Page 19 of The Professor's Wife

It wasn’t the sun. It was the way he carried himself—grounded and confident, like he’d lived more than his years. I felt so much older, though only six years separated us. It wasn’t the number. It was the distance between the lives we had lived.

I waited for him to ask my age, but he didn’t. He only watched me, quiet and steady, as I paced the room, trying to make sense of this madness.

“Aren’t you going to ask how old I am?”

His answer was quick. “I don’t care.”

Oh.

I didn’t know what to say to that. My body certainly liked it because my skin burned just then, satisfied.

He stayed near the door, as if he knew I could still send him away. I kept wondering what would happen if I let him close the gap. Would he make the first move? Would I want him to?

What would it mean to accept another man’s touch after the wreckage I had left behind?

Everything would change.

Irrevocably.

I mused, unrealistically, that I could still go back. Back to my chair, my books, my learned truths. I waited for that temptation to rise. For the safe routine to win, or at least for the desire for it to.

But it didn’t.

This wasn’t me.

And yet…I didn’t want to be me anymore.

I looked at Tristan. My heart jumped. He was watching me, unmoving except for his eyes. They followed me like a tether.

“Well, I’m thirty-two,” I finally said.

He didn’t flinch.

My heart began to beat wildly. “Does that bother you?”

“No,” he said without hesitation.

“I also don’t know what I’m doing.”

He stayed silent.

I squeezed my hands together, my eyes fixed on the bed. “You might think I’m experienced. But I’m not. So, if you’re waiting for me to make a move…”

“I’m not waiting for anything,” he said softly. “I’m just watching you. And if that’s all I get to do tonight, that’s fine by me.”

I looked at him, unable to resist. “I feel like I’ve led you on.”

“I’ve been the one chasing, if you haven’t noticed.”

“And it led you in here.”

“I hope that’s not because you thought you had no choice.”

I shook my head. “No. But you might feel like leaving now that I’m falling apart in front of you.”

He glanced at my clasped hands. His voice was low. “I don’t want to go.”

“What do you want?”