Page 241 of The Professor's Wife

I let those words hang in the air for a minute. There was so much passion in them, it took me off guard.

“You don’t know me. I could be the worst thing in your life—”

“No,” he cut in, determinedly, with a slight shake of his head.

“How do you know that?”

“From the second I saw you, that feeling in my center has been screaming at me to get closer to you. You want to know how many times I’ve felt like this before?”

“How many?”

His eyes were hard on mine, his voice laced with conviction as he said, “Once, and it was last night when youcame out on the patio and locked eyes with me. I felt like you were someone I’d been waiting my whole life to see.”

When I took another step, his body reacted the same way and tightened. “Why don’t you want me to come closer then?”

His expression turned wary. “I’m terrified of you.”

Floored by that answer, I tilted my head to the side as I studied him. “Why?”

“If I told you, you’d be running out of here.”

Intrigued, I narrowed my eyes curiously at him. “Then we’re at a standstill. If you won’t come to me, and you won’t allow me to come to you, we’ll forever be circling each other.”

He smiled faintly. “As long as we’re in the same room, I don’t mind.”

My face burned. I had to look away from him to gather my thoughts. I couldn’t think straight when he stared at me like that—open and so full of longing. Did he see the same when he looked at me? I felt anticipation buzzing beneath my skin, a stark sign that I was equally affected.

I turned around and busied myself, strolling around the large hotel room. The room was dim, even in the middle of the day. Soft sunlight pushed through the sheer curtains, casting pale streaks across the dark carpet. The room wasn’t messy, but it was full—it felt full. Occupied not just by belongings, but by the strong residue of someone who had lived hard in the hours between singing.

Empty and half-empty bottles of whiskey and wine lined the minibar counter, their labels scratched at and dulled by fingerprints. A faint trace of smoke still clung to the air, mingling with the ocean breeze slipping in through the open balcony door. The scent was both clean and fragmented; salt and wind chasing away what remained of a long night. I stood in the doorway, watching the curtain shift gently. I heard seagulls faintly in the distance and the sound of car horns.

The world keeps going on. It stops for nothing and no one.

I thought about what he’d told me about his father, about the ashes scattered over Ammonite Falls. He’d been alone. There’d been no ceremony. It was just him and the rush of water below.

Had he cried?

I could see that being the case. To be so full of anger last night and now filled with desire—the man’s emotions were dangerously honest. Whatever he felt, he felt at his core.

I felt his sorrow in the room. All around me, through his haphazardly placed belongings. I could imagine he’d come bursting through this room after he’d watched me leave. I could track the bottles he’d started and finished and others he left abandoned. All the while his back was turned away from the world. Absorbed in the quiet, in the melancholic thoughts one had when regret ate away at you. There was a familiar grief I knew too well here.

“Where are the rest of your things?” I wondered aloud, twisting around to look at him.

He hadn’t moved from the wall. His arms were crossed as he watched me.

“In my camper van,” he said.

“That’s how you’ve been traveling?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“You drive around to new places and then at night you stay at hotels?”

His faint smile returned. “Not really. It’s my little home on wheels, but every now and then I like to have a hot shower and break up the routine.”

My chest ached at the thought of being able to drive and not stop. Not have to worry or pretend. “Sounds freeing.”

He softly admitted, “It is.”