothing more. The assignment hadn't changed. Watch the girl. Keep her safe. Don't get attached.

But then she started fighting back. Started pushing at my walls the same way Olivia used to, refusing to accept my coldness, demanding I see her as a person instead of a job.

And I felt those walls begin to crack.

It's not love. I won't let it be. She's pregnant with another man's child—possibly two men, depending on results that should arrive any day. She's tangled in Adrian's darkness, caught in webs she doesn't even know exist. She's a job I need to finish so I can go home to Noah, back to the only life that matters.

But when she looks at me with those defiant eyes...

When she steps into my space and demands truth even when lies would be easier...

When she reminds me, with every stubborn word and every challenging glare, of the woman I loved and lost...

I turn off my phone. Set it face-down on the nightstand. Stare at the ceiling until my eyes burn from not blinking.

I'm in trouble.

And I have no idea how to get myself out.