Page 106 of The Professor's Wife

I wanted to argue that it wasn’t true, but I clamped my mouth shut.

A few patrons left the pub, laughing and yammering away. Tristan turned his head to watch them meander down the sidewalk.

Then he looked back at me and glowered.

“It doesn’t bother me that you have a son. It bothers me that it took you this fucking long to tell me about him.”

“We are so different, Tristan—”

“Who fucking cares?”

“I thought we’d have a fling.”

He gritted his teeth. “This isn’t a fucking fling to me. I told you that from the start.”

I didn’t reply.

He watched me, and the irritation in him immediately ebbed away as he asked tightly, “Are you thinking of leaving? Is that why you’re saying all this? You’re planning to go.”

“No—”

“Are you going back to your son—”

“There is no going back!”

My voice was shrill.

High-pitched.

Almost a scream but filled with so much anguish and pain.

Hot tears fell down my face like a tap had burst. I stared at him, wide-eyed, knowing I was coming apart.

Tristan raised both hands slowly, like I might bolt if he moved too fast.

“Daze.”

I didn’t move.

I couldn’t.

My chest kept jerking around every breath, and my fingers had curled so tightly that my nails bit into my palms.

“We’ll slow it down,” he said carefully. “I’ll give you space. Just…don’t run. Not from me.”

I stared at him like he was the danger and the only safe thing in the room.

My heart couldn’t decide what it wanted first.

Escape or him.

I wanted to scream at him for being so calm. I wanted to grab his shirt and make him stay. I wanted to tell him everything, every ugly piece of it, and then take it all back before he could look at me differently.

But all that came out was a whisper.

“I’m scared.”

Tristan didn’t flinch. He stepped closer, but only a little. “I know.”