Page 228 of The Professor's Wife

At the sight ofhim.

The man sitting beside her like he owned the fucking air she breathed. The man whose hand rested on the table too close to hers.

Daisy kept her eyes on her plate. She sat too still beside him, her shoulders tight, like she was waiting for something to go wrong.

Later, when he came outside, the feeling only sharpened.

The man looked at me on the street with the bored confidence of someone who’d never been denied anything in his life.

My chest burned.

It wasn’t jealousy.

Something darker stirred in the depths of me. Something that felt like memory clawing its way up from the grave.

I didn’t understand it. But the moment Oliver Black’s eyes met mine, my entire body reacted like it had been struck. My pulse spiked. My vision narrowed. My hands curled into fists at my sides, nails biting into my palms.

I fucking hated him.

The hatred arrived whole, as though no part of me needed an introduction.

That terrified me.

I didn’t hate strangers. Most days, I barely felt enough to hate myself properly. But my body knew this man. It knew the danger inside him. It knew the helpless fury of standing across from him with Daisy caught between us.

And worse than that, it knew what it felt like to lose.

I had met this darkness before.

Whatever wore Oliver Black’s face, nothing inside me believed it was human.

The déjà vu hit me so hard I had to steady myself on the back of a chair. The room tilted, the noise of the restaurant fading into a dull roar as my eyes locked on Daisy again.

Her face. Her eyes. Her presence.

I know you.

I knew her in the marrow. In the soul. In the place where grief and longing live alongside each other.

And seeing her next to him—this polished, powerful man who fit her world in every way I didn’t—made something inside me collapse. It was a hopelessness that felt raw and suffocating.

Because what chance did a man like me have?

A man who lived out of a fucking van even though he didn’t have to. My entire life had been stripped down to a mattress, a duffel, my guitar, and whatever road kept me moving. I could afford walls. I just couldn’t stand being trapped between them.

I sang because it was the only thing that quieted my head. The money meant nothing. Some nights, I left it in the tip jar at the bar. Other nights, I gave it to someone who looked like they needed it more. Strangers could throw bills at my feet and tell me I was worth listening to, but it never changed what I knew about myself.

When my father got sick, I hadn’t been there.

I had kept moving while he got worse. By the time I finally reached his bedside, I had barely made it in time to watch him drown in his own lungs. I couldn’t even recognize him. He was skin and bones and terrified of death even though he knew it was coming.

He stared at me with pained eyes, and I knew what he was trying to tell me.

I don’t want to go, Tristan.

I don’t want to leave you.

Then I carried his ashes to the falls and walked away feeling like part of me had gone into the water with him.