Emily gripped the envelope so hard the paper crumpled under her fingers. For one blinding second she wanted nothing more than to throw the whole thing in his face, let the fifty pound notes rain down over his mahogany desk like confetti at the wrong funeral.
Instead, she took a deep breath. She opened the envelope, pulled out a single fifty pound note, and placed the rest back on the desk, precise as a scalpel. Then she reached into her coat pocket and produced a fistful of loose change.
Clink. Clink. Clink. She counted out exactly eight pounds and set the coins down on top of the remaining notes.
"The ticket was forty two pounds," she said. She slid the fifty into her own pocket. "I don't work for tips, Professor."
She turned on her heel and walked toward the door, her shoulders rigid, her spine a straight line of fury.
"Miss Baker."
She stopped with her hand already on the doorknob. She did not turn around.
"I want the final draft timeline by Friday," Sebastian said behind her. "Make sure your section is flawless."
It was an order. A reminder of exactly who held the pen in this relationship, in every sense of the word.
"It will be," she said, her voice flat. A beat. "I'm very good at following instructions."
She opened the door and left. The slam echoed through the empty corridor like a gavel coming down. Sebastian stared at the small, warm pile of coins and the untouched stack of notes on his desk. He picked up the coins. They were still warm from her pocket. He closed his eyes and exhaled, long and slow, and did not open them again for a long moment.
❦
Mid May turned Cambridge into something out of a postcard. Cascades of purple wisteria draped over the ancient stone walls, the grass along the Backs impossibly green, tourists drifting down the river in punts with glasses of Pimm's sweating in the sun. It was a picture of paradise everywhere except inside Sebastian's office, which had become a slaughterhouse.
Emily's first draft landed on the mahogany desk with a thud. It was bleeding. Every page had been slashed with red ink, the margins filled with aggressive scribbles, question marks, violent little crosses that looked less like edits and more like accusations.
Sebastian stood at the window, looking out at the happy tourists with open disdain. He looked exhausted, though his suit remained armour plated perfection.
"It's weak," he said.
Emily stood on the other side of the desk, staring at the red sea of corrections without flinching. She told herself she was used to his cruelty by now. She was almost convinced it was true.
"The data holds up," she said. "The feedback loop is stable."
He turned and picked up the draft, flipping it open to a random page.
"'The robot sensed resistance and yielded.'" He looked up at her. "Sensed. Yielded. You are writing a fairy tale, Miss Baker. I asked for a thesis."
"It's a heuristic approach. I'm describing the behaviour."
"Describe the maths." His voice sharpened. "Why does it stop? Is it a voltage drop? A torque limit? A predictive algorithm?" He tossed the paper back onto the desk. "Explain it with calculus, not sentiment."
Emily gripped the edge of the desk. "The algorithm adapts. It's hard to quantify instinct in an equation."
"Then you fail. If you cannot prove why it works, then it is just a magic trick, and Cambridge does not award degrees to magicians." He sat down, dismissing her with the finality of a gavel. "Do it again. Every line. Every variable."
Emily took the bleeding manuscript back into her hands. She wanted to scream. She wanted to throw it directly at his head. Instead, she nodded.
"Understood. No magic. Just mechanics."
She walked out. Sebastian watched the door close, then picked up his red pen, his hand trembling slightly, though he would never have admitted it to anyone, least of all her. He hated doing this to her. But he needed her to be undeniable, bulletproof, a thesis that no Blackwood or Henderson or jealous examiner in the world could pull apart.
❦
At two in the morning the engineering library was a glass cathedral of silence, the witching hour reserved for the truly desperate. Emily sat at a corner desk, surrounded by a fortress of textbooks: Non Linear Dynamics, Chaos Theory, Advanced Haptics, their spines cracked and spread open like patients on an operating table. She looked ghostly pale, her eyes bruised with exhaustion, and she took a sip of coffee that had gone cold an hour ago.
She looked up. Through the vast glass wall of the library, across the dark courtyard, she could see the Faculty Tower. One window was still lit on the top floor.
His office.
Inside that office, Sebastian's tie was undone, a tumbler of whisky in his hand that he hadn't touched in minutes. He stood by the window and looked out into the darkness until he found the small, lonely island of light where she sat, bent over her fortress of books. They were separated by fifty yards of cold night air and a million words that neither of them had said. Two soldiers in the same trench, fighting the same war, in different bunkers.
He raised his glass in a silent toast to her stamina, then turned off his office light, plunging his own room into darkness and leaving her as the only light left burning in his world.
❦
Late May brought a heatwave, thirty two degrees and suffocating, unheard of for England, and the ancient building had no air conditioning to speak of. A small desk fan whirred uselessly in the corner, pushing hot air from one side of the room to the other.
