Please Harder, Professor

Chapter 75

Lisette's eyes dart frantically to Cleo's raised phone, her face draining of color as she processes what's happening.

The little screen shows a steadily climbing viewer count—two hundred, three hundred, four hundred people watching her complete breakdown in real time.

"Turn that off!" she screams at Cleo, but there's nowhere to run, no way to stop what's already been broadcast to the world. "Turn it off right now!"

But Cleo holds her phone higher, angling it to capture every moment of Lisette's unraveling composure. "Too late, Dr. Vaughn. This has been live for the past ten minutes. The whole internet knows exactly what kind of person you are now."

Through my drug-addled haze, I manage to focus on the screen long enough to see the viewer count still climbing steadily. Comments are flooding the live stream—people expressing shock, outrage, calling for someone to contact authorities.

"For the first time," I tell Cleo weakly, my words slurring together, "I'm so happy you have a thousand followers. And for the first time in my life, I'm actually excited about live streaming."

The irony isn't lost on me—after months of being the unwilling star of viral videos and campus gossip, I'm finally in control of the narrative.

Everyone watching this stream will see Lisette for what she really is: not a wronged woman seeking justice, but an obsessive stalker willing to commit murder.

She can't escape this, can't spin it, can't manipulate the story to make herself the victim. Whatever happens next, everyone knows what she truly is now.

Cassian and Ayden both look equally stunned as they watch the drama unfold, their faces reflecting a mixture of horror and amazement at how I'd turned the tables on everyone.

I can see the moment it hits them—the realization that I'd outplayed all of them, that the girl they'd underestimated had been three steps ahead the entire time.

"You calculated little bitch," Lisette snarls, her elegant composure completely shattered as she realizes the full extent of her exposure. Her carefully maintained academic facade is cracking like glass, revealing something feral and desperate underneath.

The live stream counter keeps climbing—five hundred viewers now, six hundred. Her reputation, her career, her entire carefully constructed life is being destroyed in real time, broadcast to an audience that grows by the second.

"You think you're so clever, don't you?" Her voice rises to a hysterical pitch as she watches her world collapse. "You think you've won?"

"I think," I manage through the chemical fog clouding my thoughts, "that everyone can see exactly who you really are now. No more hiding behind academic credentials or playing the victim. This is you, Dr. Vaughn. This is who you've always been."

The truth of it hits her like a physical blow. There's no coming back from this, no way to explain away what hundreds of people have witnessed.

Her mask has been ripped away completely, and what's underneath is ugly and desperate and completely unhinged.

"You don't understand," Lisette whispers, her voice suddenly eerily calm in the way that makes every instinct I have scream danger. "You don't understand what you've taken from me. What you've destroyed."

I see something shift in her eyes—the last vestige of rational thought disappearing entirely, replaced by pure malevolent fury.

"If I can't have him," she screams, her voice echoing off the concrete walls around us, "then you won't either!"

I see her draw back her fist, see the pure malice in her eyes as she aims directly for my stomach, but the drugs make my reflexes too slow to dodge.

Her punch drives hard into my abdomen with shocking force, targeting exactly where she knows it will hurt the most.

The pain explodes through my body like lightning, radiating outward from the point of impact in waves of agony that steal my breath and make my vision white out at the edges.

I double over instinctively, my hands flying to cradle my belly as every protective instinct I possess screams in terror for my unborn child.

The baby. Oh God, the baby.

Through the haze of pain and panic, I hear Adrian roar like a wounded animal, a sound of pure fury and desperation that cuts through the autumn wind. His voice carries a violence I've never heard before, not controlled or calculated, but raw and primitive.

"Get away from her!" he bellows, and I can hear his footsteps pounding across the rooftop as he rushes toward us. "Sophie!"

The rooftop door explodes open again as police officers flood onto the concrete, their weapons drawn and voices shouting commands that echo off the walls around us. They must have been in the stairwell, climbing as fast as they could after Ayden's call.

"Nobody move! Hands where we can see them!"

"Ma'am, step away from the victim!"

Their voices overlap in professional urgency as they assess the scene—Lisette standing over me with rage-distorted features, me doubled over in pain, Adrian fighting to reach me, Cleo still filming everything with steady hands.

"She's the one!" Cleo shouts to the officers, pointing directly at Lisette. "Dr. Lisette Vaughn! She kidnapped Sophie and tried to kill her!"

The officers immediately swarm Lisette, pushing her against the concrete wall to handcuff her as she continues screaming obscenities and struggling against their grip.

But I barely register the chaos around me because stronger, gentler hands are suddenly touching my shoulders.

"Sophie, Sophie, look at me." Adrian's voice is completely different—gentle, terrified, stripped of all his usual control and dominance. "Princess, can you hear me?"

I manage to lift my head enough to meet his eyes, and what I see there takes my breath away. This isn't the composed, calculating man I've always known. This is someone completely undone, someone whose carefully constructed walls have crumbled entirely.

His hands frame my face with infinite tenderness, his thumb stroking across my cheekbone with trembling fingers. "You're okay, princess. You're safe now. Help is on the way."

"The baby," I whisper, my voice barely audible as waves of nausea and dizziness wash over me. "Adrian, what if she hurt…"

"Shh, don't think about that right now." His forehead drops to rest against mine, and I can feel his breath warm against my lips. "We're going to get you to a hospital. Everything's going to be okay."

But my vision is starting to blur, the combination of drugs and shock and trauma pulling me toward unconsciousness despite my efforts to stay alert. The voices around us are becoming distant and muffled, like I'm hearing them through water.

"Stay with me," Adrian commands, but his voice cracks with desperation rather than authority. "Sophie, please stay with me."

I try to focus on his face, on the storm-gray eyes that have haunted my dreams for months, but everything is starting to fade around the edges. The sounds of police radios and shouting officers seem to come from very far away.

"I need you," he whispers urgently, his voice breaking as he sees me slipping away from consciousness. "Sophie, I need you to know—fuck, I think I really fell for you, princess. Very, very hard."

The admission hits me like electricity cutting through the fog of pain and drugs with crystalline clarity.

After months of wondering, of doubting, of questioning his every motive and analyzing his every word for hidden meaning—Adrian Lewis has finally said what I'd always hoped he felt.

Not "I love you"—that's not who he is, not yet. But "I fell for you" from Adrian carries more weight than declarations of love from anyone else. It's his truth, raw and unfiltered, spoken in a moment when his defenses are completely down.

Even as the darkness pulls me under, even as consciousness slips away from me like sand through my fingers, I hold onto that confession: he'd fought for me, found me, and finally admitted the feelings he'd been too terrified to acknowledge.

The last thing I'm aware of is his voice, rough with emotion and fear, calling my name as paramedics rush onto the rooftop. But the panic in his tone can't touch the peace settling over me now, because I finally have what I've been searching for all along.

Adrian Lewis, the man who claims he doesn't do emotions, just told me he fell for me. Hard.

As everything goes black, that truth becomes my anchor.