Page 36 of Damsel in Disguise

Butterflies erupt low in my stomach, violent in their softness. I curl my fingers into my palms until my nails bite, forcing my body into stillness. I’m not letting him see how deeply that simple two-worded phrase is affected me.

“We’ll start from next week,” he adds, already reaching for a folder. “An hour. Perhaps two if you’re okay. I’ll have my secretary clear access for you. Let me know when it’s convenient for you. And also feel free to step back any time you want.”

He’s giving me free access to his faculty room. This is more than what I could dream of—more than I’m allowed to want.

“And Miss Keinston?”

I look up instantly.

“This arrangement remains strictly professional yet confidential,” he says, his tone flattening into something precise and unyielding. “You may approach me via email regarding any academic matter at any time. However, outside of formally scheduled consultation hours or the allocated working time, there’ll be no written correspondence. Any necessary in-person meetings are to be limited to scheduling only. Is that clear?”

I nod obediently like his trained pet to respond before any rational thought catches up. “Yes. Of course. I understand.”

And I do.

This will be our quiet, contained, carefully hidden moment from the rest of the world.

Our little rendezvous.

13. DISCUSSION

alistair

The leather of my armchair settles with a faint, structural groan as I adjust my posture, waiting for the digital clock on my desktop to synchronize with the top of the hour. Three. Two. One.

A sharp, disciplined knock sounds against the oak door of my faculty office.

“Come in,” I say, keeping my tone leveled, stripped of any welcoming excess.

The door swings open to reveal Miss Keinston. She’s precise with her timing—a trait I find marginally acceptable in a cohort otherwise dictated by chaotic schedules and unearned entitlement.

It’s been three days since our last in-person meeting.

“Professor,” she murmurs, stepping across the threshold. She doesn’t hesitate as she did during our initial consultation, but there’s a distinct calculation in the way she occupies the space opposite my desk.

Today, she has traded her performative classroom stance for a quiet, guarded focus, though her fingers clamp around the straps of her purple backpack with a tension she hasn’t quite learned to mask yet.

“Miss Keinston. I see my secretary finalized your clearance parameters without administrative delay,” I say, pulling a heavy, pale blue manila folder from the lower drawer and placing it exactly parallel to the edge of the granite desk.

“We’ve precisely ninety minutes before my afternoon seminar. So we’ll skip the introductory pleasantries."

“Of course,” she replies, and for a fleeting second, that innocent voice of hers carries that same undercurrent of gentle defiance I logged during our first lecture.

She unzips her bag, producing her tablet and a clean, bound notebook.

I open the folder, spreading several data-log sheets across the stone-grey surface. “The department is preparing a comprehensive audit of its historical frameworks before the upcoming preliminary moderation cycle. What you are looking at is the raw code from the 2014 Archival Project—specifically, the original laboratory records concerning our recursive signal optimization models.”

She leans forward slightly, her golden-brown hair shifting over her shoulder, capturing the dull, overcast light filtering through my high office window.

I watch her eyes scan the pages. I’m not looking at her face to be polite—I’m monitoring her pupil dilation, tracking the rapid, lateral movement of her gaze as she digests the complex transfer functions.

For a long moment, the office is entirely quiet, save for the rhythmic hum of the building’s central air conditioner.

Ariella Keinston is supposed to be a minor complication—a spoiled corporate heiress playing at being a prodigy to get close to a digital phantom. Instead, she has spent the working hours turning my office into a silent battlefield.

“You’re tracking a ghost variable here,” she says.

She doesn’t look up from the unclassified 2014 archive ledger I threw at her to keep her occupied. Her French-manicured nails spin a pen with an agonizing rhythm.