I should have known the second he walked into the lecture hall that my life was about to become a problem.
Professor Elias Voss didn’t look like the other faculty. He was taller, broader, dressed in a charcoal shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows like he had somewhere more important to be than teaching second-year literature. Dark hair, sharp jaw, the kind of controlled stillness that made the entire room go quiet the moment he set his bag on the desk.
And he was my stepfather.
Three months. That was how long it had been since the wedding. Three months of careful distance, of calling him “Elias” at home and pretending the way he looked at me across the dinner table didn’t make my stomach tighten. Now he stood at the front of the hall as the new visiting professor, and every pair
