My Professor’s Obsession
One night, I was a girl seeking vengeance in a velvet mask. He was the stranger who took me against a cold stone wall, his touch a silent, lethal promise.
Now, he is Caspian Blackwood—the most feared architecture professor at Aethelgard. When my "perfect" boyfriend, Dominic Calloway, cheats on me and sabotages my degree, Caspian offers a lifeline with a razor-thin edge: Be his silent, nude model for thirty days.
The rules are absolute. I must wear a silk mask and a weighted collar. I must never speak. I must hold the poses he demands until my muscles scream for mercy. In the lecture hall, he ignores me with arctic indifference. In the studio, his gaze is a physical weight, stripping me faster than his hands ever could. But as the charcoal scratches against the paper, I realize the "deal" isn't just for art. It’s for the soul I accidentally gave him in the dark. Will the deal destroy his career, or consume me first?
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Chapter: A Message from the Past"Look inside the vinyl sleeve behind your seat, Sera, because if that's the logbook from my mother’s old flight bag, there’s an audio cassette taped to the back of the maintenance schedule," Caspian said, his voice straining slightly over the loud, metallic rattle of the engine.The tiny Cessna bounced hard as we hit a wall of low grey cloud three thousand feet above the Connecticut border. The air inside the cabin smelled like old fuel, frozen leather, and that metallic tang of pure adrenaline. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely get the plastic tab on the pocket to release."I found it," I shouted back, my voice sounding small against the roar of the prop. "It’s a micro-cassette. The labels are completely faded, Caspian. It just says July 24 in blue ink.""Play it," he said, keeping his eyes locked on the artificial horizon on the shaking dashboard. "The recorder is in the glove box. My mother never traveled anywhere without it. She used to record her board prep notes beca
Last Updated: 2026-06-01
Chapter: The War Goes Corporate"They’re trading your father’s name on the short-selling market like it’s cheap lumber, Sera, and if we don't block the margin call by ten o'clock, the foundation won't even exist to be sued," Elias said, his thumb flicking across an iPad screen that looked like a waterfall of red and green numbers.We were sitting in a tiny, windowless security office behind the vault of the main gallery. The air smelled like hot copper from the servers and old, cold takeout coffee. Caspian was on a landline in the corner, his suit jacket off, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up to his elbows. He wasn't yelling, but the skin around his jaw was so tight it looked like stone."What do you mean short-selling his name?" I asked, leaning over Elias’s shoulder. "He’s a dead painter, Elias. He doesn't have a stock price.""The Brandon Estate has a valuation attached to the remaining inventory, honey," Elias explained, not looking up from the glass. "When Vanguard pulled out of the merger last night, He
Last Updated: 2026-05-28
Chapter: The First Public Choice"Let go of my elbow before a photographer catches the look on your face and decides we’re both about to jump off a bridge," I said, my breath fogging slightly against the glass entry doors of the Calloway Gallery.The street was a circus of black town cars, umbrellas, and flashbulbs that kept going off like small bursts of artillery in the New York drizzle. Caspian’s hand didn’t move from my arm. He just tightened his fingers through the wool of my coat, his thumb pressing into that sweet spot right above the bone where his signature always lived."If they think we're going to jump, let them write it in the morning edition," he said, his voice flat, low, and entirely too calm for a man whose mother was currently sitting inside with a federal indictment waiting on a compliance server. "I’ve spent twelve years worrying about what the front page looked like, Sera. Tonight, I only care about the girl standing on the step.""The girl on the step is wearing a sixty-dollar dress she bought o
Last Updated: 2026-05-25
