Page 38 of The Professor's Wife

In the most effortless way.

Even in disarray, everything about him warranted my attention.

“It’s okay,” I said breathlessly. “I just…I thought you’d left.”

He smirked. “I did.”

“But you came back.”

“With gifts.”

He raised a brown bag in one hand and a cupholder with two coffees in the other.

Breakfast and coffee.

I was too stunned to speak.

Tristan tilted his head to the side as he studied my expression. “If you’d rather I didn’t come back, Daze, I can leave.”

I shook my head quickly. “No—don’t do that. I’m glad you’re back.”

His smirk deepened. “Good, because I had to sweet-talk my way to the front of the line at the breakfast joint around the corner.”

I laughed. “Dazzled a few girls with that smile?”

He chuckled and began dishing out Styrofoam plates filled with hash browns, scrambled eggs, and sausages.

“Actually, it was this elderly lady who watched me sing last night. I really had to bat her hands away to get here fast enough.”

“You didn’t have to get felt up by a grandma, you know.”

He paused, setting the last plate down on the bed.

His voice softened. “I thought you left me.”

I blinked. “What?”

“When I woke up and you were gone…I thought you’d fled.”

My face flushed. “No.”

“No,” he echoed. “I was hoping I was wrong.”

“If it makes you feel better, I thought you’d left, too.”

He grinned. “Can’t get rid of me that easily, Daisy.”

“I’m not trying to.”

I felt his gaze settle on me. I kept mine fixed on the food.

The smell made my stomach growl—loudly.

“Hungry?” he teased.

“Famished,” I admitted.

Tristan piled food onto a plate and slid it across the bed.