Sweet Romance11 min read
My Soft-Bread Plan: How I Fed a Professor and Burned a Tyrant
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"Since you want to live on someone else’s money, why not come ask me?"
I cornered Dalton in his office and, with what I thought was a grand flourish, pulled a campus meal card from my pocket.
"Beef pancakes from Cafeteria One. How many do you want? Buy as many as you like. Don't save money on me."
Dalton leveled a look at the card, then at me. He was thirty, precise as a ruler, and he taught like a man who measured every pause. "You mean to support me with this?" he asked.
"How much would you ask for, professor?" I grinned. "Tonight, room 888—I'll oblige."
"Addison," he said, and the name sounded like a warning. "You can't—"
Before he finished, Salvador Benjamin, the old man everyone called 'Professor Salvador', chose that moment to step into the doorway, amused as always.
"How much do you think Dalton's worth?" he asked the room like it was a market.
I blushed and guessed loud: "A million? A hundred eighty?"
Salvador chuckled. "Not that much. Sell now while the market is up."
"Sell me now," I said seriously. "Valuation matters."
They laughed, but the joke stuck. For eighteen years I had chased Dalton like a comet chases a star. Since diapers, I had decided he would be mine, even if only because I liked his calm. My family had money now—my father Rodrigo Busch had surfed risk and luck into a man worth flaunting. Dalton’s family remained quiet and scholarly. Quiet, I decided, meant hungry.
The very next day, my life swirled into that old mess—my father's affair, his city-side son, the freeze on our accounts, and a hospital room smelling like disinfectant and cheap apples.
"My mother is in cardiology, bed 8," Dalton said when he found me frantic. "Go see her."
"Why didn't she tell me?" I sobbed as we entered the ward.
"Because you would have panicked." Dalton handed me a tissue with his professorly composure. "And because your family doesn't always tell the truth."
"Dalton," I whispered, "if you're kind enough to... stay tonight?"
"No." He answered without heat. "But if you need help, call me."
Later, when my mother explained in a slow, built-up voice that Rodrigo had finally brought a new family home—a younger man, his "son"—I felt free fall.
"Two million in trust," she said offhand. "Take care of it while I'm out."
"How much?" I asked quickly.
"Two million and change. Your uncle will sign papers."
My pulse jumped. Money suddenly felt like armor. "If he brought a son back, I'm not staying in the house. I will sleep in hotels."
At the hospital exit Dalton's car idled. "I'll drive you," he offered.
"You'd do that for me?" I asked, stupidly hopeful.
He was quiet. The rain hit the windshield in neat little drums. "You look thin," he said finally. "You should eat."
I pressed the meal card into his hand. "It's an offer."
He studied it, sighed, and—astonishingly—put it into his pocket.
That night, my phone rang with my father's voice croaked low. "Addison, your accounts might unfreeze. Help me," he said.
I laughed too brightly. "Give me money, or you'll never be forgiven."
"Bring the boy here," he asked. "Your step-brother? He'll take care of things."
I did what daughters in my position do: I listened, I plotted, and I went to play.
Days blurred—my roommates lost scholarships, my father hid, my mother's trust threatened to be swallowed by legal bankruptcy. They blamed who they could: me. Those who had benefited from family gifts now turned and bit.
"Why would they cancel your scholarship?" Dalton asked one dusk, handing me a thermos of soup.
"My father is the reason," I answered. "And their guardian is the one who controls that fund."
"You don't deserve the blame," he said. "But don't make enemies burn you."
I did the reverse. I lit fires carefully.
At a bakery pickup, Farrell Dean—my father's small-time ally—mocked me loud enough for the room to lean in. "Two million? You already live on daddy's gravy train. Who are you kidding?"
I slapped him. "Leave my cake alone."
Farrell scowled. "You think you're clever."
It was reckless, but it made news in a small way. Dalton's eyes flashed and he pulled me away, "You look dangerous."
"Good," I shot back. "I want to be dangerous."
The plan was simple enough for me to draw out while crying into Dalton's shirt: use the frozen trust, show the world my father's lies, force him to come back, and then—when he was vulnerable—hand him over to the people who could end him. I would keep Dalton safe. I would make him my quiet harbor while the storm consumed Rodrigo.
My first ally was Zachary Perrin, a man who smelled faintly of coffee and consequence. He was a prosecutor with a dry humor and a private smile. "If he comes back, I will be waiting," Zachary said, pushing the file across a low table in the prosecution office. "But you must be very careful."
"I like careful," I said. "Tell me the exact moment he will crack."
Zachary looked at me with a mix of professional pity and respect. "When he thinks he can bargain for his freedom. Men like him always bargain."
I taught a little boy to call me "sister." I made him cough on cue and look wan and helpless. "Call out for your father," I told him, rehearsing like a play until the lines felt true. "Say it loud."
"Caspian, say 'Daddy,'" I coached.
"Daddy," he repeated, eyes watery and earnest. "Daddy."
When Rodrigo's people called, I said the words that would bring him running: "His son is critically ill. Come now."
He ran.
He came to a public hospital where the city had press and lawyers ready. But my trap had to be louder. I wanted not just arrest, but the kind of collapse you see on stage—smugness crushed into utter ruin.
