Kai decided two things within the first five minutes of their second meeting.
First—Professor Zeigarnik was doing this on purpose.
Second—he had underestimated how distracting she would be.
She stood near the window this time, sunlight spilling through the tall glass panes of her office. The light caught in her hair—long, dark waves falling freely down her back, not styled so much as *allowed*. It framed her face in a way that felt intentional without being precise.
Kai leaned back slightly in his chair, watching with a flicker of amusement he didn't bother suppressing.
*A psychologist who doesn't bother hiding how dangerous she is,* he thought. *That's new.*
Her skin carried an olive warmth that softened the sharpness of her features, a contrast that shouldn't have worked but did. And her eyes—onyx at first glance—shifted when the light touched them. Brown surfaced there. Not warm. Not kind. Just… alive.
She moved like someone who had never once questioned her right to take up space.
Every step. Every pause. Every turn of her wrist as she reached for a file.
Confidence radiated from her in a way Kai found both impressive and faintly ridiculous. The kind of beauty people didn't fall for because it was gentle—but because resisting it felt like work.
*Someone should warn her,* he thought, mildly entertained. *She's the kind of woman people ruin themselves over.*
"Am I amusing you, Mr. Mayhem?" Rebecca asked, without turning.
Kai blinked.
So much for subtlety.
"No," he said honestly. Then, after a beat, "Maybe a little."
She turned then, slow and deliberate, eyes settling on him with clinical interest rather than offense.
"Explain."
He shrugged. "You don't act like professors I've known."
"And what do professors usually act like?" she asked.
"Like they're asking permission," Kai replied. "From the room. From the subject. From the world."
Rebecca tilted her head.
"And I don't?"
"No," he said, meeting her gaze. "You act like the room already belongs to you."
Something unreadable passed through her expression. Not surprise. Not pleasure.
Recognition.
"Observation bias," she said. "You notice confidence because you respond to it."
Kai smirked. "Is that the diagnosis?"
"It's a preliminary note," Rebecca replied, walking back to her desk. "You're still being evaluated."
He watched her sit, the way she crossed her legs without breaking eye contact, the way her presence seemed to tighten the space between them.
For the first time since agreeing to work with her, a thought crossed Kai's mind—quiet, uninvited, and oddly thrilling.
*This isn't a PhD.*
Whatever this was, it wasn't academic.
And Rebecca Zeigarnik was far more aware of it than she let on.
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