Seattle rain was the kind that whispered. It didn't crash or pour - it lingered. It clung to windowpanes and wrapped itself around shoulders like a second skin. For Elena, it had become a soundtrack to her days at university, a steady rhythm that matched the quiet thrum in her chest.

She was twenty-one, a literature major with ink-stained fingers and a mind constantly drifting into fictional worlds. And yet, no story she had ever read prepared her for the first time she saw him.

Professor Daniel Whitaker.

He wasn't what she expected. Too young, too rugged, and entirely too captivating for someone who taught with such calm authority. Married, of course. That was obvious from the start. The wedding band caught the light like a warning.

Still, Elena found herself rearranging her schedule just to be in his lectures.

She told herself it was admiration. Curiosity. Academic hunger. But deep down, she already knew it was something more.

Something dangerous.