Chapter 39

It was a forceful kiss that left no room for hesitation.

Richard gave Elena no time to react. He caught her warm, soft lower lip between his teeth.

The sensation was so sudden that Elena instinctively tried to pull back.

But Richard had her securely in his arms, leaving her nowhere to go.

For a moment, all she could do was stiffly tilt her face upward and endure the fierce kiss.

Richard wasn't gentle.

He was like a predator that had been holding itself back for far too long, finally giving in.

Everything Elena had done since that afternoon—the teasing, the little provocations, the deliberate touches—along with all the desire he'd been forcing himself to suppress, came back to her through that single kiss.

He was collecting every bit of it, with interest.

His lips pressed against hers with relentless intensity, biting and teasing until Elena let out the faintest whimper.

She instinctively parted her lips, trying to catch her breath.

That was exactly the opening Richard had been waiting for.

He deepened the kiss.

Elena's legs went weak. Trembling, she grabbed the front of his shirt.

The hand that had been holding her chin had moved to the back of her head at some point. His fingers threaded deeply into her soft hair, holding her firmly in place.

The kiss grew deeper and heavier.

The faint, cool scent of oak on Richard's skin mixed with the bitter trace of coffee, filling her senses until there was no room for anything else.

A sheen of moisture gathered in Elena's eyes.

She wasn't completely inexperienced, but she'd never faced a kiss this intense before.

It was overwhelming.

For a moment, she felt as though her entire body might catch fire.

At the same time, Adrian was sitting in the study at home.

He stared at the email from Prism Ventures, anger churning inside him.

The project was a multi-factor quantitative hedge model based on deep reinforcement learning.

In simple terms, it used highly complex mathematical algorithms to break down the constantly shifting risk factors in financial markets and build a hedging strategy capable of maintaining relatively stable returns even under extreme market conditions.

Adrian had spent nearly a year and a half on the project.

He had written the core algorithms himself, brought in a PhD student from the finance department to handle the industry modeling, and recruited two top-performing senior students from the School of Management and Economics to conduct the strategy backtesting.

Adrian was already one of the top students in the mathematics department, and the other members of the team were outstanding as well.

The partner at Prism Ventures had initially taken an interest in the project after reading one of Adrian's published papers.

After several meetings, the firm had readily agreed to provide five million dollars in seed funding, with a promise to increase the investment to twenty million if the first-stage backtesting results proved strong.

What did that mean?

It meant that before he'd even graduated, he could potentially have a startup valued at more than a hundred million dollars.

It meant that even without relying on his family's business, he could use his talent for algorithms to carve out a place for himself in the fiercely competitive financial world.

And now—

all of it had suddenly disappeared.

When he'd met Victoria Sterling in an elective class and told her about the project, she'd praised him repeatedly.

If Victoria found out the project had fallen apart, what would she think of him?

Or maybe—

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

maybe Victoria could help.

Adrian found himself caught between two conflicting thoughts.

He wanted Victoria to help him, but at the same time, he was afraid she'd look down on him.

After searching through his contacts for a while, he finally found the partner at Prism Ventures who had been handling his project.

Mr. Harrison.

“Mr. Harrison,” Adrian said after taking a deep breath, forcing himself to sound as calm as possible. “This is Adrian Cole. Sorry to bother you so late.”

“…Mr. Cole.”

The voice on the other end was polite, but noticeably distant.

The difference between this tone and the warmth he'd shown when they first discussed the investment couldn't have been more obvious.

Adrian's heart sank.

“Mr. Harrison, I received an email today regarding the withdrawal of your investment from the project.”

He got straight to the point.

“What exactly happened? You said the first-stage backtesting results were very promising.”

“Mr. Cole,” Mr. Harrison sighed. “The email was pretty clear. The decision came from our internal compliance review. It has nothing to do with the project's actual data or performance.”

“Internal compliance review?”

Adrian pressed his lips together.

“Could you tell me exactly what the problem was? What did I do that failed to meet your standards for personal conduct and character?”

There was a brief silence on the other end.

“Mr. Cole, company policy normally prevents me from discussing the details of our internal reviews. But since you asked—and we've worked together for a while now—I'll give you some context.”

Mr. Harrison's tone softened slightly.