I arranged the public punishment with Zachary and a pile of documents—the ledger, bank transfers, and recordings of Rodrigo's conversations with Farrell. I wanted the wall between Rodrigo's private arrogance and public reputation torn down piece by piece.
On the day of the exposure, I stood in the municipal cultural hall, not as a plaintiff but as a villain's daughter who had finally decided to strip him naked in front of others.
"You want to talk," I whispered to Dalton before we walked into the hall. "Then watch."
"You're the bravest reckless person I know," he said.
We took our seats in the front row. The house was full: reporters with cameras, creditors in coats, neighbors with smelling curiosity, and the small army of Rodrigo's associates who still believed money could muscle them through anything.
Zachary walked to the stage with slow, methodical steps. He set a stack of documents on the podium and looked at the crowd like a headmaster listing absences.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he began, voice clear. "Today we will review evidence in a case of fraud, embezzlement, and laundering that extends through the city's antique trade, into shell companies, and directly to Rodrigo Busch."
Murmered questions rose. Rodrigo sat stiff at the back with Farrell beside him, forehead beading with sweat though he tried to look composed.
"At issue," Zachary said, "is a trust fund, frozen accounts, and the deliberate misrepresentation of funds to third parties. We will play a recording."
He pressed a button. A man's voice, warm and oily, came through the hall's speakers recording of Rodrigo negotiating bribes, explaining the hiding spots for ledgers, laughing about fake invoices. The voice said, "We shift it through antique sales—nobody looks at paints and statues. Farrell will handle the buyers."
The hall gasped. People leaned forward.
"Is that Rodrigo Busch's voice?" a reporter called out.
"It is," said Zachary. "And here is the ledger." He unfurled a long sheet and the lights caught the columns of numbers. "Here are transfer orders to shell accounts. Here are shipping bills for fake artifacts. Here is the bill of sale where the antique was valued at ten times its worth."
Rodrigo rose. "That's not mine! That's forged!" He sounded hoarse, like a man who'd sung his own lies until they stuck.
"Rodrigo, are you denying your voice?" Zachary asked, flat.
"Yes! It's a set-up. My secretary—" Rodrigo pointed wildly at someone who shrank back. "—they framed me!"
"Then explain the bank transfers," Zachary said. "Explain the receipts signed by your accountant." He tossed another file onto the podium. Photographs of stacks of cash. Emails with Rodrigo's signature arranging transfers. "Explain the meeting minutes where you instruct Farrell to 'clear the ledger.'"
Rodrigo's face was a map of collapsing defiance. His mouth moved, but the words came out as small, unconvincing waves.
Farrell, the little man who'd sneered at me, suddenly swung through a range—smug, then startled, then denying. "I was following orders," he blurted. "I thought—"
"You thought you'd profit," I cut in, surprising myself. "You thought you could buy your position forever."
Faces in the crowd recognized Farrell's name. Someone whispered, "Isn't he the man who sells import licenses?" Others pulled out phones. Cameras focused. The rumor mill that had once protected them now hungrily rotated.
Rodrigo tried to speak louder. "You have no proof!" he cried.
Zachary lifted a packet. "Proof? These are courier receipts, paid bribes with Rodrigo Busch as beneficiary. These are witness statements. These are the buyers who went to the 'antique' shops you used as laundries. Those buyers will testify."
A man in the first row stood up and shouted, "My savings—this man took our retirement!" Another called, "You ruined my cafe!"
Rodrigo's mask slipped. The room, which had sat in polite curiosity, turned into a chorus of accusation.
"That's not true—I'm a businessman!" Rodrigo yelled, but his voice trembled. "They have me without context. I'm—"
"You're context," an old creditor barked. "You made crony deals. You gambled with other people's money."
Cameras clicked like rain. Someone in the back began to record. A woman stood, pointing at Rodrigo, tears in her eyes. "My mother saved for years! You told her antique investments were safe!"
Rodrigo's face went from red with anger to pale shock to denial to a raw open panic. He lunged toward the podium as if he could attack the ledger. People formed a ring. Security moved in, but not before Rodrigo shoved a microphone and shouted, "You're lying! You're all liars!"
"You're not lying," said Zachary quietly. "The evidence speaks."
Rodrigo sank into his chair, his breath short. Farrell began to cry, a thin naive sound, hands over his mouth. "I didn't think—" he said. "I thought he would protect us."
"Protect you with what?" someone asked. "Your conscience?"
The crowd's mood was a living thing. First there was stunned silence, then a swell of anger, then fingers pointing and voices telling stories. People moved closer. An older woman spat on the floor near Rodrigo's seat. "Shame," she said. "Shame on you."
"Rodrigo Busch, step forward," Zachary instructed with the calm of a judge. Rodrigo staggered up like a struck animal. "Tell them why you told investors to buy fake artifacts. Tell them why you siphoned funds."
Rodrigo's lips worked. He tried to spin a tale—an accounting mistake, a grand plan gone wrong—but each sentence was met with a sound: scoffs, sniffles, the sharp intake of breath from someone who'd just lost savings.
