Page 52 of Saint Céline
“He was incompetent.”
“And now?”
I thought of Selena standing in the courtyard with the wind tearing through her hair while she admitted quietly that she missed her cat. Not Katherine. The cat.
“She’s stabilizing, I’ll make sure she gets better,” I said finally.
Dean Waverly blinked once. “Oh.”
There it was. Recognition. Not of romance. Of obsession. Her expression cooled immediately.
“Vincent.”
I stood before she could continue.
“Would you like more coffee?”
“No, I would like you to stop sounding like a man describing a lab specimen.”
I moved toward the small espresso machine near the bookshelf anyway. Rain lashed violently against the windows behind us.
“You’re overreacting.”
“I know you.” Her voice remained calm, which was always the case when she was most serious. “And I know what happens when something captures your attention too completely. It’s why I hired you. You can never let go of things once you set your eyes on them.”
I placed a clean cup beneath the machine.
“Should I be flattered you think I’m capable of the same passion with women that I find with my research?”
“You know perfectly well that isn’t what concerns me. I know about your occasional flings with women, but nobody has ever held your attention for more than one night.”
The espresso machine hissed loudly between us. For several seconds neither of us spoke. Then Dean Waverly asked quietly, “Did she do something?”
I looked down at the dark coffee pouring slowly into porcelain.
Yes. Something catastrophic had happened between her and Katherine Montgomery, and whatever truth existed beneath the official story, Céline Martin had walked away from it altered but intact. She built herself from someone else’s life with terrifying elegance. She stood in my lab pretending not to understand why I looked at her differently while her nervous system practicallyvibrated from the strain of maintaining control. And somehow, despite all of that, she still worried about her cat being lonely.
“No,” I said softly.
“Be careful. There’s not much that can ruin your reputation at this point, but still.”
There it was again. The warning everyone eventually gave me once they sensed something shifting beneath my composure. I handed her the coffee. “You make me sound dangerous.”
“You are dangerous.”
The honesty almost made me laugh. Instead, I leaned against the edge of my desk and watched rain crawl down the windows.
“Do you know the fascinating thing about Bellamont students?”
“Should I?” Dean Waverly looked tired already.
“They all believe reinvention is something money can purchase. New wardrobes. New accents. New internships. New versions of themselves are polished enough to survive inheritance.”
“And?”
“And most of them fail because they never truly become anything different.” I looked toward the storm outside. “They remain fundamentally recognizable beneath the performance.”
Dean Waverly’s expression sharpened slightly.