Chapter: The Truth About the Painting Series"The very first painting wasn't actually of you, Sera, it was just the shape of my own regret dressed up in your skin," Caspian said, his voice dropping into that quiet, gravelly register that always made the hairs on my arms stand up.We were standing in the deepest corner of his personal studio, the one hidden behind the false drywall in the brownstone's basement. The air down here didn't smell like the expensive turpentine and lavender oils he used upstairs. It smelled like damp brick, iron water, and decades of old oil paint that had never dried quite right. He had his hand on the hem of a heavy grey canvas drop cloth that was nailed straight into the ceiling joists."What do you mean it wasn't of me?" I asked, shifting the heavy weight of my work bag off my shoulder. "I sat for you for six weeks, Caspian. I remember the way the stool dug into my thighs. I remember the way you told me to look at the window until my eyes watered.""You sat for the details, yes," he said, and with o
Last Updated: 2026-05-21
Chapter: Elias and the Missing Girl File"Look at the date on the admission sheet, Sera, because if I'm reading this right, Caspian wasn't even in the country when that girl went into the water," Elias said.He didn't look up from his monitor. We were sitting in the back of an all-night diner three miles past the New Jersey border, the air smelling of burnt chicory and old vinyl. He had his phone propped against a salt shaker, the screen glowing with an image of a faded police report from 2012.Caspian was asleep in the car outside, his head pressed against the cold glass of the passenger window, looking more like a ghost than a man who owned half the real estate on the Eastern Seaboard."What do you mean he wasn't in the country?" I asked, my fingers tightening around a thick manila folder Elias had slid across the table. "The papers in the penthouse said he was the last person seen with her at the dock. Dominic has the logs from the boat.""Dominic has what Helena wanted him to have," Elias said, finally looking up. His ey
Last Updated: 2026-05-20
Chapter: Helena’s Real Goal"Sit down, Sera, because watching you hover near the door like a stray cat makes my head ache, and we have entirely too much business to settle before the markets open tomorrow morning," Helena Blackwood said.She didn’t look up from her tea. She sat at the head of a lacquered dining table that felt long enough to require a microphone, her spine perfectly straight against the velvet backing of her chair. The townhouse smelled of old money, polished silver, and something faintly chemical, like high-end furniture wax used to cover up the scent of rot.Caspian didn’t sit. He stood right behind my shoulder, his hand heavy on the wood of my chair, his knuckles white. I could feel the heat radiating off him, that tight, vibrating anger he always carried when he was forced back into his mother’s house."I'll stand," I said, my voice firmer than I expected it to be. "I’ve spent the last two weeks on my feet at a diner, Helena. I’m used to people giving me orders while I look at the exit."Hel
Last Updated: 2026-05-18
My Ex-Boyfriend is my New Step-Brother
Three years ago, Roman Reed was the boy I would have died for. Then he broke my heart and disappeared, leaving me to piece my life back together while I climbed to Hollywood stardom. Now I am the nation's rising star, and my mother has finally found her happy ending with a tech billionaire. But when I walk into our new Malibu estate, the man standing there is not a stranger. It is Roman. My ex-lover. My new stepbrother.
At Northcrest, he is the Blacklisted King. Cold, ruthless, and feared. He hates my fame, he hates my face, and he tells me to stay out of his sight. But under the same roof, the air between us changes.
He watches me from the shadows. He judges my red-carpet gowns with a dark possessiveness that feels like a threat. He warns me, "Do not start something you cannot finish, Scarlett." The paparazzi wait for me to slip. My parents watch our every move. As the hate begins to melt back into the fire that once burned us, the biggest scandal is not my past. It is the man I am living with.
