il mio professore

Chapter 5 ~~✨

It started with a laugh.

Livia hadn't meant to laugh. It slipped out, involuntarily, soft and sharp as a scalpel drawn too quickly across skin. It was during a post-rounds seminar—after three grueling hours of renal pathophysiology and one attending's thinly veiled misogyny. A resident named Luca made a cutting joke under his breath. Something about professors being harder to please than God Himself.

She laughed.

Not a flirt. Not a challenge.

Just... laughter.

But Augustus heard it.

He stood at the back of the lecture hall, arms folded, expression still and polished as always. But his eyes...

His eyes didn't blink.

The silence between them that night was deeper than usual. Not cold. Not quiet.

Coiled.

Augustus read by the fire, same seat as always, still in his tie. Livia walked past him in bare feet and a silk robe, damp from her bath, her hair dripping like a slow metronome against the marble floors.

He didn't look up.

So she didn't speak.

Let him simmer.

Let him boil.

The next morning, she received her new rotation schedule.

It had been changed.

Without warning. Without explanation.

She was no longer rotating with Kouros or the cardiology team.

She was now shadowing him.

Three full weeks.

No escape.

No masks.

Just Augustus. Just her. Just... this.

They didn't speak in front of the students.

They didn't look at each other during rounds.

But the tension bloomed in every room like blood under skin.

The others noticed. Of course they did.

He pushed her harder than anyone else. Interrogated her. Challenged her. Held her eyes just one second too long when she got a diagnosis right.

And still—Livia held the line.

Until Wednesday.

It was nearly 9 p.m. They were the only two left in the clinical wing.

She was at a terminal, reviewing blood cultures.

He stood over her shoulder, silent.

Too silent.

"Is there a problem, Professor Moreno?" she asked without looking up.

"Luca," he said.

Her hands froze over the keys. "What?"

"Luca. The resident. You laughed at his joke."

She turned slowly in her chair.

"You changed my rotation," she said. "Over a laugh?"

Augustus didn't answer. His eyes tracked her mouth. Her throat. The thin gold chain resting just below her collarbone.

"You're jealous," she said, softly. "You can't even admit it."

"Livia—"

"Do you think I belong to you just because they signed a piece of paper?" she whispered. "Do you think a ring on my finger means you get to decide who I laugh with, who I—"

He moved.

Not violently. Not roughly.

But suddenly. Completely.

Her back hit the door of the medicine cabinet, hard. The glass rattled behind her. His hands weren't on her skin—but on either side of her head, caging her in. His breath hit her cheek. Hot. Unsteady.

"I warned you," he said, voice low. "You're not ready for what it means to be mine."

"I'm not anything of yours," she hissed.

"Oh?" His mouth tilted, cruel and beautiful. "Then why are you trembling?"

She wasn't.

Except—she was.

Not from fear.

From fury. From want. From whatever this was, burning through her like an infection.

"Say it," she whispered.

"Say what?"

"That you wanted me. That you've wanted me since before the vows. Before the papers. Before this farce of a marriage."

He didn't move.

Didn't blink.

But his restraint splintered.

His voice dropped to a rasp. "I wanted you the moment you answered your first question in my class without flinching. I wanted you the moment I realized you weren't afraid of me—but of becoming me."

Livia's breath caught.

"I don't want to be you," she whispered.

"No," he agreed. "You want to be better."

Then silence.

The space between them pulsed.

Then—

He stepped back.

Control reclaimed.

He adjusted his cufflinks. Cleared his throat.

"Go home, Mrs. Moreno."

And then he walked out, leaving her breathless, shaking, furious.

And smiling.

Because now she knew.

He wasn't winning anymore.