Then he turned and carried her into the Research Center without so much as a glance in my direction.
I stood there, stunned. My scalp prickled, my vision swam, and my stomach churned violently.
Fabian was a germaphobe. He never willingly touched anyone.
In nine years of marriage, I had been the only person he would allow close.
But now, Doris had become the exception.
My mind was still reeling when my assistant appeared beside me, hesitating before she spoke.
"Professor Pruitt, I looked into it. The plagiarism accusation against your paper... it was filed by Professor Morton."
The words hit me like a plunge into ice water. Suddenly, everything made sense.
The day Fabian had pressured me to give Doris first authorship on my paper, I had stood my ground.
He'd pretended to back off.
But in reality, he'd played dirty—dragging me into a plagiarism scandal, destroying my reputation, forcing me to hand over the authorship.
My chest heaved. The color drained from my face.
"I need to find Fabian!"
I spun around and ran into the Research Center. The next second, I stopped dead in my tracks, frozen in shock.
My workstation had been ransacked.
Petri dishes lay shattered across the floor. The hard drive containing all my research data had vanished without a trace.
"Professor Morton said your experimental design has critical flaws. All your projects are suspended."
Doris stood in the doorway, chomping on gum with infuriating nonchalance. Pinched between her fingers was the USB drive I'd backed up my data to just last night.
She dangled it in front of my face, her expression pure provocation.
"Thanks for all those late nights you pulled for me, Professor Pruitt. Now it's all mine."
Gone was the fragile, innocent girl from before. The woman standing before me now was a completely different creature.
I lost it. I lunged for the drive.
Doris didn't even flinch. She tucked the USB into her lab coat with maddening calm.
"Professor Morton says people who commit academic fraud don't deserve a place in this lab." Her lips curled. "Congratulations, Professor Pruitt. You've officially graduated."
My head rang like a struck bell.
What was there left to misunderstand? The plagiarism scandal, the accusations—all of it was a trap. Fabian and Doris had orchestrated the whole thing.
My eyes burned. Before I could stop myself, my hand connected with Doris's face.