Chapter 21

Avery’s POV

The heavy car pulled up outside the Von Carter estate. The mansion glowed like a grand museum, its marble polished to sterile perfection, and I switched into the mode I hated but carried as a birthright.

The Von Carter mode. Cold. Controlled. Untouchable.

Emily greeted me at the front doors, her eyes scanning me like she could see the storm raging inside my chest from the parking lot. “You’re late, Avery,” she said, her voice carrying a maternal weight that made it more of a scold than a complaint.

“I know,” I replied, brushing past her, my mind focused elsewhere. I did not pause for her reply.

I went straight to my study—mahogany walls, glass shelves lined with academic books and financial files, leather chairs that smelled of abstract power and suffocating permanence. The quintessential scent of Von Carters.

I sat at the desk and reached for my phone, the device cold and urgent in my hand. Time to stop guessing.

Time to know the truth. I dialed the private number I relied on for discretion and competence.

It rang twice. Then the smooth, steady voice answered.

“Yes, Ms. Carter. What can I do for you tonight?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose, irritation spiking. “Reynolds. Stop the formality. I’m not my father.”

A pause stretched across the line. His voice softened, the way it did when he transitioned from professional investigator to the man who raised me in my parents’ absence.

“So… Avery,” he said, warmth sliding through the line, “what can I do for you tonight, my child?”

That phrase, “my child,” disarmed me, no matter how hard I tried to live up to the cold Von Carter name. He was the only person left who said it without irony, without underlying expectation.

I took a breath. “I need a name run. Two people. Robin. And…”

I hesitated, the words sticking in my throat. “Professor Ms. Rose.”

There was a noticeable pause, professional and weighted. Reynolds never interrupted, especially when he knew I was serious.

But this time— “Name, Avery,” he interjected, cutting through my thought process. “Not title. If you want accurate information, I need something concrete. I need her first name.”

My jaw tightened. He was correct.

The humiliating truth was, I did not know her first name. Was that not pathetic?

All this time, all this pull and tension between us, and I had not even learned the fundamental thing about her. My hands clenched into fists on the desk. “I’ll send you her photo, Reynolds.”

“Photo?” There was a hint of amusement in his voice. “And how, pray tell, do you happen to have such an object in your possession, my child?”

Heat flushed across my face, the memory stinging. “Don’t even start, Reynolds,” I muttered, my irritation rising. “Just… I’ll send it now.”

But his silence was knowing, filled with professional suspicion. It dragged me into a memory I did not want to re-live—but could not stop.

It had been a quiet, melancholic day. The campus was still, the air heavy with the late autumn sunlight slanting gold through the trees.

I walked across the courtyard, phone in my hand, mind on corporate matters. And then I saw her.

Ms. Rose. Sitting alone on a wooden bench near the library steps.

Her posture was perfection. Back straight, legs crossed, a dense academic book resting in her lap.

She was not reading, though. She was lost in thought.

Her dark eyes were distant, her beautiful face calm but shadowed with something private. For once, she did not look like the commanding professor who silenced a class with a cutting remark.

She looked fragile. Profoundly human.

Before I realized the impulse or the impropriety of what I was doing, I lifted my phone. One quick snap.

The soundless click felt intrusive. The image had stayed, secretly, in my gallery, hidden deep in a password-protected folder I rarely opened.

But that day, I looked at it more than once. Something about that captured moment of vulnerability burned itself into my consciousness.

Reynolds’s voice, sharp and immediate, pulled me back to the present. “Avery? Are you still there?”

I blinked, snapping out of the memory. “Yeah. Sorry. I’ll send it right now.”

I pulled up the hidden folder on my screen, my thumb hovering over the picture. For a second, my stomach twisted.

Sending this felt personal. As if I were exposing something that belonged to me, and me alone.

But I hit send. The commitment was final.

A minute later, Reynolds’s voice came through. “Received. I’ll start digging on both of them. Robin and the woman in the photograph.”

