The Tutor's Temptation (English Edition)

Guilty Pleasures

“You are failing spectacularly, Xena, and your father is not paying me to watch you doodle tiny, pathetic shapes on your trigonometry worksheet.”

The voice barbs through the quiet hum of the library, sharp and entirely devoid of warmth. I snap my chin up, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. Kyle De Vera is staring down at me, his dark eyes narrowed behind his thin frames, the sleeves of his crisp white button up shirt rolled neatly to his elbows. He looks every bit the cold, unyielding prodigy my father hired to salvage my nonexistent academic future. The Voltaire scholar. The golden boy of the empire. The man who currently holds my entire sanity hostage.

“I was not doodling, Kyle, I was simply contemplating the structural integrity of the triangle,” I fire back, forcing a lazy, unbothered smirk onto my face despite the heat creeping up my neck. I quickly slide my left hand over the corner of my notebook, desperate to hide the messy script where his name is written three times in a row, buried beneath a mock formula.

“The only thing lacking structural integrity here is your focus,” he retorts, leaning down slightly, pressing his palms flat against the mahogany table. The sudden proximity catches me off guard, the faint scent of clean linen and expensive cedar wood washing over me, making my head spin. “Your father expects you to understand the foundation of our resort analytics by next month. If you cannot even differentiate a cosine from a tangent, you will remain a liability to the Voltaire name.”

“A liability?” I repeat, the word tasting like copper on my tongue. I lean in too, matching his posture, my eyes locked onto his stubborn, perfect jawline. “Is that what I am to you? Just a messy line item in your scholarship contract?”

Kyle does not blink. His gaze drops for a fraction of a second to my lips before snapping back to my eyes, hard and impenetrable. “You are a assignment, Xena. One that is proving to be incredibly tedious.”

He pulls away, straightening his posture as he packs his reference books into his leather satchel. The dismissal is brutal, yet the sheer thrill of his irritation sends a sickeningly sweet rush of adrenaline straight to my veins. I watch the precise movement of his long fingers, remembering how those same fingers looked when he pointed at a graph earlier, his skin brushing mine for a split second... a touch that felt like an electric shock I am still vibrating from.

The moment he walks out of the library doors, the heavy silence falls back into place, and I am left alone with my thoughts. My hands are shaking as I reach deep into my designer bag, pulling out the heavy, leather bound diary that holds the real version of my life. It is my sanctuary. My absolute addiction.

I uncap my favorite fountain pen, watching the dark ink bleed effortlessly into the premium cream paper.

He called me tedious today. He looked at me with that signature glare, the one that makes me want to scream and drop to my knees all at once. He has no idea that every single harsh word he throws at me is just fuel for the fire. He thinks he is teaching me mathematics, but he is actually teaching me how to obsess. Kyle is the answer to every single problem in my life, yet he is the exact reason why I am failing everything else. If he ever looks into this book, he will see his name written over and over, a beautiful, forbidden sin.

I stare at the paragraph, my breathing shallow. I touch my chest, feeling the rapid, chaotic rhythm of my heart. I am acting like a completely unhinged teenager, a guilty girl caught in the act of something illicit, except no one is watching. The secrecy makes it intoxicating. The fact that he is completely untouchable... a son of a loyal hotel employee, a man bound by duty to my father... makes the hunger ten times worse. He is not allowed to touch the heiress. And I am definitely not allowed to crave the tutor.

“Hey, what on earth are you writing that has you smiling like a literal psycho?”

Shaira’s loud voice shatters my trance. She drops her heavy bag onto the chair next to me, her sharp eyes immediately landing on my open diary.

I slam the book shut with such force that the spine groans under the pressure. “Nothing! Just notes. Reviewing the formulas Kyle gave me for the upcoming mock exam.”

Shaira scoffs, crossing her arms as she gives me a highly skeptical look. “Math? Since when do you look at a math notebook like you want to devour it? You do not even know the difference between basic functions without whining for an hour.”

“Shut up, Shaira, I am trying to become a legacy in progress, remember?” I snap playfully, trying to mask the sheer panic vibrating through my chest. I quickly slide the diary into the deepest compartment of my bag, zipping it shut with a definitive click. It feels like I am hiding a block of pure gold, a dangerous secret that could burn my entire world down if anyone else catches a glimpse.

But as I smile at my friend, a hollow ache settles deep in my stomach. The deeper I bury this obsession, the more it begins to consume me from the inside out.

Later that night, the mansion is completely quiet. I am sitting cross legged on my king sized bed, the only illumination coming from the dim, warm glow of my bedside lamp. The shadows stretch across the high ceilings of my room, making the space feel vastly empty. I pull the diary out from under my pillow, the leather smooth against my palms.

