The Forbidden Throb Chapter 148

Emma's POV:

"What's their deal?" Olivia muttered beside me, noticing them too.

Before I could respond, two of the girls broke away from the group and hurried toward us, their faces flushed with enthusiasm.

"Hey! Are you two coordinators for the lecture series?" The taller one looked between Olivia and me with hopeful eyes.

"Um, yes?" I said, confused.

"Which lectures did you get assigned to?" her friend asked, practically bouncing on her toes.

I glanced down at the assignment sheet I'd just received, not having had a chance to read it yet. "The medical school lecture series"

"Would you be willing to trade?" The first girl asked, her voice pitched with craving.

I stared at their animated expressions—the hand-waving, the excited whispers, the way they looked ready to combust from sheer enthusiasm. 

*What is happening?*

This was supposed to be a medical school lecture series. Serious, academic, probably involving a lot of incomprehensible jargon about arterial plaques or whatever. The kind of event that usually made Olivia complain about dying of boredom.

What could possibly make these girls this excited?

"You—" I started.

"Emma!" Olivia's hand clamped around my elbow, cutting me off mid-sentence. She yanked me away from the confused girls with surprising force.

"Sorry, we need to go!" she called over her shoulder, already dragging me toward the hallway.

"Olivia, what—"

"Oh my God, Emma." She pulled me around the corner, her eyes wide. "We're screwed. We are so completely screwed."

My confusion deepened. "What are you talking about?"

She thrust her assignment sheet at me, her finger jabbing at a specific line. "Look! We got assigned to the cardiac surgery lecture with Professor Prescott. No wonder those girls are losing their minds."

The world seemed to tilt slightly.

My hands moved automatically, unfolding my own assignment sheet. My eyes found the first line, the speaker's name printed in neat black letters.

*Harvard Medical School Cardiac Surgery Special Lecture*  

*Speaker: Dr. Daniel Prescott*

I froze.

*No. He said he wasn't coming.*

But which shocked me more—that Daniel was actually coming to give this lecture, or that his presence apparently had this level of impact?

I looked back toward the meeting room, where the cluster of excited girls was still visible through the doorway. As far as I knew, not a single one of them was a med student. This was a coordination team pulled from Communications, Journalism, International Relations—

And they were losing their minds over a cardiac surgery lecture.

Is this because of... his face?

"How is he this famous?" I heard myself ask, my voice slightly strangled.

Olivia shot me a look. "Didn't you see the TikTok?"

"TikTok?"

She blinked at me, then her expression cleared. "Oh, right. I forgot—you were in Paris making bank with that medical journalism thing. No wonder you missed it."

I managed a weak smile, though my mind was still reeling.

"Emma, you have no idea how viral Professor Prescott went," Olivia continued, already pulling out her phone. "Some student in the back row of his lecture hall filmed him teaching and posted it online. It was trending for days—not just on TikTok, but all over Twitter too."

She scrolled rapidly, her thumb flying across the screen. "Even Harvard Med's official account reposted it. They've been shamelessly using it to drive traffic to their graduate program applications." She laughed. "I'm pretty sure their admissions office is drowning in new applicants right now."

She turned her phone toward me, showing me: #DrPrescott #HarvardHeartSurgeon #MedSchoolCrush #PrescottEffect.

I couldn't form words. The man who made me breakfast and worried about my dolphin plushie being lonely was... a viral sensation?

I pulled out my phone with trembling fingers and opened TikTok.

Daniel's face filled my screen immediately.

The video showed him in a tiered lecture hall, standing at the podium in his white coat over a dark suit. His wire-rimmed glasses caught the light as he gestured toward a 3D heart model with a laser pointer, explaining some complex surgical approach.

His voice was steady, magnetic, that familiar controlled tone that made everything sound both simple and profound.

The comments section had exploded past 80,000.

*"This is what male leads in medical dramas should actually look like"*

*"The deadly combination of genius-level IQ and that face"*

*"Suddenly I want to go to medical school"*

My chest felt tight, warm, like something was expanding inside my ribcage.

Then I saw it—a highly upvoted comment near the top: *"Don't get your hopes up, ladies. Dr. Prescott is married."*

*"It's true. Apparently, his wife is his childhood sweetheart, several years younger than him."*

*"I heard he's insanely devoted. Never attends any social events, always says he has to 'go home to his wife.'"*

I bit my lip, fighting a smile.

Childhood sweetheart. Devoted. Never attends social events.

My chest felt warm, almost unbearably full. Like there was too much affection inside me with nowhere to go, threatening to spill over.

Before I could think better of it, my fingers were already moving across the screen. I hit the share button on the TikTok video and sent it directly to Daniel.

Then I started typing, my thumbs flying:

Me: Dr. Prescott looks so handsome when he teaches.

Me: I've watched this at least twenty times. I'm crying. I really want to become Dr. Prescott's student.

I hit send before my rational brain could catch up.

Then I stared at the messages, my face burning.

When had I become this person? This... direct? I used to agonize over every text, carefully crafting responses to seem casual and unaffected. And now here I was, I've basically become a natural-born flirt.

The three dots appeared almost immediately.

My heart jumped into my throat.

Daniel: Thank you. But I wouldn't recommend Student Emma taking my class.

I blinked at the screen, a confused laugh escaping me.

What?

My fingers hovered over the keyboard, trying to figure out how to respond to that, when another message came through.