For three years, my relationship with Flynn Stewart had always been shrouded in secrecy. He was the school's youngest and most promising professor, and I was his adoptive sister, as well as his student. Every day, I had to pretend to be a good student, listening to him lecture on the podium. However, every night, I had to endure his near-cruel demands, stripped of dignity.
"Livia," he whispered, his voice laced with mockery, “what do you think the principal would do if he found out? If he knew that his precious goddaughter spends every night in her brother’s bed, crying out in surrender?"
As he spoke, he bit down on my neck, his actions both possessive and punishing.
I closed my eyes tightly, tears silently sliding down my face. At that moment, I finally understood that what he gave me was never love.
——
"Flynn, I'm hungry," I said, wrapped in a blanket, looking at the man standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window with his back to me. The rain was falling outside, and the room was still filled with the aftermath of passion.
He didn't turn around, but simply said in a low voice, "What should you call me?"
I bit my lip and obediently called him "brother," which earned me a cold sneer from him. Turning around to the bed, he roughly grabbed my chin.
"You pretend so well in public, how come you can't even remember this little rule in bed?" As he spoke, his hand had already slipped into the blanket, wandering over my bare skin. I trembled, but forced myself not to dodge.
"Of course," he sneered, his tone dripping with disdain. "You are your mother's daughter, after all—born to seduce men."
Hearing these words, I pushed him away abruptly. This was the first time I had resisted, and it would be the last.
In the next moment, he pinned me down on the bed, his grip on my wrists so tight it felt like he might crush them.
"What’s this?" he sneered, his voice low and dangerous. "Upset now? Livia, what right do you have to be upset?"
I stared into his bloodshot eyes, filled with a seething hatred, and in that moment, I finally understood. From the very first day we met, he had been tormenting me like this.
My adoptive father, the principal, took me in when I was twelve years old. At that time, I didn't understand why this nominal brother always looked at me with cold eyes. Until the year of the college entrance exam, in his office, he kissed me for the first time. That kiss was gentle, yet it was enough to pull me under completely.
"I'll give you anything you want, as long as you agree to be my woman." He said that. I naively thought that this was his way of confessing to me. But I didn't know that this was just the beginning of a carefully designed revenge.
However, I have already loved too deeply to even summon the strength to hate.
“Professor Stewart, the principal wants to see you,” the teaching assistant’s voice called from outside the door, shattering the suffocating silence.
Flynn released me, his gaze dropping to my disheveled state. A mocking smile played at the corners of his lips.
“Fix yourself up. Make sure you look presentable,” he said coldly before turning away. He left without sparing me a second glance.
I curled up on the bed, my eyes following his retreating figure. A hollow ache settled in my chest. And at that moment, I found myself asking. How much further must I fall before I finally awaken?