Why does he have this magnetic pull over me? Why does his anger feel so much better than anyone else's praise? I try to tell myself to stop, to find someone else to think about, but my mind is a broken record playing his voice on loop. I am building a world where only he and I exist, a paradise built on ink and stolen glances.

I trace the letters of his name, letting my fingers linger over the ink. I pick up a red pen and begin to draw tiny, delicate hearts around the word Kyle, feeling a hot, sudden blush creep up my cheeks. I look at the page and a wave of self loathing hits me. I am becoming completely obsessive. I am the future head of a multi billion dollar empire, yet I am here behaving like a lovesick stalker.

I close my eyes, trying to clear my head, but the darkness only brings his image into sharper focus. I see him standing in front of the whiteboard, his jaw tight, his eyes blazing with that intense, frustrated heat whenever I deliberately give the wrong answer just to keep his attention on me for five minutes longer.

“Oh my God, Xena, you are completely gone,” I whisper into the empty room, biting my lip until it hurts.

The next morning at the university chancellor's private lounge, the tension is thick enough to cut with a knife. My father, Gerard Voltaire, is sitting across from Kyle, a stack of performance evaluations resting between them. I stand near the floor to ceiling glass windows, pretending to look at the manicured gardens below, but my ears are strained, catching every single word.

“She needs to be ready for the board meeting, Kyle,” my father says, his voice booming with the natural authority of a billionaire patriarch. “The Voltaire Hotel Empire cannot have a successor who fumbles through basic financial projections. I trusted you with this because you are the sharpest mind we have sponsored.”

“I am doing everything I can, Mr. Voltaire,” Kyle replies, his tone perfectly respectful, yet completely devoid of the irritation he usually shows me. “Xena has the capacity, but her focus is... erratic. She requires constant supervision.”

My father sighs, a heavy sound that weighs down on my shoulders. “Then supervise her constantly. Move your study sessions to the estate if you must. Just get her to pass.”

I turn around slowly, my heart leaping into my throat. Constant supervision. At the estate. My mind immediately starts scripting the entries for the coming weeks, the delicious torture of having him inside my home, steps away from my bedroom. I look at Kyle, expecting to see annoyance on his face, but he is already looking at me. His dark eyes are unblinking, holding a dangerous, unreadable intensity that sends a shiver straight down my spine.

It is midnight when the storm hits. Rain batters against my bedroom windows, the heavy drops sounding like a chaotic rhythm that matches the storm inside my own chest. I cannot sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I feel the weight of his gaze from earlier today.

I pull the diary out, writing furiously under the dim light, the words spilling out of me without filters.

It is a sickness now. I am writing his name while the rain pours outside, feeling like a criminal who enjoys the crime too much. This diary is my paradise, but I know it will be my absolute ruin the moment he finds out. He is my guilty pleasure, the substance I cannot live without.

I stare at the final sentence, my breath catching in my throat. I am completely powerless against this feeling.

The next afternoon, the storm has cleared, leaving the air thick and humid. We are in the private study room of the Voltaire estate, the door closed to keep out the noise of the household staff. Kyle is standing right behind my chair, leaning over my shoulder to point out an error in my ledger entry. His chest is practically brushing against my back, the heat radiating from his body completely distracting me from the numbers on the screen.

“You did it again,” he murmurs, his voice low, dangerously close to my ear. “You put the wrong variable in the equation, Xena.”

I turn my head slightly, my nose almost touching his jaw. The proximity is dizzying, making my possessive instincts flare up. I want him to look at me like this forever. I want him to forget about the empire, about my father, about his duty.

“Maybe I like making mistakes,” I whisper, my voice dripping with deliberate provocation. “Maybe I just want to see how long it takes for you to lose your temper.”

Kyle freezes. His eyes darken, the professional facade cracking for a brief, terrifying second. He drops his pen, his hand coming down to grip the edge of the desk right beside my thigh, trapping me between his arms.

“Do you think this is a game, Xena?” he asks, his voice dropping to a gravelly, dangerous pitch that makes my stomach flip in a wave of pure, unadulterated pleasure. “You think you can play with my patience just because your father owns the building we are standing in?”

“I think you care a lot more than you admit,” I challenge, leaning back against his chest, feeling the sudden stiffness in his muscles.

Kyle leans down further, his lips a breath away from mine, his gaze completely locked onto my mouth with a raw, possessive hunger that knocks the breath right out of me. “You have no idea what I am capable of when I lose my patience, princess.”