Page 51 of Saint Céline
It fascinated me more than it should have. I came from one of the founding families that had helped shape this stretch ofcoast generations ago, old money layered so thick it had become invisible to most people who encountered it. I had published my first significant paper at seventeen, earned my doctorate before most of my peers finished their undergraduate degrees, and became the youngest professor ever appointed at Bellamont University. I was twenty-nine and already accomplished more than what peers three decades older than me had.
The funding followed naturally after that, grants and private endowments pouring in because my work promised results that could be monetized, patented, and turned into something useful for the right people. Wealth and intellect had given me every advantage. Yet, I had never encountered anyone quite like Céline, who could reinvent herself so completely while still carrying small, honest attachments like a cat that loved her.
The memory of the other night surfaced uninvited, sharp and vivid. I had let myself into Thad’s apartment with the kind of quiet efficiency that came from years of observing how people secured their lives without ever truly protecting them. The lock had yielded easily. The bedroom had been dark except for the faint glow of marina lights through rain-streaked windows. Thad slept heavily beside her, oblivious as always, while I knelt between her thighs and tasted the truth she spent so much energy hiding from everyone else.
She had fought me at first, silent and fierce, her fingers twisting in my hair as she tried to push me away. But her body had betrayed her completely. The way she had clenched around my tongue and fingers, the shudder that ran through her when she finally came, had been raw and unscripted in a way nothing else about her ever was. I had wanted more than that single moment. I still did. Not just the physical release but the honesty that followed it, the brief crack in her armour where Selena bled through before Céline could seal it again. I wanted to see how far that honesty could stretch if I kept pressing.
The office door opened without a knock. Dean Waverly stepped inside, carrying an umbrella that dripped rainwater onto the hardwood floor. “You know,” she said dryly as she closed the door behind her, “most people react to storms by going home at a reasonable hour.”
“Most people lack discipline,” I replied, setting Julian’s evaluation aside and leaning back in my chair.
“Most people also lack your deeply concerning relationship with fluorescent lighting at all hours.” She set the umbrella beside the door and sat across from me without waiting for an invitation. The dean had earned that privilege years ago through a combination of sharp intelligence and the kind of institutional patience that kept places like Bellamont University running smoothly. Her eyes moved briefly across the papers scattered over my desk.
“Still grading?”
“Pretending to.”
“You’re distracted.”
I shrugged.
“Ah,” she said softly. “So it’s that student again.”
I folded my hands loosely across my stomach.
“You’re becoming too repetitive.”
“And you’re becoming too obvious.”
“I sincerely doubt that.”
“Vincent.” Her tone sharpened slightly, the way it did when she moved from colleague to administrator. “You assigned an undergraduate direct proposal refinement under your personal supervision after she tried to withdraw from the program entirely. Half the department is already discussing it.”
“That sounds like a departmental failure, not mine.”
She ignored the deflection.
“Is there something happening I should know about?”
No. Many things. Possibly catastrophic things. I thought again of that night in Thad’s apartment, of the way Céline had trembled under my mouth while her boyfriend slept inches away, of how badly I had wanted to keep going until she stopped pretending entirely.
Instead, I said, “She’s intelligent.”
“That has never historically been your only criterion.”
I raised an eyebrow.
Dean Waverly sighed quietly. “You know what I mean.”
I did. Unfortunately. People often mistook my professional favouritism for simple attraction because attraction was simpler for them to understand. They preferred believing men like me compromised their judgment for beauty rather than admitting we sometimes became fascinated by damage. The truth was worse. Beauty alone bored me quickly. But Céline Martin lied like breathing, adapted like evolution, performed like religion, and beneath all of that, something frightened and starving still existed stubbornly enough to love a cat honestly.
I looked toward the rain-dark windows. “She’s just grieving.”
“That sounds dangerously close to sympathy.” Dean Waverly watched me carefully.
“Don’t be dramatic.”
“You broke into a faculty review meeting last year because a professor implied emotional context mattered more than academic rigour.”