“How long will this take?” I asked, leaning back, staring at the ceiling as though its symmetry could give me patience.

“Till evening,” he replied, his tone efficient. “You’ll have everything you want by then, Avery. You know my work.”

Evening. That was not long.

And yet, it felt like an agonizing eternity. “Reynolds?” I said, my voice softening, filled with a sudden vulnerability.

“Yes, my child?”

I hesitated, struggling to find the words. “Just… keep it discreet, please. No one needs to know about this operation.”

“I know, Avery. You forget—I’ve been with the Von Carters long enough to know which family truths are best left buried until the right moment.”

His tone carried an ominous weight, like he suspected the emotional implications I was not saying out loud. “Thank you,” I murmured, before ending the call.

The silence of the study pressed in on me, heavy and suffocating. The chandelier glowed like a watchful eye, and the rhythmic tick of the grandfather clock filled the tense air.

I leaned forward, elbows resting on the desk, fingers steepled beneath my chin. Robin. Ms. Rose.

Who was that aggressive man to her? What was that public fight about?

Why, in the name of all my well-maintained control, did it matter so intensely to me? The questions whirled, and no amount of Von Carter composure could still them now.

But one thing was clear. By this evening, I would possess the answers.

And when I did—nothing would be the same.

The following morning started in a messy way. My alarm clock betrayed me, ringing much later than it should have, and by the time I managed to pull myself out of bed, a looming pile of assignments glared from my desk.

The Von Carter mansion had never been a place of comfort—just acres of marble and echoing silence. Sometimes, even amidst that soul-crushing grandeur, I felt suffocated.

Today, distinctly, was one of those days. I grabbed my bag, brushing off Emily’s persistent voice reminding me that I needed breakfast.

I did not eat. Instead, I drove to college, my heart skipping a beat in anticipation.

Yesterday, I registered myself for the inter-college cricket competition. When I checked the notice board, there it was, printed in bold under the players’ list: Avery Von Carter.

The first match was tomorrow. Finally, something challenging that felt mine.

A vital spark of happiness surged through me. But as the morning academic drag wore on, things weighed down again.

Little skirmishes, predictable irritations—people staring because of my infamous surname, annoying whispers about the unbelievable Von Carter money, professors adopting cautious, polite tones. Sometimes, it was exhausting just to be me.

I slipped away to the secluded campus park, desperate to escape the relentless eyes, the gossip, and the metallic chains of a last name that felt less like pride and much more like a prison sentence. I sat on the nearest bench, tilting my head back, closing my eyes, and breathing, trying to center myself.

The soft rustle of leaves overhead and the distant, muted chatter of students began to fade. Sometimes I wonder if I truly want to be a Von Carter, I thought, the question sharp.

Sometimes, I want to use the power attached to that name, dig deep for information about people, uncover all their secrets—especially about her… Ms. Rose. And then, there are times when I just want to throw it all away, run off somewhere remote where no one knows my name, my bloodline, or my unbearable burdens.

I exhaled, an audible sound of frustration escaping me, muttering bitterly, “Almighty God, come and kill me already, please… and tell the world that at least I was a nice girl while I was alive.”

And then— A voice.

Crisp, melodic, dipped in sarcasm yet carrying an edge sharp enough to slice through steel. “Are you trying not to die in park, Ms. Carter?”

My eyes flew open. That voice.

Not just any voice. The voice.

The one that had been wreaking havoc inside my head since the day she arrived on campus. Ms. Rose.

I turned my head, afraid of what sight I might see, and there she was. She stood a few feet away, sunlight catching in her dark hair, her royal blue dress draped beneath a tailored black blazer that screamed power and control.

Her posture was composed, controlled, yet intensely daring. Her presence forced the air around her to bend and yield.

For a suspended moment, I was frozen, my lips parted, eyes wide with awe. “Oh God…” I breathed, the words audible, caught in the sight of her.