Emily stood at the whiteboard in a sleeveless top, her hair piled messily on top of her head to keep her neck cool, a sheen of sweat glowing on her skin. She was furiously writing an equation that trailed off into a mess of increasingly frantic question marks.
"I can't balance it," she said, frustrated, and erased a line in a cloud of chalk dust. "If I increase the sensitivity, the system oscillates. If I damp it, it's too slow. It works in practice. Why doesn't it work on the board?"
Sebastian was sitting on the edge of his own desk, jacket and tie discarded hours ago, his white shirt unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves rolled high. He watched her struggle, the heat making everything sharper, more raw, more honest than either of them could afford.
"You're looking for equilibrium," he said, and stood up. "You want the equation to resolve to zero. To peace." He crossed the room and took the marker from her hand. His fingers were hot. "But human touch isn't peaceful, Emily. It's reactive. It's messy."
He wiped out her neat equation with the side of his hand.
"You need to introduce a new variable." He wrote a jagged symbol on the board. "Chaos."
He wrote rapidly, his body close to hers, very close. Emily found herself trapped between him and the whiteboard, close enough to smell him, sandalwood, ink, the clean scent of male sweat cutting through the stifling air.
"The robot doesn't stop because it reaches zero," he said. "It stops because the chaos variable exceeds the safety threshold." He turned to her. "It stops because it's overwhelmed."
He stopped writing. He looked at her. They were inches apart, the air between them vibrating with heat and exhaustion and months of carefully buried repression.
Emily looked at his lips. A drop of sweat ran down his temple.
"Overwhelmed," she said, breathless.
"Exactly," he said, his voice rough.
His gaze dropped to her lips, then to the pulse fluttering madly at her throat. He leaned in. One hand came to rest on the whiteboard just beside her head. The equation was forgotten entirely. The chaos variable was right here, standing between them, close enough to touch.
He tilted his head. Emily parted her lips.
It was going to happen.
Bong. Bong. Bong. The bells of Great St Mary's Church shattered the moment, loud, relentless, like a bucket of ice water thrown over both their heads. Sebastian flinched and pulled back, blinking as if waking from a fever dream, stepping away from the whiteboard and running a hand through his damp hair.
"That... that should solve your conclusion chapter," he said, clearing his throat.
Emily leaned back against the whiteboard, her legs shaking, staring at the jagged symbol he'd written. Chaos.
"Yes," she whispered. "Chaos."
Sebastian retreated to his desk, putting the full width of the mahogany between them once again, a moat he had built with his own two hands.
"Submit the draft by morning," he said. He did not look at her. He could not.
❦
Early June brought a sudden, violent summer storm, rain hammering against the cobblestones and turning Cambridge into a watercolour painting of grey and green. Inside the print shop, the air smelled of hot glue and fresh paper, and the binding machine clamped down with a satisfying whirr chunk. Emily watched with bated breath as the shop assistant handed her two copies, soft bound in department blue, gold lettering gleaming on each spine.
Adaptive Haptic Feedback in Robotics, by Emily Baker.
She grabbed the copies and checked her watch. Eleven forty eight. "Thank you!" she called out, already bursting through the door and into the street.
She had no umbrella. She ran, shielding the precious thesis with her own body, hunched over it like a rugby player protecting the ball, rain soaking her instantly, her sneakers splashing through puddles as she sprinted across the engineering courtyard. The clock on the tower read eleven fifty three.
She burst into the department office dripping wet and gasping for air, the admin lady peering up over her glasses, and marched straight to the submission box, a wooden slit cut into the wall. She kissed the blue cover of the top copy, then slid it in. Thud. It landed safely inside. Eleven fifty five.
Emily leaned her forehead against the cool wood of the box, her chest heaving. It was done.
Outside in the courtyard, the storm raged on, thunder cracking overhead, most students running for cover. Emily stopped in the middle of the empty courtyard instead, dropped her arms to her sides, and lifted her face to the sky. The rain washed away the sweat, the tears, months of coffee and anxiety and sleepless fear, all of it running off her in rivers. Her hair plastered to her face, her clothes ruined beyond saving, she started to laugh, a jagged, hysterical, beautiful sound that mixed with something close to a sob. She spun around once, arms thrown wide, embracing the deluge like a woman finally allowed to feel something.
High above the courtyard, rain lashed against the floor to ceiling glass of Sebastian's office, blurring the world outside into streaks of grey. Inside, it was dead silent. Sebastian stood at the window, one hand in his pocket, the other resting against the cool pane, watching a single figure spin below him in the grey deluge.
Emily.
She looked tiny from up there, a soaked, dishevelled speck of colour in the monochrome storm, celebrating with the raw, unhinged energy of a survivor. Sebastian watched her, unblinking, his jaw tight. He saw the exhaustion buried beneath her posture even as she laughed. He knew exactly what that thesis had cost her. The sleepless nights. The sheer, bloody minded determination he had demanded of her and that she had delivered, every single time, without once breaking.
