LEO'S POV
Her lips were soft and warm against mine, tasting of wine and something that was purely Zoe. For a moment that felt like eternity, I forgot everything—where we were, who we were, why this was wrong. Her arms tightened around my neck, and I could feel her heart beating against my chest.
Then reality crashed back like cold water.
I pulled away so abruptly that she stumbled, and I had to steady her with my good arm.
"Zoe," I said, my voice rough. "We can't—"
She stared at me with wide, unfocused eyes, her lips still parted from the kiss. There was confusion there, and hurt, and something that looked like disappointment.
"Why not?" she whispered.
"Because you're drunk. Because I'm your professor. Because—" I stopped, running my free hand through my hair. "Because this is wrong."
"It didn't feel wrong."
That was the problem. It hadn't felt wrong at all. It had felt like the most right thing I'd done in three years.
"Come on," I said, guiding her toward the restaurant exit. "Let's get you home."
The cool evening air hit us as we stepped outside, and Zoe shivered. I looked around for a cab, grateful for something practical to focus on.
"I can drive," she said, fumbling for my car keys in her purse.
"Absolutely not." I gently took the keys from her unsteady hands. "You're not driving anywhere in this condition."
"Then how am I supposed to get home?"
"Taxi." I stepped into the street and raised my good arm to flag down a passing cab.
A yellow cab pulled over almost immediately, and I opened the back door for Zoe.
"I don't want to go home," she said, not moving toward the car. "Marcus will be there."
"You can't avoid him forever."
She sighed and looked at the cab driver, who was checking his watch impatiently. "Give him your address, Zoe" I said to her.
"I don't want to go home, Leo. Please." She whined.
The way she said my name made my chest tight. But she was drunk and vulnerable, and I was already in too deep.
"You have to go home eventually," I said gently. "And you need to sleep this off."
She stared at me for a long moment, then sighed and rattled off an address on the other side of town. I repeated it to the cab driver and helped her into the backseat.
There was something sad in her voice that made me want to get in the cab with her.
Instead, I closed the door and watched the taxi disappear into traffic.
I stood on the sidewalk for a long time after she was gone, trying to process what had just happened. I'd kissed my student. Or she'd kissed me. Either way, we'd crossed a line that I'd sworn I'd never cross.
What the hell was wrong with me?
I found a bench outside the restaurant and sat down heavily. My wrist was throbbing again, but that pain was nothing compared to the chaos in my head.
Zoe Washington was twenty-two years old. She was my student. She was Marcus's niece. She was off-limits in every way that mattered.
But when she'd looked at me with those dark eyes, when she'd wrapped her arms around my neck and pressed her lips to mine, I'd forgotten all of that. For those few seconds, she hadn't been my student. She'd just been a beautiful woman who made me feel alive for the first time since Elena died.
My phone rang, jolting me out of my thoughts. Marcus's name flashed on the screen, and I considered letting it go to voicemail. But avoiding him would only make things worse.
"What do you want, Marcus?"
"Did you get my niece drunk?"
His voice was cold and accusatory, and I felt my temper flare.
"Hello to you too," I said. "And no, I didn't get her drunk. She managed that all by herself."
"Don't play games with me, Leo. Zoe just stumbled out of a cab, reeking of alcohol. What the hell happened?"
"She had a few glasses of wine at dinner. I put her in a taxi home. End of story."
"Dinner? You took her to dinner?"
"She drove me to a physical therapy appointment. We got food afterward. It's not a crime."
"It is when you're her professor and she's half your age."
"She's twenty-two, Marcus. She's an adult."
"She's my niece. And she's your student. Or have you forgotten how inappropriate this is?"
I stood up from the bench, pacing as much as my injured hand would allow. "There's nothing inappropriate happening here."
"Isn't there? Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you're taking advantage of a vulnerable young woman."
"Taking advantage?" I laughed, but there was no humor in it. "That's rich, coming from you."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means you've been controlling every aspect of her life since she was a child. You want to talk about taking advantage? Look in the mirror."
"I've been protecting her—"
"You've been suffocating her. And today I watched you try to hit her when she finally stood up to you."
There was silence on the other end of the line, and I could picture Marcus clenching his jaw the way he used to when we were students.
"Stay away from her, Leo," he said finally. "I'm having her transferred to another mentor."
"Good luck with that."
"She'll do what I tell her to do. Besides, I have connections in this department. I can make things very difficult for you."
"Same way you used your connections to get her into the program in the first place?"
I could hear Marcus's sharp intake of breath. "What did you say?"
"You heard me. We both know she didn't get into this program purely on merit."
"She got in because she's talented," Marcus snapped. "Her audition scores and academic record speak for themselves."
"I'm sure they do. But your phone calls to the admissions committee didn't hurt either, did they?"
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't I? You've always had your way, Marcus. Same way you selfishly rigged the student body election so you could become president our senior year."
The silence that followed was deafening. I could practically hear the gears turning in his head as he processed what I'd just said.
"You knew," he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper.
"Of course I knew. You weren't exactly subtle about it."
"Then why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you report me?"
"Because I thought you were my friend. Because I thought you'd do the right thing eventually and step down. Because I was naive enough to believe that our friendship meant more to you than some meaningless title."
"It wasn't meaningless—"
"It was student government, Marcus. Not the presidency of the United States. But you wanted it so badly that you were willing to cheat for it."
"I worked for that position. I deserved it."
"Maybe you did. But you didn't win it fairly, and we both know it."
Silence ensued.
"It wasn't even about the election," I said, feeling the old frustration rising in my chest. "It was about trust. It was about friendship. It was about the fact that you looked me in the eye every day for months, knowing what you'd done. You won, Marcus. You got the presidency, you got your conducting career, you got everything you wanted. So why do you still hate me?"
The question hung in the air between us. I genuinely didn't understand it. I'd let him keep the position he'd cheated to win. I'd never exposed him, never tried to get revenge. I'd moved on with my life and my career.
But apparently, he never had.
"I don't hate you," he said finally, but his voice lacked conviction.
"Yes, you do."
“I'm just trying…”
I hung up before he could finish the sentence. Whatever twisted logic he was using to justify his behavior, I didn't want to hear it.