Chapter Thirty-Two: My Professor Is My Secret Husband
Morning light filtered through the blackout curtains Taehyun had begrudgingly replaced with charcoal grey ones. The mansion held its usual tomb-like quiet, but the air between us hummed with a familiar, charged silence. It was the quiet of a chessboard after a daring move, both players waiting.
I brushed my hair with more force than necessary, the strokes sharp and angry.
Then, a soft shuffle at the door.
I didn't need to look. I knew that presence.
Leo and Toro stood in the doorway, a mismatched pair of fuzzy sentinels. Leo's golden tail gave a slow, dignified wag. Toro's striped face was the picture of innocent curiosity.
I slung my bag over my shoulder with a sigh. "No."
They tilted their heads in perfect, eerie unison.
"No means no. I am going to university. Alone. You two do not have student IDs. You do not take notes. You are a walking zoo exhibit and a liability."
Toro took one delicate, silent step forward. Leo let out a soft, plaintive whimper that should be illegal for a creature with his genetic lineage.
I hardened my glare. They blinked, all wide eyes and velvety noses.
My resolve, already cracked from a week of secret feedings and involuntary cuddles, developed a major fault line. I sighed, the sound heavy with defeat. "Ugh! Don't you dare use that 'we're-just-helpless-floofs' mafia propaganda on me. It's manipulative."
They followed me, a silent, padding escort all the way to the grand front door. Paw-step by paw-step. I kept my face a mask of cold indifference, but inside, a treacherous warmth was spreading. Damn them.
At the threshold, I turned, pointing a finger. "Go. Back. To your criminal mastermind father."
They sat instantly, side-by-side, tails tapping a quiet rhythm on the marble. Obedient. Waiting.
I muttered, shaking my head, "…Fine. Just… don't follow me to the bus stop. I refuse to look like a woman whose security detail is composed of endangered species."
I stepped out into the crisp morning air, alone. But before I turned the corner of the estate wall, I glanced back.
They were still there. Two small, fierce shapes silhouetted in the doorway, watching me go as if guarding the most fragile part of their world—my return.
The campus was a different planet. Sunlight, laughter, the rustle of backpacks and autumn leaves. I'd chosen a long, flowing floral dress, my hair tied up with a simple ribbon, doing my best impression of a normal, slightly bookish co-ed. Not the wife of a man who conducted business in whispers and blood.
But normality was a costume that never quite fit.
I felt him before I saw him. A shift in the atmosphere, a familiar prickle at the nape of my neck. The quiet purr of a sleek, black sedan sliding into the faculty lot moments after my taxi pulled away.
He emerged, a study in controlled power. Sunglasses hid his eyes, but the cut of his black suit was a declaration in itself. Professor Kim Taehyun. He moved through the gawking students not like a man, but like a rumor given form—handsome, unattainable, intimidating. They stared, whispered, dreamed. They saw the brilliant, demanding criminology professor with a mysterious past.
None of them saw my husband.
We had rules. His rules, born from necessity. My agreement, born from a confused mix of self-preservation and… something else. Our marriage was a secret buried under layers of witness protection-level discretion. The scandal would be nuclear. The danger, very real.
I walked faster, head down, pretending the sun was fascinating.
He caught up in three long strides, falling into step beside me as if we'd planned it.
"You look… academic," he murmured, his voice a low vibration meant only for me.
"You look like a walking confidentiality breach," I shot back, refusing to glance his way.
A faint smirk touched his lips. "I specialize in breaches. Of security, of trust…" His gaze swept over me. "…Of personal space."
I reached the lecture hall door and whirled to face him, my voice dropping to a fierce whisper. "In there, we are strangers. Professor and student. Nothing more."
He leaned in, his lips brushing the shell of my ear, a ghost of a kiss that sent a traitorous shiver down my spine. "As you wish, Mrs. Kim."
I pushed through the door, my heart a frantic bird against my ribs.
His voice, now loud, clear, and effortlessly authoritative, rang out behind me as he entered. "Take your seats, everyone. We have a lot to cover today."
Just like that, the shift was complete. The man who made me soup was gone, replaced by Professor Kim, my teacher, a man I was supposed to have no personal history with. I slid into a seat in the second row, the phantom touch on my ear burning, and opened my notebook to a blank page.
---
Professor Kim Taehyun commanded the room not by shouting, but by the sheer gravity of his presence. He paced before the whiteboard, explaining the psychological profiling of organized crime syndicates with a chilling, intimate knowledge. The girls in the front row hung on his every word, leaning forward in their seats.