It hurt to look at her. It hurt more not to.
A ghost of a smile touched his lips, not the arrogant smirk of the Professor but something softer. Broken. Proud. He raised his hand slightly, as if to touch her figure through the glass, then stopped. The barrier was solid.
"Well done, Baker," he whispered, barely audible even to himself.
He checked his watch, lingered for one second longer, then forced himself to turn away, walking back to his desk and leaving her to her victory. Alone.
❦
Mid June brought May Week, that peculiarly English tradition of celebrating the end of exams a full month after May had finished. Outside the thick double glazing of the Viva room, the muffled boom and crack of daytime fireworks could be heard, faint jazz music and laughter drifting up from the river parties below.
Inside, the room was airless, a small sterile interrogation chamber. Emily sat on one side of a heavy oak table, dressed in a modest navy suit, her hands clasped tight to stop them shaking. Opposite her sat Professor Blackwood, a sharp eyed Oxford don in his sixties, Emily's thesis spread open in front of him, covered in a chaotic storm of sticky notes. Sebastian sat in the corner of the room, away from the table entirely, the silent observer, forbidden from speaking unless directly addressed.
He looked calm. His hand gripped the armrest of his chair so hard the leather creaked.
"You claim the system creates its own emotional baseline," Blackwood said, peering at her over his glasses. "That is a romantic notion, Miss Baker. Not a scientific one."
"It is a metaphor for the variable threshold, Professor," Emily said. "The machine learns tolerance."
"Tolerance? Or just a coding error you decided to brand as a feature?" He flipped a page aggressively. "Page forty five. The aviation valve. Unconventional. Dangerous. Did you calculate the shear stress on the mounting bolts?"
"Yes. It's in the appendix."
"I saw the appendix. It looks... remarkably advanced." Blackwood looked up, but he did not look at Emily. He looked straight at Sebastian, sitting silent in his corner. "Almost too advanced for an MPhil student working alone."
The air in the room froze solid. Sebastian did not blink. He met Blackwood's gaze without flinching. Emily felt the trap closing around her and turned her head slightly to look at Sebastian, searching for some sign of what to do. Sebastian saw her look. Then he saw Blackwood watching the exchange between them, cataloguing it.
If Sebastian spoke now, he would confirm Blackwood's exact suspicion. She is the puppet. He is the master.
Sebastian stayed silent. His jaw tightened. He gave her the smallest possible nod. You're on your own.
Blackwood smiled, thin and satisfied, and turned back to Emily. "Look at me, Miss Baker. Not at your supervisor." He leaned forward. "Did you write this code? Or did Professor Smith hold the pen?"
Emily's face burned. The insult stung, but it also woke something up inside her. Sebastian was not going to save her. She turned back to Blackwood and leaned forward herself, matching his intensity exactly.
"Professor Smith taught me," she said. "But the work is mine."
"The chaos variable?"
"Page ninety. Equation three. The system doesn't seek peace. It seeks to manage the overwhelming input. That isn't his theory." She glanced once at the corner of the room. "Professor Smith believes in control. I believe in survival."
Sebastian looked at her. A flash of pride burned behind his eyes. She had just taken his own psychological profile and used it to win the argument, turned his coldest lesson into her sharpest weapon.
Blackwood looked down at the page. He read the equation carefully. He checked the logic twice. Then he looked back up at Emily, and something in his expression shifted. The girl had teeth.
He closed the blue bound book. Thud. The silence stretched out for what felt like an eternity, the distant pop of fireworks outside mocking the tension in the room.
Blackwood took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
"Survival indeed." He looked over at Sebastian. "She fights well, Smith."
"Her work speaks for itself, Professor," Sebastian said, his voice low.
Blackwood stood and extended a hand across the table. "Congratulations, Miss Baker. Pass. With Distinction."
Emily slumped in her chair, the adrenaline crashing out of her all at once. She stood on shaky legs and shook his hand.
"Thank you, sir."
Blackwood gathered his papers and paused at the door, looking between the two of them for one long, knowing second. "You have a bright future." A cryptic smile. "If you can navigate the... politics."
He left. The door clicked shut. The exam was over.
Emily looked at Sebastian. She was trembling. Sebastian stood up and walked toward her, stopping at the edge of the table. The barrier was gone now, but the habit of distance remained stubbornly in place.
"You did it," he said, looking deep into her eyes.
Emily nodded, the repression still heavy in the air between them but mixed now with a triumphant relief neither could entirely contain.
"So... am I a Master of Philosophy now?"
"Not until the Congregation." He checked his watch. "Go. Celebrate. Drink cheap wine and watch the fireworks. You've earned it."
