Page 188 of The Professor's Wife

I twisted the doorknob, and now my breathing was heavy and labored.

What was I doing? If I wanted to leave, why was I doing it in this way? But I knew. The answer came in the way my throat still throbbed from his choking me. I thought I might die.

What if he came back and choked me again for fucking up a lesson and this time I didn’t wake up?

“If you don’t try, you won’t know,” I whispered. “If you never know, you’ll be haunted by the unknown possibilities.”

I opened the door and poked my head out. I couldn’t hear Oliver, but I saw the light on under his office door. He was still there, working. He didn’t know he was less than thirty feet away from a wife poised on fleeing him.

It won’t work.

Yet I couldn’t stop myself. I was possessed by that tiny sliver of myself that had always held back. The one that screamed, unheard, begging for a way out.

He choked you, she screamed inside of me.You could have died. Rowe would disappear from existence altogether if you died, Daisy. No one would ever remember him again.

I tip-toed out of the room and then down the hallway in the opposite direction. I was dizzy and shaky, but I didn’t turn back. I was ready. This was my opportunity, and I might not get one like it again.

Especially if he planned on taking me back to the cabin.

There was no way he was actually going to let my little stunt go without paying that fucking lesson room a visit.

By then, fear had burned down to something reckless.

I went down the stairs, moving a little too quickly. One of the stairs creaked, and I tensed, gritting my teeth so hard, my jaw ached. I glanced up, waiting for any sign he had heard me. When nothing came, I moved again, determined and at peace with my decision. I was going to do this. I was going to leave, and I didn’t care if I was going to end up on a public bench in nothing but my nightgown, waiting for the sun to go up.

I went straight to the laundry room. It was dark, maybe too dark for him to catch on the camera. He wouldn’t be looking, even if the monitor was right in front of him. For all he knew, I was still in that bed, still cuffed.

I crouched and spread my arms out, feeling for the familiar linen basket. I knew it like the back of my hand, but I was still shaky and clumsy as I dug my hands through the layers of fabric, searching for the pillowcase that carried the money I’d squirreled away every time I overquoted Louise’s grocery trips and pocketed half her cash tips.

The birth control pills rattled and I tensed. It sounded so loud around me. It didn’t stop me from searching. I turned over the basket in my desperation and went through every piece of fabric. The second I felt the lump beneath my fingertips, I knew I had found the right one. I grabbed it, quickly shoving a clean dress hanging from a nearby wrack inside it, and hurried out of the laundry room and down the hallway. I was going to do this. I was going to wade into the unknown for the first time in so many years. The entrance room was in sight. I was doing this—

Arms came around me, fear ripped through me like a current, and I screamed. My back pressed against his front as he picked me up, those arms squeezing painfully around my waist. I screamed again, but it soon turned into throaty groans.

“What have you done, Daisy?” he growled. “I didn’t think you would actually do this to me.”

His words were delivered in a whisper. Even as he squeezed the life out of me, his tone was low yet filled with betrayal. “I thought you were perfect.”

I kicked like crazy. The pillowcase slipped from my fingers, and now my hands were digging into his arms, scratching away at his skin. I felt his arms loosen, and the pressure eased, but I didn’t feel relief. I knew what was coming. His hand was going to grab at my throat, and it would all be over. I would wake up in a cabin or not wake up at all. I felt his tremors. His rage was palpable and everywhere. If I didn’t speak, he would choke me.

“Oliver, please,” I whispered. “Please—”

He dropped me completely now and I fell in a heap on the floor. I pressed my face to the floor; my hands splayed out by his feet. I begged in that moment. “Please, Oliver. Please. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—”

He crouched and his hand was in my hair. He pulled violently, causing my head to crane up at him. His eyes were blacker than the darkness around us. He looked demonic. “How could you?”

“I’m sorry!”

“How could you?”

Before I could respond, he raised a hand and slapped me hard. He let me go the second he did it and my body crumbled. Winded and disoriented, I didn’t feel the pain for several seconds. It was just ice and numbness. Then my cheek began to throb. He stood up, looming over me. “You will never escape from me. How many times do I have to tell you this before you believe it? You will never be free of me. Never, Daisy. You are part of me. I am all of you. Without me, you are nothing. Without you, what is my purpose as a mentor? You aremine.”

Silence filled the space for several moments. He waited for me to grovel. He waited for something that would not come. I stared emptily at the floor. Even as my cheek throbbed and mymouth tasted of blood, the sliver of the girl I used to be parted her lips and whispered, “I am not yours.”

He chuckled, and it was so much worse than his rage. He was going to mock me, and belittle me, and just thinking that it was going to come, that I was going to have to feel my insides blaze with hate and helplessness—

I snapped.

Something in me moved before I could think. One second he was looming over me, certain I was weak and he was in control. The next I had crawled around him and was on my feet, racing for the door. I felt him behind me, catching up to me quickly and easily. His arm grabbed at mine, and he squeezed, pulling me back. My other arm darted out. I felt my hand grab at the walls, at the shelves around me. Picture frames crashed to the floor. My hand curled around the stem of his goblet. The green tree of life he had put before the wedding picture. The picture that showed me smiling, that proved to me that once I had a son, and he had once been alive, healthy and happy—