"Professor, could you go over the manipulation tactics again? It's just so fascinating." A blonde in a sweater two sizes too small batted her eyelashes.
"Professor, I'm still confused about the loyalty structures." Another giggled, twirling her hair.
He nodded, answering with clinical precision, but a small, polite smile played on his lips. Not flirtatious, but… receptive. Tolerant. He accepted the offered file from the blonde, his fingers brushing hers. She giggled again.
A hot, corrosive wave of something ugly washed over me. I rolled my eyes, gripping my pen so tightly the plastic creaked.
Go ahead, marry him then, I thought savagely, sketching angry spirals in the margin. See how you like being fed to lions for breakfast.
He didn't look at me. Not once. Here, I was invisible. Aish, the quiet psychology student. Not his wife. Not the one who knew the taste of his fear, the weight of his sleep-softened embrace.
The sting was irrational, humiliating, and utterly consuming. I hated myself for caring. Hated the green-eyed monster coiling in my gut as I watched them orbit him like eager moons.
A whisper floated from the row behind me. "God, he's so… intense. I heard he's single, but totally off the market. Mysterious, you know?"
You have no idea, I thought bitterly, slamming my textbook shut with a definitive thump.
The sound cut through the murmur. Taehyun's head snapped up from the papers he was reviewing. His gaze, sharp and searching, found mine instantly across the room.
For one electrifying second, our eyes locked. I saw a flicker of something—question, recognition, a spark of the man beneath the professor mask.
I looked away first, my cheeks heating. If I held his gaze a moment longer, I'd do something disastrous, like throw my very expensive textbook.
---
The lecture ended. The swarm descended again as he gathered his things. I shoved my notebook into my bag, the frustration a live wire under my skin.
"So this is the real you," I muttered under my breath, glaring at his broad back as he politely extricated himself from a cluster of students. "The charming academic. Let them worship. See if I care."
But I did care. The thought that the tenderness, the possessiveness, the terrifying vulnerability he showed only in the dark of the mansion might be just another performance… it felt like a betrayal I hadn't signed up for.
I missed my best friend with a physical ache. Her dramatic gasp, her unwavering, fiery loyalty. Without her, my anger had no outlet, turning inward, poisoning me.
Stomping into the hallway, I nearly collided with a wall of calm.
Professor Kim Namhyun.
He was everything Taehyun was not. Where Taehyun was a sharp, black line, Namhyun was a deep, forest green. Tall, composed, with a quiet intelligence that seemed to emanate from him like warmth. He held a stack of journals, his glasses perched on his nose, and he nodded gently to a passing student. "Good afternoon."
His voice. Oh, his voice. It was like listening to wisdom itself—a calm, resonant baritone that promised patience and profound understanding.
My traitorous heart gave a helpless, romantic sigh.
Thump-thump.
Ugh! Stop it! I mentally berated myself. You are married. To a criminally possessive man!
I managed a small, polite smile. "Good afternoon, Professor Kim."
He returned it, a gentle, respectful curve of his lips that held no hidden agenda, no possessive heat. Just kindness. "Miss." He moved on, a steady river of tranquility.
I clutched my notebook to my chest. Such grace… such peace… The contrast was devastating. Professor Namhyun was the man you built a quiet, safe life with. Books, tea, intellectual conversations by a fireplace. A life without gun oil and whispered threats.
A dangerous fantasy unfolded in my mind for a split second: a different life, with this calm, gentle man.
I bit my lip hard and hurried away, as if speed could outrun the treasonous thought. Taehyun can never, ever find out about this.
---
I was so busy mentally composing a forbidden, paperback romance about a psychology professor that I didn't see the storm waiting at the end of the corridor.
Taehyun.
He was leaning against a locker bank, arms crossed, having clearly just finished a conversation with a department head. His gaze, no longer hidden by sunglasses, was fixed directly on me. One dark eyebrow lifted slowly, a silent, terrifying question.
I froze. Panic, hot and immediate, flooded my veins. Had he seen me staring? Had my face given away the silly, fleeting daydream?
I did the only thing I could think of. I scowled at a nearby fire extinguisher as if it had personally offended me, flipped my hair with exaggerated annoyance, and stalked past him, radiating "do not engage" energy.
Please don't have telepathy. Please, please don't have telepathy.
---
I escaped into an empty tutorial room, slumping into a chair. "Idiot. You're a married idiot. To a mafia idiot. Who cooks and cuddles and would probably burn this entire building down if he knew you were sighing over Professor Cardigan."