He turned to his briefcase.
"Professor..."
He stopped.
"Thank you," she said.
She walked out. Sebastian stood alone in the quiet room while outside, a massive firework exploded somewhere over the river, painting the ceiling briefly gold.
❦
The college bar was exploding with its own kind of energy that night, a sea of black tie and ballgowns, the air thick with expensive perfume, spilled champagne, and the particular adrenaline of an entire cohort finally exhaling after years of pressure. Through the open French doors, fireworks painted the night sky in flashes of red and gold.
James, Priya, and Sophie occupied a large circular booth near the window, already three drinks deep and laughing at a meme on someone's phone. Emily sat in the middle in a floor length gown of midnight blue silk that clung to her like liquid night, her hair sculpted into an elegant chignon, not a strand out of place, her eyes smoked, her lips blood red. She sat with her legs crossed, one stiletto heel dangling dangerously off her foot, holding a gin and tonic and looking, for the first time in months, genuinely relieved.
Ten yards away, near a cluster of high tables by the bar, Professor Henderson laughed loudly with Dr. Patel, red faced and three sheets to the wind, while Professor Clark complained bitterly about the wine list. Sebastian stood at the edge of the faculty group, holding a tumbler of whisky he hadn't touched in minutes, the ice long since melted. His eyes were locked on the circular booth. On Emily.
Emily turned her head, feeling the physical weight of his gaze land on her from across the room. Through the chaos of dancing bodies and flying champagne corks, her eyes met his, and she did not look away. She did not blush. She lifted her gin and tonic slightly in his direction. A micro toast. A challenge. Your move, Professor.
Sebastian tightened his grip on the glass.
A young man approached the booth. Julian wore a rented tuxedo that was slightly too big at the shoulders, and he had the kind of soft, approachable face that made mothers trust him on sight.
"Em?"
Emily turned. Her whole face softened instantly. "Julian!"
She stood up, and Julian pulled her into a hug that lasted three seconds longer than a strictly platonic one would, burying his face briefly in the curve of her neck. Sebastian watched from across the room, taking a slow sip of whisky, his eyes narrowing as he catalogued every point of contact. Hand on waist. Chin on shoulder.
"I heard you passed. Distinction. I knew you would."
"News travels fast," Emily said, pulling back, smiling.
"Don't just stand there, Jules! Sit! We're doing tequila," Sophie said, scooting over. She kicked Priya under the table. They exchanged a look.
"Sit next to Em," Priya said. "Like old times."
Julian blushed but sat close to Emily anyway, his thigh brushing hers. Emily didn't move away. She relaxed instead. In the chaotic, celebratory room, Julian felt like a safe harbour she knew the shape of.
Sebastian watched the body language. The lack of tension. The easy, unguarded comfort of it. He hated it, with a sudden and clarifying intensity that frightened him slightly.
Henderson slapped him on the back. "Cheer up, Smith! Your student survived the lion's den. You should be celebrating."
"I am celebrating," Sebastian said coldly. "Internally."
Henderson followed Sebastian's gaze and spotted the booth, chuckling and shaking his head with amusement. "Ah, the Harper boy. I see the exile is over."
Sebastian froze, then turned to Henderson, feigning casual disinterest. "You know him?"
"Not him, per se. Just the blast radius. That boy has been pining for her since freshman year." A beat. "He dumped her in the middle of Michaelmas term, second year. Very messy. She nearly failed Fluid Dynamics that term."
Sebastian looked back at Emily, who was laughing at something Julian had just whispered.
"She doesn't look particularly dumped," he said.
"Time heals all wounds, and apparently raises all grades." Henderson sighed, already bored with the topic. "Let's hope she's smarter this time." He turned away to flag down a passing waiter.
Sebastian stood rigid, a sharp, unfamiliar twist settling somewhere in his gut. Boom. A massive firework exploded outside, and the crowd cheered, students and faculty alike surging toward the terrace doors to watch the display.
"Jules, help me carry the next round? My hands are full," James said.
Julian nodded and squeezed Emily's shoulder. "Don't go anywhere."
Julian and James headed for the bar. Emily stood alone for a moment near the French doors, watching the fireworks reflect off the River Cam. Sebastian saw his opening. He didn't hesitate. He cut through the crowd like a shark scenting blood in the water.
Out on the bar terrace, Emily was looking up at the sky when his voice reached her from behind.
"He seems... reliable."
She jumped slightly and turned. Sebastian was standing right behind her, close, his eyes fixed on the bar where Julian was waiting for drinks.
"Professor." She recovered quickly. "You scared me."
"The boy in the oversized tux," he said, nodding toward Julian. "He looks at you like you're the only person in the room."
Emily glanced at Julian and smiled softly. "That's Julian."