"You're finished," Farrell sobbed. "We're ruined."
"Ruined because you robbed us," shouted a man whose hair had gone white from worry. "You promised security."
At that, Rodrigo broke. His composure shattered into the pattern required by every dramatic downfall: denial, anger, bargaining, pleading. "Please," he whispered, voice thin as tissue. "I will give back. I will repay. Please—"
The crowd closed like a net. Cameras zoomed on his pleading face; microphones thrust forward. A young reporter called, "Will you sign a pledge to repay? Will you tell us where the money is?"
Rodrigo's hands trembled. He looked to Farrell. Farrell's face had a child's raw fear. "We hid it," he said. "In storage. In a safe house." Then Farrell's eyes landed on me. "She made me do it," he blubbered.
"Make you do what?" I asked, voice steady though my chest pounded.
"Lie!" Farrell shouted. "She made me—the prosecutors—" He stumbled over the words until his sentence collapsed.
"You." Rodrigo's voice raspy now. "You will get nothing from me."
"No," Zachary said. "You will be held to account."
Security guided them out amid the roar. Cameras tracked the pair as they were flanked by officers. A cluster of creditors followed, shouting for restitution. People recorded on phones; feeds lit up. A woman pressed a card toward a camera, saying, "This is the receipt—my retirement!"
Outside, the press circled. "Rodrigo Busch," a reporter asked, "Do you admit guilt?"
He looked at the ground and did not answer.
The crowd's noise grew into a kind of liturgy: "Shame. Shame. Justice." Strangers who had once been customers became witnesses. People who had been silent now clapped when the officers led Rodrigo away. Someone began to chant, "Return our money!"
Backstage, Dalton took my hand. "You did a terrible, brave thing," he said.
"I did what I had to," I answered. "I don't want his money. I want him gone."
He looked at me, eyes searching. "And me?"
"You stayed," I said. "You stayed."
He squeezed my hand. "I will stay," he whispered.
The downfall was complete in a way the ledger alone couldn't make. It had become a public moral reckoning—the kind that strips tailored suits and leaves only the raw human beneath. Rodrigo had gone from executed empire-builder to a man clinging to apologies, while Farrell had been reduced to the size of his fear. Onlookers recorded every expression, every shaky plea.
Later, in a small room that smelled of coffee and paper, Zachary handed me a cup. "You wanted him to be burned," he said.
"I wanted them to see him as he was," I answered. "And I wanted no one to claim ignorance."
"Did you think about mercy?" he asked.
"I thought about justice," I said.
Dalton stood by the window, watching the late light. "People get what they deserve sometimes," he murmured. "We must be careful who we become when it happens."
"I know who I am," I said.
He looked at me like someone mapping a coastline. "Will you be harsh to yourself?"
"Only when I need to be," I told him.
The case moved fast after that. Evidence gathered in the hall fed the prosecutors. Rodrigo and Farrell faced charges; more people connected to the scheme were interviewed. The trust that once threatened to vanish into corporate mischief was returned, in part, to those creditors. I never cheered the sentencing; revenge tasted like river water—clear but cold.
Dalton stayed. He balanced my schemes with the cool metrics of an academic, and he taught me to be steadier—not to stop being clever, but to use that cleverness without burning everything. He opened me to a patience I'd never known I needed. He gave me steady hands in the dark.
"Will you marry me?" he asked one night, quieter than a footfall.
"I thought you already had a buyer for yourself," I teased.
"I was thinking of a partnership," he said.
I laughed. "Then sign the contract."
He took my hand and slipped a ring onto my finger, placing it there like a closing bracket.
At our wedding, in September when the trees held a cool green, Salvador Benjamin wiped his eyes openly. Zachary Perrin joked loudly from the audience. Farrell Dean stood awkwardly at the doorway, having turned state's witness, pale and hollow. Rodrigo sat alone, watching from behind glass as the cameras picked up his gaunt profile—no grand exit, only a slow, judicial procession.
"Caspian!" I heard a small voice call.
The little boy stood at the edge of the hall, clutching a single rose. I handed him a petal and smiled. "Come forward," I said. "It's your sister's day too."
When Dalton slid the ring onto my finger in the hall, the press lights bright enough to sting, I saw faces in the crowd I had set on fire—and faces that had sheltered me when it mattered. I felt like someone who had walked through smoke and found a small patch of clear sky.
We finished the ceremony with small customs: the old professor drank my tea and declared me "well-disciplined," Dalton kissed my forehead and said, "You were terrifying, and I loved it." The hall laughed. The cameras flashed.
Later, as we left the hotel, someone shouted from the crowd, "How does it feel to marry the man you fed pancakes to?"
I squeezed Dalton's hand. He smiled and said, "It feels like home."
That was my answer: not a line for the papers, but a simple truth between us. I had fed him once with a meal card. I had tried to buy love. I had failed and succeeded both ways. Love, it turned out, was not a purchase but a slow building. It was also, sometimes, a shield.
We drove away into a drizzle of late summer rain. I put my head on Dalton's shoulder and felt safe—dirty, clever, and finally stitched into a life that was mine as much as it was his.
The End
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