She tilted her head, one brow arching in challenge, her lips curling into a knowing smirk. “Close your mouth, Ms. Carter,” she drawled, her voice soft. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that staring is rude?”

Heat crept up my cheeks, and I snapped my mouth shut in haste. “Sorry, Professor,” I muttered, feeling like a reprimanded child.

But instead of brushing me off, her smirk deepened, becoming playful. “Don’t be sorry. It depends. Sometimes staring…” her eyes flickered over my face, slow and searching, “…means admiring.”

My heart stumbled inside my chest, skipping several beats. “And Avery…” she spoke my first name now, with such quiet ownership that the sound made me shiver.

I looked at her, confused, expectant, caught in her gravity. Her eyes, dark and mischievous, gleamed as though she were playing a private, intellectual game, and I was the unsuspecting pawn.

“Tiffany Rose.” I blinked, uncertain. “What?”

She stepped closer, her heels making soft thuds against the pavement, her expression unreadable yet intoxicatingly confident. “My name, darling,” she said softly, leaning closer just enough for her perfume—subtle, expensive, intoxicating—to invade my senses. “Tiffany Rose. I didn’t want you to get to know it from someone else’s file. I know, darling, you’ve already sent your private detective sniffing around for all the intimate details about me.”

My jaw dropped, my eyes narrowing, the playful moment shattered by the accusation. “Seriously? You must be suffering from a delusional disease. Predicting Avery Von Carter’s actions, huh?”

She laughed, a silvery sound, her head tilting back in amusement. It was not often she dropped her poised façade, and the sight and sound were magnificent, breathtakingly beautiful.

Recovering, she straightened, her gaze locking onto mine with weight. “Since we are still on campus, you can’t call me by my first name, Avery.”

I nodded, half-smiling, accepting the boundary. “Fair enough, Professor Rose.”

She adjusted her blazer, subtly preparing to leave, her expression returning to her cool, controlled state, yet her eyes lingered on mine a second longer. Before turning away, she said, her voice dropping to a pointed, low register. “It would be much better, Avery, if you learn about me… directly from me. Not by someone else’s investigative report.”

Her voice dipped with sarcasm, the words dragging, as if designed to sting and challenge. “Just ask nicely for the information you want.”

I scoffed, cutting her off, my stubbornness returning. “It will be you who decides when I’m being nice or not, Professor.”

She paused mid-step, her shoulders still, and for a heavy breath, silence stretched between us. Then she spoke, softer but pointed and undeniable, “You’re also good at reading me, Avery. I’ll grant you that. When you ask me nicely.”

And then, just like that, she was gone.

The morning sun filtered through the tall windows of the business faculty’s main lecture hall, throwing patterns of gold across the rows of students shuffling into their seats. I sat toward the center, my notebook open but my pen idle.

My mind was not on the cricket match later, nor on the economics syllabus, but fixed on the elegant woman who would walk through those doors any second now. And that too, on the woman who had just revealed her name to me so casually.

Tiffany Rose. And then, like a scene rehearsed by fate, she appeared.

Ms. Rose. Her heels clicked against the marble floor, each sound deliberate, commanding.

A simplicity in her clothing that screamed elegance, a subtlety in her presence that pulled all eyes toward her. She placed her folder on the desk, lifted her gaze, and a profound silence fell across the room.

“Good morning, class.” Her voice was smooth, firm, and deliberate, the kind that could cut through frantic whispers without ever raising its volume.

“Good morning, Professor Rose,” the chorus replied. She adjusted her glasses and wrote one word across the board in clean, bold strokes: INFLATION.

“Now,” she began, turning back to face us, “most of you think you know what this means. Prices go up, your daily coffee gets expensive, your rent feels impossible, and everyone is shouting that the world is inherently unfair.”