"Henderson mentioned a 'history'."
Emily looked at Sebastian and heard the edge buried under his voice. She decided to be honest, but guarded.
"We dated."
Sebastian stepped closer, lowering his voice so only she could hear it over the fireworks. "Ah... dated." He glanced back at Julian, then back to her.
Julian pushed back through the crowd just then, beaming, holding two glasses. "Em! I got you a gin fizz!"
Sebastian straightened up instantly, taking a step back, nodding politely at Julian. "Enjoy your evening, Miss Baker."
He turned and walked away, disappearing into the dark crowd of faculty. Julian handed Emily her drink.
"Was that Professor Smith? He looks intense."
Emily stared at Sebastian's retreating back. "Always," she said, distracted, and took a sip of her gin fizz. It tasted flat compared to the adrenaline still coursing through her veins.
❦
A few days later, golden hour sunlight poured through the stone window of Sebastian's office, turning the floating dust motes into drifting gold. The room felt quiet, warm, and strangely intimate. Emily sat at Sebastian's massive mahogany desk, using his computer, looking small in his oversized leather chair. Sebastian stood right beside her, leaning one hand against the desk, looming over her shoulder in a protective, enclosing stance that neither of them commented on.
"Third line. Missing an Oxford comma, Miss Baker." His voice was patient. Surprisingly gentle.
Emily moved the cursor. Click.
"And increase the contrast on this friction graph. The greyscale won't print well."
"Like this?"
"Perfect."
He watched her work, standing close enough to smell her shampoo.
"By the way," he said, casual, "that was quite an emotional reunion you had at the bar the other night."
Emily paused her typing. She turned her head slightly to look at him. "We were just revisiting old stories."
"People usually revisit old stories because they regret the ending. Or they want to rewrite it." He tilted his head. "Is that the case?"
Emily met his gaze and saw the subtle probe hiding underneath it. "Why do you care, Professor? That book is closed. I don't make a habit of re-reading endings I already know."
A small, satisfied smile touched Sebastian's lips. "Good. I hope the nostalgia didn't affect your post graduation plans." He tapped the desk. "Scroll to the conclusion."
Emily scrolled down, bracing herself for the usual onslaught of criticism. Sebastian read the screen.
"It flows well. Sharp. Keep it exactly as it is."
Emily looked up at him, wide eyed. "You're not going to tear it apart? You're not going to call it 'sentimental'?"
Sebastian looked down at her, the sunlight catching in his eyes. "Why would I?" Softly. "You don't have to fight me anymore."
The words hung in the air between them. You won.
"You're standing very close, Professor," Emily said, flustered.
"So?"
"You are still my supervisor."
Sebastian leaned down further, his face level with hers. "Technically, the grade is locked into the system." His voice dropped lower. "Right now, I am just a colleague helping you finalise a document."
"You know the ethics committee wouldn't see it that way. It's a grey area."
"I know exactly where the red lines are, Miss Baker." He glanced at the mouse beneath her hand. "Save the file. Then we are done."
Emily reached for the mouse and clicked save. The sound was loud in the quiet room.
File saved.
"Send it to the printer, Miss Baker. Congratulations on a job well done."
❦
Eleven at night found the robotics lab reduced to a cavern of shadows, lit only by the rhythmic pulse of server LEDs, toxic greens and cold blues bleeding across the walls, the air sterile with the smell of ozone and heated silicon. Emily sat at the main terminal, the blue light of the monitor carving her silhouette out of the darkness. A progress bar crawled toward its finish line. Wiping directory. Ninety two percent complete.
Sebastian stood by the glass partition, leaning against the frame, no jacket, sleeves rolled to his elbows, tie loosened.
"Erasing the evidence, Miss Baker?"
Emily didn't turn around. Her fingers danced over the mechanical keyboard. Click. Click. Click.
"Standard handover protocol, Professor. A clean slate. No ghost processes left behind."
Sebastian pushed off the wall and walked toward her, his footsteps silent on the rubber floor, stopping right behind her chair.
"Digital footprints are easy to scrub. But ghost data always remains in the hardware. Latent impressions."
He leaned down, his chest inches from her back. Emily stopped typing. She could feel the heat radiating off him. She slowly swivelled her chair around to face him, and found herself trapped between the armrests of her own seat and his looming frame.
"I'm a pro, Professor."
"Is that so?" His voice dropped an octave.
The air between them turned thick, charged with the same electricity that powered the machines surrounding them. Emily's pulse was visible in the hollow of her throat. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her laboratory access card, holding it up between them like a fragile white flag.
"Time's up. I'm surrendering control. Here is the lab card."
Sebastian did not take the card. Instead he reached out and wrapped his hand around hers, enclosing both the card and her fingers inside his palm. His grip was firm. Possessive. He did not let go.