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Chapter: Scarlett's First Full Testimony 2My legs were shaking so badly I could barely find the steps as I walked down from the stand. The room felt like it was spinning, the faces of the reporters blurring into a wash of pale skin and flashing lenses. But then a hand caught my elbow—thick, warm, and solid. Roman didn't wait for the bailiff to clear the path. He stepped right into the well of the court, pulling my arm over his shoulder and guiding me through the heavy wooden gate before the press could even stand up.We didn't go to the public hallway. We pushed straight through the side exit Miller had left unlatched, into the concrete maintenance tunnel that ran behind the utility rooms. The moment the heavy steel door slammed shut behind us, cutting off the sudden roar of the courtroom crowd, my knees completely gave out.Roman caught me before I hit the floor, his back hitting the concrete wall as he slid down with me, pu
Last Updated: 2026-05-30
Chapter: Scarlett’s First Full Testimony"Just breathe, Scar. Just remember to take a breath after every sentence."Roman was kneeling in front of me in the tiny, windowless side room, his hands firmly gripping my bare knees. The morning sun was trying to bleed through the frosted glass of the transom window, but it just looked like gray static. My chest was so tight it felt like someone had wrapped a steel band around my ribs, and every time I tried to swallow, my throat clicked. The court bailiff had already knocked once. The fifteen-minute recess was over. It was time for the real thing."I feel like if I open my mouth, the wrong voice is going to come out," I whispered, my fingers knotting into the rough wool of his jacket. "I keep hearing the scripts he wrote for me. The ones from the charity galas. 'Reed Global stands for integrity, family, and future.' I can still recite them by heart, Roman. What if my brain just defaults to the lie because it’s safer?""The lie isn't safer anymore," Roman said, his voice dropping in
Last Updated: 2026-05-29
Chapter: The “System”The room was completely silent, waiting for me to falter, waiting for the "Angel" to break down and cry about how hard it was to be rich. I took a deep breath, feeling the air in my lungs, feeling the warmth of the diner we’d just left, the reality of the small cabin in the mountains where nobody cared what I wore."The dress didn't belong to me," I said, my voice sounding flat and steady in the large room. "Marcus bought the dress because he was presenting me as a billboard for his company. If I didn't wear the dress, he told the security team at the gate that my car wasn't allowed to leave the property. If I didn't use the credit cards he gave me at the specific stores he chose, he turned off the electricity in my mother's cottage in upstate New York. The money wasn't an allowance. It was a leash. Every dollar he spent on me was a receipt he kept to remind me exactly what it would cost if I ever tr
Last Updated: 2026-05-25
Chapter: The Media Learns the Word “System”"They aren't calling it a family feud anymore, Roman. Look at the screen," I said, my thumb hovering over the glass of my phone as we sat in the dim, cramped corner of a diner three blocks from the courthouse.The television mounted above the grease-stained counter was flickering with the midday news feed. Usually, the anchors had that bright, gossipy bounce in their voices when they talked about the Reed family—the kind of tone people used when they were talking about a reality television show or a messy divorce among the wealthy. But today, the woman on the screen wasn't smiling. The background graphic behind her head didn't show a picture of me in a gala dress next to Marcus. It showed a giant, stark block diagram of the offshore network Roman had exposed yesterday, with a thick, red banner across the bottom that read: THE SYSTEM OF REED GLOBAL.
Last Updated: 2026-05-24
Chapter: Roman’s Technical Evidence"State your name for the record, please," the prosecutor said, her voice dropping into that quiet, rhythmic cadence meant to make the jury lean forward."Roman Sterling," Roman said.He didn't shake. He didn't look at the sketch artists or the row of reporters jammed into the back pews with their tablets balanced on their knees. He was wearing a plain gray suit that didn't have a label, his dark hair pushed back from his forehead, looking completely unlike the wild, broken boy Marcus had dragged out of the gala in handcuffs weeks ago. He looked steady. He looked like the stone walls of the quarry we’d just left behind."Mr. Sterling, what was your role within the network structure of Reed Global between the years of 2022 and 2025?""I didn't have an official title," Roman said, his microphone catching the low, raspy gravel in his throat. "Marcus Reed didn't put me on the payroll. I managed the offshore infrastructure. Specifically, the encrypted routing protocols that shielded his sec
Last Updated: 2026-05-23
Chapter: The Courtroom Becomes a Stage"He’s using the same voice, Roman. The exact same one he used when he told me what to wear to the charity dinners," I whispered, my fingers digging so hard into the fabric of Roman's jeans that my knuckles turned white.We were sitting in the front row of the gallery, the air in the courtroom smelling of old cedar and nervous sweat. Across the aisle, Marcus stood at the podium. His hands were clasped loosely in front of his pristine charcoal suit, his posture so straight and effortless you’d think he was hosting a private gallery opening instead of defending himself against twenty federal indictments."Let him talk, Scar," Roman murmured, his voice a low, gravelly vibration against my ear as his arm wrapped tight around my waist, his thumb rubbing small, heavy circles into my hip. "The microphones here don't belong to him anymore. He can try to perform all he wants, but the script is out of his hands.""The defense expects the court to look past the sensationalized, highly emotional n
Last Updated: 2026-05-20
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