A ripple of laughter filled the room, though quickly subdued, because no one knew if she intended for the joke to land. “But inflation,” she continued, pacing gracefully along the front of the stage, “is not simply about prices rising. It is fundamentally about the erosion of value. Your money today buys you less tomorrow.”

“The clever ones among us know how to shield themselves from this erosion. The foolish ones—” she glanced across the room, her eyes razor-sharp, “complain loudly.”

I leaned forward, watching not the board, not my notes, but her every gesture, her every expression. Her voice laced itself around the complex topic like fine silk woven around hard steel.

She went on to explain the methods used to tackle inflation—interest rates, government fiscal policies, supply-demand control—pausing just enough to test if we were following the labyrinthine logic. “Avery,” she called, without turning her head.

My spine straightened, snapping to attention. “Yes, Professor?”

Her lips curved, the ghost of amusement playing on her mouth. “Tell me, Ms. Carter, if you had to protect your inherited wealth during a period of high inflation, what’s your first strategic move?”

I tapped my pen against my notebook, buying myself time. “Diversify assets. Real estate, commodities, maybe even equities that ride inflationary trends. Keep liquid cash to a minimum.”

Her eyebrow lifted, a sign of approval. “Not bad, Ms. Carter. Perhaps your family’s financial legacy hasn’t gone to waste, after all.”

A ripple of chuckles ran through the class, but her dark eyes lingered pointedly on mine longer than necessary before she turned back to the board. That was the essence of Ms. Rose.

Razor-sharp. Effortlessly elegant. Unnervingly aware of her commanding effect.

And me? I hated to admit it, but in her challenging presence, I thrived.

By late afternoon, classes had ended, and I stood outside her office door, balancing my bag and an armful of graded papers. My role as her Teaching Assistant brought me here, but every visit felt like stepping onto a new, unpredictable battlefield.

I knocked once. “Enter.”

The word came firm, clipped, but when I pushed open the door, she was leaning back in her chair, her glasses perched low as she read a new stack of assignments. Her blazer hung on the rack, leaving her in a pale blouse that caught the warm light from the desk lamp.

“Avery,” she said, not looking up. “Punctual, as usual. I approve of the consistency.”

“Well,” I smirked, closing the door, “a Carter is never late for an important appointment.”

“Except when you are, of course,” she replied, glancing up with that sharp, challenging half-smile that felt less like a greeting and more like a dare.

I placed the graded assignments on her desk and waited for the next instruction. She skimmed through a few pages, then spoke without raising her eyes.

“You know, Avery, sometimes… you’re not that bad at this job.”

My brows shot up, and I tilted my head. “Oho… Professor Rose actually complimenting me? That’s news. Should I frame that line for posterity?”

Her lips twitched, betraying her amusement, but she maintained her cool composure. “Yes, I did. Don’t get used to such praise.”

“I’ll cherish the memory forever,” I teased, placing a hand over my heart. She ignored my theatrics, instead scribbling on a paper, then sliding a handwritten list across the desk toward me. “Go to the library now and fetch these specific books for tomorrow’s lecture. They’re required reading.”

I scanned the titles. Heavy ones. Dense, academic.

Before she could say more, I grinned. “On it, Professor.”

I left, returned within a half hour with a heavy stack of books balanced in my arms—and something extra. I set the books on her desk, then placed down a chilled chocolate shake beside my vacant chair.

And directly in front of her? A steaming, aromatic chai latte in a paper cup, followed by a small, immaculate white pastry box.

She paused. She lifted her eyes from the books to me. “And this is… what, exactly?”

I smiled, taking a sip of my shake. “Well, I was thirsty. And I figured you could use your favorite little treat.”

She narrowed her eyes, her suspicion rising. “My favorite? How would you possibly know that?”

“Chai latte,” I replied, sliding the cup towards her. “And… black forest cake, if I recall.”

Her expression shifted into one I’d rarely seen. Pure, unadulterated amusement. Genuine, childlike amusement.