"I accept the return of Faculty property."
He stared into her eyes, his thumb grazing the sensitive skin of her wrist, right over her racing pulse. "But you've opened another access point... and you haven't closed it yet."
"What access?" Emily whispered, breathless.
"Don't play the novice with me. Your OS is screaming error. You know exactly which port is still open."
He pulled her hand slightly closer to his chest. The tension between them was a live wire, vibrating at a frequency only the two of them could hear. A sharp beep echoed through the lab. The monitor flashed, Format complete. System wiped. The spell broke, though the heat remained exactly where it had been.
Sebastian slowly thawed. He slid the card from her numb fingers, but his touch lingered a heartbeat too long before he let it go.
"The handover is complete," he said, retreating hastily into formality. "You are officially a guest in this building, Miss Baker."
Emily stood up, her legs slightly unsteady. She grabbed her bag and moved toward the exit, pausing at the door, silhouetted by the hallway light.
"You're wrong about one thing, Professor."
Sebastian looked up from the card in his hand.
"I didn't forget to close the access point. I just... changed the password." She gave him a fleeting, rebellious smirk. "Best of luck with the decryption."
She swivelled the door open and vanished into the corridor. Sebastian stood alone in the dark, the blue LEDs reflecting in his eyes, looking at the card and then at the empty doorway. He let out a short, dark laugh, a sound of pure, predatory intrigue.
❦
Out in the corridor, Emily walked fast, her heels clicking a sharp, triumphant rhythm against the stone floor. The heavy lab door swung open behind her.
"Miss Baker!"
She stopped. A smirk played on her lips before she even turned around.
Sebastian was walking toward her, discarding his formal posture with every step.
"Your password is unnecessarily complex. I find I require a significant amount of glucose to even begin decrypting it."
"Are you asking me to celebrate, Professor? Or is this an interrogation?"
"Both. And because I know you won't turn down a greasy burger at eleven o'clock at night."
The burger shack was a low rent, twenty four hour joint, flickering neon signs, the smell of frying onions and cheap coffee thick in the air. Emily devoured a massive burger, sauce smudged at the corner of her mouth. Sebastian sat across from her, hadn't ordered food, only black coffee he wasn't drinking, watching her instead, not with judgment but with a dark, simmering intensity.
"You look exactly as you did that night in London," he said. "The spirit, the messy hair, and a disturbing passion for fast food."
"Back then, you looked at me like I was a stray cat you found on the pavement."
"Back then, I was trying to deny the fact that the stray cat was the only thing making me feel remotely alive."
He reached across the table with a napkin, but he didn't hand it to her. He leaned in and brushed the sauce from her lip himself, his thumb lingering there, pressing slightly against her skin.
"M, Emily. Emily Baker."
Emily froze, a fry halfway to her mouth.
"I've been re-reading your code. M appears in the most sensitive logic branches."
Emily dropped the burger entirely. The air between them turned thick with something far more volatile than physics.
"And what did you find in those lines of code, Professor?"
"I found a request. Waiting for permission."
"You're over-analysing."
"Am I? You said you changed the password. But you forgot who taught you the encryption key."
Emily leaned forward, her eyes dark, daring him to cross the last remaining line. "Then hack it, Professor. Stop lecturing me and prove it."
Sebastian held her gaze. He looked at her lips. The air was electric. He could kiss her. It would be easy. It would be satisfying. But he didn't. A slow, dry smile touched the corners of his mouth, not mocking, something closer to patient.
He reached out instead. His hand brushed her cheek, then slid past it to grab the paper bill tucked under the ketchup bottle.
"Not yet."
Emily blinked, stunned. "You are unbelievable..."
"Wear the gown. Shake the Chancellor's hand. Walk off that stage as my equal. Until then..." He stood, gathering his coat. "Let's get you home. Before you start a fire we can't put out."
Emily looked at him, frustrated, yes, but also thrilled despite herself. "I hate it when you're right."
"Get used to it," he said, smirking.
❦
The conference centre in Zurich was cold and sterile, minimalist Swiss architecture, the air conditioning humming a low, monotonous drone over an audience of grey haired academics in expensive suits, some nodding off, others checking their watches. Sebastian stood at a glass podium, a massive screen behind him displaying complex diagrams on haptic feedback in non linear systems. He looked impeccable. And completely dead inside.
"...therefore, the PID diagnostic prevents oscillation, ensuring the system remains stable even under catastrophic load."
He paused, glancing down at the VIP seat in the front row. For a split second, the heavy velvet chair flickered. He saw Emily sitting there, not in a suit but in her oversized NASA t-shirt and messy bun, a smudge of engine oil on her cheek, leaning forward with her eyes blazing, hand raised.
That's boring, Professor, she mouthed silently.
