Page 41 of Marrying My Professor

My stomach drops so fast it feels like the floor has given out beneath me. I scan the room with new urgency, searching for that familiar height, those broad shoulders, the particular way he holds himself like he's carved from something harder than the people around him. But the lighting is too dim, the crowd too thick, and half the men here fit that general description.

He wouldn't, I tell myself firmly. He doesn’t seem like the type, but you never know.

The thought makes me nauseous.

Focus, Elara. You're not here for Alexander. You're here for Brandon.

I push deeper into the club, keeping my movements casual even as my eyes catalogue everything. The layout is similar to the other Veritas club—a main room with a central dance floor, smaller alcoves branching off, a bar along one wall that's doing steady business. But where the other club felt like controlled hedonism, this feels feral. Unrestrained. Like someone took all the rules about consent and safety and basic human decency and threw them out a window.

A girl stumbles past me, pupils blown so wide her eyes look black, giggling at something only she can hear. A man in an expensive suit and no mask watches her go with an expression that makes my skin crawl.

Keep moving. Don't stare. Don't react.

I'm making my way toward what looks like a hallway leading deeper into the building when I feel it—the unmistakable sensation of being watched. Of having someone's attention lock onto me with intent.

A body slides up beside me, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off him, and a voice—low, smooth, dripping with the kind of privilege that's never been told no—whispers directly into my ear.

"I don't remember seeing you at one of these before."

The breath against my skin makes me want to flinch, but I don't. I turn slowly, deliberately, and find myself looking at a face I recognize even through the haze of dim lighting and my own mounting anxiety.

James Harrington.

He looks different than he did at Wesley's party two weeks ago. Still handsome in that sharp, dangerous way, but there's something harder in his expression now. Something that wasn't there before. Or maybe it was always there and I just wasn't looking closely enough.

He's not wearing a mask. Of course he's not. Men like James don't hide.

"Maybe I'm just very forgettable," I say lightly, letting my mouth curve into something that could pass for a smile.

His eyes—that whiskey-dark color that probably gets him out of a lot of trouble—travel down my body in a way that feels like a transaction. Like he's assessing merchandise.

"Trust me," he says, his hand coming up to trace a finger along my bare shoulder, "you're not forgettable."

Gross. So gross. If you could die from second-hand sleaze, I'd be a corpse right now.

But I don't pull away. Instead, I lean in slightly, playing the part. "You're sweet."

"I'm not sweet," he corrects, his smile widening. "But I am generous. To the right people."

There it is. The transactional nature of every interaction in this place, laid bare.

"Generous how?" I ask, tilting my head in a way I know draws attention to my neck, to the curve of my throat.

His hand drops from my shoulder to his pocket, and he pulls out a money clip thick with hundreds. Just pulls it out, casual as anything, like showing off obscene amounts of cash in a sex club is normal behavior.

Oh, we're doing this. We're really doing the 'how much are you worth' thing. Fantastic. Love that for us.

"How much are you worth?" he asks, and there's no shame in the question. No acknowledgment that what he's asking is fundamentally dehumanizing.

I force myself to laugh, light and airy, like he's just asked me what my favorite color is. "More than you can afford, pretty boy."

His eyebrows lift, surprise flickering across his features. "I doubt that."

"Then maybe you're not as rich as you think you are."

He laughs—a real laugh this time, surprised and genuinely amused—and shifts his weight. As he does, light catches on something on his left hand. A ring. Heavy gold, set with a dark stone that looks black in the crimson lighting, engraved with symbols I can't quite make out from this angle.

But I've seen rings like that before. On Wesley's hand. On Marcus Hale's hand. On every high-ranking Veritas member who doesn't care about being subtle.