“Avery Carter,” she said, her voice low with intrigue and challenge, “are you stalking me now?”

I leaned back, the smirk tugging at my lips. “Sometimes staring doesn’t mean rudeness, it means admiration. Likewise, knowing someone’s favorite treat isn’t stalking. I call it noticing. Or precisely—observing.”

Her laugh came unexpectedly, rich and melodious. A sound so rare it felt like an ancient treasure unearthed from the earth.

The corners of her eyes softened as she covered her lips lightly with her hand, but the beautiful sound lingered, echoing across the room. I found myself staring, unashamed of my focus. “You know,” I said quietly, “you should really smile more often. And laugh like this. It compliments your undeniable beauty, Professor.”

For the first time, I actually caught it—the faintest tint of pink across her severe cheekbones. A visible blush.

Subtle, fleeting. But it was there.

And just as quickly, she masked it, leaning back with an arched, challenging brow. “Are you flirting with me again, Ms. Carter?”

I raised both hands, deflecting the challenge. “No, Professor. I know full well that flattery won’t earn me any grades.”

Her lips curved, this time into a genuine smile, small but undeniable. She shook her head, returning her professional attention back to the heavy stack of books.

“Get back to your work, Avery,” she said, her voice still carrying a tremor from the laugh. But her tone carried something fundamentally different.

Something warmer. As I gathered the papers and settled into the corner chair, meticulously writing my notes, I realized something important—today, in this quiet room filled with academic books, the rich aroma of chai, and unexpected laughter—I’d managed to peel away one more protective layer of the enigmatic Ms. Rose.

And that feeling was worth more than any stellar grade. I lingered, still jotting down a few final lines of notes, when her voice—smooth, steady, unmistakably hers—cut through the hum of the lamp.

“Ms. Carter.”

I looked up. Professor Tiffany Rose stood near her desk, a folder in her hands, her sharp gaze fixed on me.

There was nothing outwardly unusual in the composed, professional way she addressed me—calm, poised—but something in her tone carried a profound curiosity. “Yes, Professor?” I asked, closing my notebook.

She tilted her head, her gaze unwavering. “I heard a piece of information from a student that you’ll be playing in the inter-college cricket match tomorrow.”

For a second, I was caught off guard. Not because she knew about the match, but because she had mentioned it. Professor Rose never indulged in such casual, personal conversations with students—her boundaries were legendary.

And yet, here she was, asking. I straightened in my seat, a genuine smile tugging at my lips. “Yes, Professor. That’s correct. I love the sport of cricket.”

Her brows lifted, as though she were mentally filing away that unexpected piece of personal information. A beat of thick, heavy silence followed—suspended in the charged air between us.

Before I could stop myself, the audacious, impulsive words slipped out. “Will you come and watch, Professor?”

Her gaze sharpened, though her expression remained neutral. “As… an audience member, Avery?”

I nodded, feeling my pulse quicken at my boldness and lack of filter. “Yes, Professor. As an audience member.”

For the briefest fraction of a moment, something profound flickered deep in her eyes—surprise, or a subtle amusement. She looked away, adjusting the folder tightly in her hands as though consciously buying time before delivering her answer.

“I don’t usually involve myself in such extracurricular events,” she said at last, her voice measured, careful. “But…”—she paused, her eyes meeting mine again, challenging and serious—”…I’ll see. I’ll try to fit it into my busy schedule.”

The corners of my mouth curved into a triumphant smirk I could not suppress. “I’ll hold you to that promise, Professor. Don’t forget it.”

She exhaled, a quick, suppressed laugh, though she did not fully allow it to escape her lips. Shaking her head at my audacity, she gathered her papers and turned toward the closed door.

But just before stepping out, she paused and glanced back, her eyes lingering on me for half a second longer than was professional. “I expect you to play exceptionally well, Ms. Carter. Do not disappoint me, or my trip will be a waste of time.”