Reality snapped back. Sebastian blinked hard. The seat was empty. Just red velvet. He gripped the edges of the podium and cleared his throat.
"Moving on to the next slide."
❦
Golden sunlight flooded the manicured lawns of Baker Manor in a scene of idyllic, suffocating perfection. Emily lay sprawled across a chaotic pile of silk cushions on a sun lounger, oversized sunglasses pushed up her nose, wearing a white summer dress and looking, for all the world, like a bored princess. But on her lap was not a fashion magazine. It was a heavy, hardbound textbook, and she was aggressively highlighting a paragraph in neon yellow.
"You haven't accounted for latency," she muttered to no one.
A shadow fell over her. Henry stood there, dressed in full golf attire, holding a putter. He sighed, then sat on the edge of her lounger.
"I saw Wentworth at the club this morning. He asked if you've considered his offer for the hedge fund position." A beat. "Or at least, if you'd join his son, Arthur, for the polo match on Saturday."
Emily slammed the book shut. Dust motes danced in the disturbed sunlight.
"Dad. I'm an engineer. I build things. I don't manage assets, and I certainly don't watch horses run in circles with boys."
"I'm just saying," Henry chuckled, "you're wasting away here. You have a Distinction MPhil. And for the last three weeks, your only intellectual rival has been the gardener's leaf blower."
Emily looked away, toward the distant spires of Cambridge on the horizon. So close, and yet so entirely out of bounds.
"If you won't work for Wentworth," Henry went on, "come back to the Board with me. Manage the Trust. Meet people."
"'People' meaning eligible bachelors?"
"'People' meaning anyone who isn't a robot." He stood up, patting her knee. "King's College High Table dinner tonight. Be my guest. Please?"
Emily looked at him. She hated the idea. But she hated the silence of her own head even more.
"Fine," she said. "But if Arthur is there, I'm talking about thermodynamics until his ears bleed."
❦
The hotel bar in Zurich overlooked the lake, soft piano music drifting through expensive, quiet air. Sebastian sat alone with a glass of single malt whisky, neat. A woman in her thirties approached, stunning, professional, a conference badge clipped to her blazer.
"Professor Smith? I'm Dr. Schneider. Your paper on haptics was... illuminating."
Sebastian looked up. She was beautiful. She was intelligent. She was entirely appropriate.
She slid onto the stool beside him. A clear invitation.
"I was wondering if you'd like to discuss the variables in a more... private setting."
Sebastian stared at her, analysing her the way he analysed code. Perfect posture. Perfect makeup. Perfect predictability.
She was not Emily. He felt absolutely nothing.
"Read chapter five, Dr. Schneider," he said coldly. "It covers everything."
He downed his drink in one swallow and stood. "Goodnight."
He walked away, leaving her stunned at the bar.
❦
Later, alone in his hotel suite, Sebastian lay fully clothed on the bed in the dark, the room lit only by the distant glow of the city outside his window. He held his phone, scrolling through his photo gallery, mostly diagrams and whiteboards, until he reached one single photograph that didn't belong among them. A candid shot, taken months ago in the lab. Emily asleep at her desk, her head resting on her folded arms, a soldering iron cooling beside her. She looked exhausted. Messy. Entirely unguarded.
Sebastian traced the line of her face on the screen with his thumb.
"Intermission is too long," he whispered to no one.
He closed his eyes. The silence of the hotel room was deafening.
❦
Candlelight flickered against the centuries old oak panelling of King's College dining hall, the air thick with beeswax, expensive perfume, and old money. Cutlery clinked softly against fine china beneath a low, polite murmur of conversation.
Sebastian stood at the periphery of the room, holding a crystal tumbler of whisky he had no intention of drinking, his eyes cold, scanning the room like a security camera. Wentworth stood beside him, swirling a glass of claret.
The heavy oak doors creaked open. The room quieted perceptibly. Louis Baker, thirty years old, entered with the effortless, terrifying confidence of a man who had never once doubted he owned the room he was standing in. Walking beside him, her hand tucked into the crook of his arm, was Emily.
She wore an off the shoulder gown in midnight blue velvet, her hair swept up high to expose the long, elegant line of her neck. She whispered something to Louis. Louis laughed, a booming, confident sound, and patted her hand where it rested on his arm. Possessive. Familiar. She tilted her head to listen to him and offered a soft smile, beautiful but strangely hollow, the beauty of a porcelain doll displayed behind glass.
Sebastian's grip on his glass tightened until his knuckles turned white.
"Henry Baker's son," Wentworth said, watching Louis with open admiration. "Louis, thirty years old. His hedge fund swallowed two startups this morning."
Sebastian didn't look at Louis. He looked at Emily, at the way she nodded dutifully at a passing Bishop, at the way she faded, almost completely, into Louis's shadow.