“As part of our post-investment review process, we conduct fairly extensive due diligence. That includes background checks on key members of a project, reputation assessments, and reviews of personal conduct and character.”

Adrian frowned.

“During this round of due diligence,” Mr. Harrison continued after a pause, “we came across some information through independent sources that I can't disclose.”

Adrian's expression tightened.

“According to what we found, you've had incidents in class involving disruption of academic order and disrespect toward university professors. You were also removed from a national competition because of those incidents.”

Adrian's eyes narrowed sharply.

“That wasn't—”

“Mr. Cole,” Mr. Harrison continued, still sounding completely professional, “we're not just investing in a project. We're investing in the person behind it.”

“If that person is already working, we look at their conduct in the workplace. If they're still a student, then we apply the appropriate standards to that environment.”

He paused.

“If someone has problems with basic student-professor relationships and campus conduct, it's difficult for us to be confident that they'll demonstrate the level of professionalism and compliance awareness required to manage a financial organization worth hundreds of millions in the future.”

Adrian clenched his jaw.

“That situation wasn't what you think. If you knew the whole story—”

“I understand,” Mr. Harrison interrupted gently.

“Young people clash with professors sometimes. For an ordinary person, something like that might not even be considered a serious issue.”

“But the foundation of the financial industry is trust. And trust begins with personal conduct and character.”

His tone remained polite, but firm.

“That's a line our company isn't willing to cross.”

Adrian nearly swore.

What kind of reasoning was that?

There were plenty of unscrupulous businessmen out there who had done things far worse than arguing with a professor. Why should something like this determine the fate of his project?

“Who told you about this?” Adrian asked through clenched teeth. “Did someone deliberately report me?”

Mr. Harrison gave a quiet laugh.

“I can tell you with confidence that no one contacted our company to report you.”

“The information was collected proactively by our post-investment team as part of our normal due-diligence process.”

“I can't disclose the specific sources, but you can rest assured that no one is deliberately trying to sabotage you.”

Adrian fell silent.

He had initially suspected Elena.

But after hearing this, it didn't sound like she was behind it.

“But—”

“Mr. Cole,” Mr. Harrison said, his patience beginning to wear thin, “I've told you everything I can.”

“Let's leave it there for tonight. I hope you'll pay more attention to how you conduct yourself in the future.”

“And I wish you all the best.”

The call ended.

Adrian sat rigidly at his desk, his fingers pale from gripping the edge so tightly.

No one had reported him.

Prism Ventures had found the information themselves during their due diligence.

But—

How could the timing be such a coincidence?

If this had happened even two days earlier, none of this would have come up.

Something about it didn't feel right.

If someone had deliberately fed the information to Prism Ventures' due-diligence team, then everything would make sense.

But why would they insist that no one had reported him?

Unless—

they were protecting whoever was behind it.

Then it probably wasn't Elena.

After all, who was Elena?

She certainly wasn't important enough for an investment firm to go out of its way to protect her.

Professor Caldwell.

It had to be Professor Caldwell!

The Caldwell family had been deeply established in the academic world for generations, with former students and professional connections spread across the country.

Passing information to Prism Ventures through some discreet channel would have been ridiculously easy for them.

That old man had already cost him his place in the national competition.

And now he'd reached into his project as well?

If it had been anyone else, Adrian would have found a way to make them pay.

But this was the Caldwell family.

He genuinely had no way to deal with Professor Caldwell.

No.

He couldn't let this go.

Prism Ventures was one of the most important investors in his project.

Their decision didn't just mean losing the five-million-dollar seed investment.

It also meant that the small reputation he'd only just begun building in the financial world could collapse overnight.

Who would invest in a project led by someone who couldn't even pass a basic due-diligence review?

He had to find a way to save the project.

There was no question about the Caldwell family's position in the academic world.

But their influence in finance was certainly more limited—especially when it came to a professional investment firm like Prism Ventures.

Under normal circumstances, the firm wouldn't withdraw from an investment it had already committed to simply because a humanities professor had said a few things about him.

Unless there was something else behind it.

Some kind of exchange.

Perhaps the Caldwell family's influence had been used to help the grandchildren of one of Prism Ventures' senior executives gain opportunities or recognition in academic circles.

If Adrian could find evidence of something like that, things might change.

He was still turning the possibilities over in his mind when his phone suddenly rang.

It was Victoria Sterling.