The door creaked open.
My blood ran cold.
Don't be him. Don't be—
"Enjoying the… scenery?"
That voice. Velvet wrapped around a steel blade.
I lifted my head slowly. Taehyun stood in the doorway, having shed his suit jacket. His white shirt sleeves were rolled up, his tie slightly loosened. He looked devastating, and his jaw was clenched tight.
"What scenery?" I asked, my voice impressively level.
He pushed off the doorframe and walked toward me, each step measured. "The pastoral one. The one who apparently makes you forget how to breathe."
I choked. "How did you—?"
"You think my men are only posted at our home?" he scoffed, stopping directly in front of my desk. He leaned down, palms flat on the surface, caging me in. "I have eyes everywhere, little wife. Especially on my wife when she's looking at another man like he invented peace."
"I was not! And it was a purely academic appreciation!" The lie sounded pathetic even to my own ears.
"Your 'academic appreciation' makes your cheeks turn the same shade they do when I kiss you." His eyes darkened. "Tell me, does Professor Namhyun know you collect husbands?"
"Yah! I didn't—it was just a thought!"
"A thought I could see from across the quad." Before I could protest further, he closed the distance.
His kiss wasn't gentle. It was a brand. A punishment and a reclamation, hot, possessive, and brutally thorough. It stole the air from my lungs and the strength from my bones. When he pulled back, my lips were tingling, my mind blank.
He smirked, a dark, satisfied curve of his mouth. "There. Now he can spend his office hours wondering why you taste like me."
I stared, dumbfounded. "W-We're in a classroom!"
"So?" He straightened, adjusting his cufflinks with infuriating calm. "As far as anyone knows, I'm just a professor with poor boundaries and a problematic favorite student." He winked, a flash of the devil beneath the academic veneer. "Play with fire, little arsonist, expect to get burned."
Then he was gone, leaving me alone in the silent room, my fingers pressed to my swollen lips, the scent of his cologne and my own shame hanging in the air.
---
The rest of the day passed in a blur of seething indignation. How dare he? How dare he kiss me like that after parading in front of his fan club? After letting that blonde touch his hand?
A plan—a terrible, juvenile plan—formed in my mind. Fight fire with fire.
I spotted a boy from my statistics seminar, a harmless, sweet-faced guy who'd once lent me a pen. I marched toward him, mustering what I hoped was a coquettish smile.
"Hi!" I blurted, my voice several octaves too loud and bright.
He blinked, startled. "Uh… hi?"
Panic. Abort! Flirt, you fool! Say something!
"Do you… like plants?" I cringed internally the moment the words left my mouth.
"Um. Sure? They're… green."
"Cool. Photosynthesis!" I gave a thumbs-up that felt physically painful and power-walked away, my face on fire.
I'm an idiot. A socially incompetent, married idiot who can't flirt to save her life.
I was muttering to myself, pacing an empty hallway, when a shadow detached itself from the wall.
Taehyun.
He leaned against a pillar, arms crossed, his expression unreadable but his eyes glowing with a dangerous light. He'd heard. Of course he had.
A surge of defiant anger straightened my spine. Good. Let him be jealous.
"You done making a spectacle of yourself?" His voice was deceptively soft.
"I'll talk to whoever I want," I hissed. "This marriage is a contract, not a romance. You can laugh and flirt with your harem, but I can't even have a civil conversation—?"
"You think I'm flirting?" He pushed off the pillar, closing the distance between us in two strides. He grabbed my wrist, not painfully, but with an unshakeable firmness, pulling me into the shadowy alcove. "You think they matter?"
"I saw you!"
"You see what I allow you to see!" His voice dropped, raw and intense. "I don't care if you try to flirt with every boy on this campus. It won't change the fact that I'm the one who knows how you sigh in your sleep. The one who feels your heart try to beat its way out of your chest when I'm this close." He pressed me back against the cool wall, his body a solid line of heat. "You can call it forced. You can deny it all you want. But here, in the real world, outside of your psychology textbooks and daydreams about softer men…" He leaned in, his lips a breath from mine. "…you are mine. And your body knows it, even when your stubborn mind fights it."
I shoved at his chest, a weak, futile gesture. "Go to hell."
A slow, predatory smile spread across his face. "Only if you're coming with me, Mrs. Kim."
He released me and walked away, leaving me leaning against the wall, my heart performing a frantic, chaotic rhythm that had nothing to do with Professor Namhyun's gentle baritone and everything to do with the devastating, infuriating man who was, for better or worse, my husband. My secret. My war.