"Wow," he said, his voice tight. "Another Baker."
Wentworth glanced at Emily for a fraction of a second too long to be entirely innocent. Sebastian stared at Louis's hand resting possessively over Emily's, at her smile, a perfect, industrial grade social smile that gave absolutely nothing away.
Sebastian felt a wave of nausea rise in his throat. He slammed his glass down onto a passing waiter's tray.
"Forgive me," he said. "I need air."
He turned on his heel and strode away.
❦
The biting night wind swept across the stone of a hidden balcony corner, tucked behind massive gothic pillars, completely isolated from the noisy party still roaring inside. Sebastian leaned against the wall, taking a deep drag of a cigarette, the cherry glowing red in the darkness. The smoke filled his lungs, numbing the sharp edge of his own anger. He closed his eyes, trying to exhale the image of her hand resting on Louis's arm.
"Smoking on college grounds is a violation of the statutes, Professor."
Sebastian froze. He opened his eyes and turned. Emily stood in the shadow of a pillar. She had been out there before him. Hiding.
Sebastian looked at her, his gaze razor sharp, dripping with disdain. "Finished playing your role?"
He exhaled smoke directly toward her. Emily frowned, caught off guard by the sudden attack.
"I don't follow."
He pointed a shaking hand back toward the hall, where Louis still stood holding court.
Emily straightened her spine as the realization hit her. He thought she was a mistress. A gold digger. She could have told him, simply, that Louis was her brother. But his assumption insulted her too deeply to let it go that easily. Her pride flared hotter than his anger.
"Is that how you see me?" she said icily. "As an ornament?"
"I thought you were different." His voice cracked. "I thought you were waiting. For something real. Something brilliant. Not... a cliché."
"Waiting?" Emily snapped, stepping into his space, furious now. "I was waiting, Sebastian. I gave you every signal. I left every door open. But you stood still. You drew the lines."
"I did that out of respect for you!"
"No. You did it because you are afraid. And now you stand here, sneering at my choices?" She laughed, sharp and bitter. "I don't need your permission. And I certainly don't need your pity."
The words hit Sebastian like a physical blow. Emily looked at him, her eyes filled with a disappointment that matched his own exactly.
"Cut down on the cigarettes, Professor," she said. "It's clouding your judgement."
She turned to leave. Sebastian tossed the cigarette to the ground and lunged forward, grabbing her wrist, yanking her back.
"Professor..."
He spun her around and slammed her gently back against the cold stone pillar, the shadows swallowing them both whole. Without another word, he leaned down and crushed his lips against hers in a violent, frantic kiss. It wasn't gentle. It was anger, jealousy, and months of suppression finally breaking loose all at once.
Emily froze for half a second, stunned. Then her hands flew up, tangling in his hair, pulling him closer, kissing him back with equal, matching ferocity.
They broke apart but did not let go. Sebastian's forehead rested against hers, their breathing ragged and synchronized, forming small clouds of mist in the freezing night air. His hands stayed on her, one tangled in her hair, the other sliding down the velvet of her dress to rest possessively on the small of her back, pressing her into him. He was shaking.
"London," he whispered, his voice rough and barely audible.
Emily blinked, dazed, her lips swollen. "What?"
"I haven't been able to think straight since the first time we met." He pulled back just an inch to look into her eyes, his gaze stripping away every last defense. "I tried to run, but god, I am still there. I am still in that corridor with you."
Emily reached up, her fingers tracing the sharp line of his jaw. "You have a terrible way of showing it. You made me hate you, Sebastian."
"I couldn't bear to be the reason you failed. I am sorry for the silence." He gripped her waist tighter. "But I am not sorry for the distance."
Emily searched his eyes and saw the truth buried underneath the arrogance. The profound, stubborn care he'd been hiding the entire time.
"I know," she said softly, and rested her head against his chest.
"Bloody hell, Sebastian," she murmured. "You're always right."
"Not always. I was wrong to think I could stand back and watch you with another man."
Emily pulled back to look at him, a mischievous glint entering her tired eyes. "Louis?"
Sebastian nodded, his jaw still tight.
"He's very possessive. Always has been." She smirked. "But I suppose he has the right. He's been lecturing me on 'family reputation' and chasing away my boyfriends since I was in the nursery."
Sebastian went very still. His hand stopped moving against her back entirely. The silence stretched out, filled only by the wind and the distant, muffled sound of the party.
"...Excuse me?"
Emily bit her lip to suppress a laugh. She was enjoying this moment, watching the great genius buffer in real time.
"He takes his role as the firstborn very seriously," she said. "It's exhausting, really."
Sebastian stared at her. The gears in his mind were turning furiously, click by click by click, assembling a shape he had somehow never let himself see.
Henry Baker. Louis Baker. And Emily Baker.