The Seductive Pretty Boy of the Matriarchal World-Chapter 78: One More Night

Chapter 78: One More Night

At that, Elias’s tears stopped on the spot.

Then, incredibly, he shook his head. "N-no. I can’t. Homework has to be done by the person it belongs to."

Sloane laughed outright.

Where, exactly, had Giselle found someone this hopelessly earnest?

Giselle’s brows drew tight. A man who could sell his body, who could climb over a locked perimeter after curfew, was suddenly going to cling to the principle that homework had to be completed with his own two hands?

And yet, once she reminded herself this was Elias, it stopped feeling entirely impossible.

Her voice turned colder. "Do you plan on staying up all night?"

"I do want to sleep, but..." Elias started to resist on instinct, only to falter when he met the sudden severity in her eyes. He folded almost immediately and changed course. "...but you’re not in my major. Would you even know how to do any of this?"

The doubt in his eyes was so direct it did not even feel insulting. It was simple, transparent disbelief. She was not in his program. Could she actually help?

Sloane fell silent for a beat, then lifted a hand and patted Giselle on the shoulder. That gesture said enough all by itself.

Now she was absolutely certain there was nothing remotely intimate between Giselle and Elias. If anything, it looked more like Giselle had gotten stuck with a problem that would not go away.

He did not know her at all.

Giselle was a genius, and not in one narrow way. In every way that mattered. The fact that Elias was seriously worried she might not be able to handle a pile of college assignments was almost surreal.

Then Giselle turned to Sloane and said, "Two coffees. Thanks."

Sloane blinked. "Wait. You’re seriously helping him?"

"Two coffees," Giselle repeated. "Thanks."

"All right, all right."

Sloane did not even know what to say to that. In the end, she had one of the pretty young men outside make three coffees and bring them over.

She planned to stay in the room too.

Watching Giselle help Elias with homework sounded entertaining, honestly.

On the way back, Sloane had already decided it would probably feel like the last day of a school break, when someone was frantically trying to finish everything before the next morning.

Knock. Knock.

Giselle opened the door, took one look at the tray in the boy’s hands and the three coffees on it, and immediately understood what Sloane was planning.

Without hesitation, she picked up two cups, one in each hand, and shut the door before Sloane could react.

This time she did not even bother thanking her.

Sloane stared at the closed door in disbelief.

So that was it. She had officially been reduced to a delivery service.

Her sleep had already been pushed back, the heat in the room was turned up too high, and Giselle was irritable enough as it was. There was no chance she was going to let an unrelated third party linger in there on top of everything else.

The next few hours proved what Elias had already suspected.

Giselle really was a genius.

In the original plot, he had never realized that was one of her traits. Now he was experiencing it firsthand. Material that had taken him days to work through back then, Giselle only had to skim for a short while before she understood it completely. The intellectual pressure was almost insulting.

Elias lowered his head over the papers and thought, She’s cheating.

In truth, not one of the women in this story was stupid. How else would they all hold such absurd levels of power and status? Even Liora, as far as Elias could tell, simply had no interest in fighting Serena for that position. If she had wanted it badly enough, she would not have fallen that far short of her sister.

Idiots did not become people like this.

"All done."

Giselle lifted her cup and finished the last of her coffee.

Elias finally let out a long breath too. He pulled off his glasses, rubbed at his eyes, then raised both arms and stretched hard, his whole body unfurling as a soft, exhausted sound slipped from his lips.

At the end of it, he more or less collapsed across the desk, head tilted to one side. His eyes were wet, but not from sadness this time. It was just fatigue, the involuntary sting of staying awake too long. He looked so sleepy he could barely keep his eyes open.

Giselle’s voice came out slightly hoarse. "Go to bed."

"Mmm..." Elias lifted his head a little and nodded at her. His eyes only opened to the thinnest slit, but he still managed a faint smile. "Thank you, Giselle. Really."

His voice was feather-light, softened by exhaustion.

Bracing his palms against the tabletop, he pushed himself slowly to his feet.

He took one step.

It wavered.

He did not seem to notice. He went to take a second.

Then his footing gave out beneath him and he pitched forward.

Giselle was close enough that her body moved before thought did. She stood and caught him against her.

The jolt seemed to wake him a little. In her arms, Elias lifted his gaze to her with wide, damp eyes, the look newly born and dazed, like some fragile young animal pulled out of sleep too fast. Whether it was genuine exhaustion or something more disordered, even he might not have known. His lips parted slightly as he stared at her.

The air in the room changed at once.

Under normal circumstances, Giselle probably still would have caught him, but the moment he regained his balance, she would have pushed him away without hesitation.

Only she was tired too.

And as she looked at the boy in front of her, Lucien’s face rose unbidden in her mind. That cold, sacred beauty on a screen. So close it felt reachable, and yet impossibly far away, separated from her by an ocean.

Now Elias was here instead, in her arms, tangible, warm, within reach.

All she had to do was lower her head a little.

Bang.

"Why are the lights still on? Didn’t you finish yet? Do you need another coffee?"

Three questions in a row.

Giselle snapped back to herself immediately. She steadied Elias on his feet, then withdrew her hands as though nothing had happened.

"We just finished. We’re about to sleep."

"Oh."

Sloane left.

Giselle gave Elias a single look, said nothing, and turned toward her own room.

The moment she disappeared from sight, the confusion on Elias’s face vanished too.

He went still. Then both hands slowly clenched into fists, and the rise and fall of his chest sharpened.

[System Theta: Calm down. You need to calm down...]

Elias ground his teeth so hard it almost hurt.

They had been that close.

Their noses had practically touched.

He said through clenched teeth, "If I were an assassin in this world, if I were any kind of killer at all, there’s no way she’d survive the night."

At minimum, he would have stabbed Sloane twice on principle. Just for having to knock on that damn door at exactly the wrong moment.

[System Theta: ...]

It did not dare say another word. An angry host was terrifying.

Fortunately, Elias was only venting.

He stared at the closed door to Giselle’s room, then slowly curved his lips into something halfway between a smile and a sneer.

"I gave her a chance."

Since her self-control was apparently that strong, then fine.

He would sleep with her one last time.