Page 131 of The Professor's Wife

My eyes widened. “Really?”

“Yes. I’m a happily married man. Why wouldn’t I want my perfect wife present?”

“Well…” I paused, feeling my cheeks heat. “I don’t even have a degree, Oliver.”

Would I feel like an imposter standing there in a room full of intellectuals while I didn’t even have a finished degree, much less a certificate, to my name?

He leaned close to me, and his hand brushed against my cheek. The touch was intimate and sweet.

He whispered, “Who’s going to care, Daisy?”

I didn’t answer straight away. My heart pinched at the way he stared into my eyes. I wanted to tell him I just wanted him to feel proud of me. I wanted to be at his side and feel equal to him.

Instead, I swallowed and whispered back, “I would love to be your date, Professor.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

We sat in the van beneath a pine tree, the late-summer light falling across the dashboard. By then, we had been on the road for nearly two months. The air smelled like pine needles and incoming rain. Tristan had one leg stretched out, the other bent, his arm draped casually over the back of the seat. I was curled up beside him, knees tucked under me, watching the way the light caught in his hair.

He looked calm. But there was something else there under the surface. A quiet tension, as though he was holding something back.

He hadn’t probed further about why people might be looking at me. All the next day, he’d been in a fog. His answers were quiet and short, but he touched me relentlessly. Always watched me and made sure he knew where I was going. He didn’t want me out of his sight.

There was fear in him.

It stole my breath away.

What are we doing? Daze, what are you doing?

“I’ve been thinking,” he said finally, voice low.

I turned to him, waiting. I couldn’t help the sudden nerves that swarmed me. The feeling that at any moment he might not want this—want me. But I knew that wasn’t the case. A man who didn’t want someone wouldn’t look terrified of losing them.

“When summer ends,” he began, “I want to take you somewhere.”

“Where?”

“My hometown,” he said. “East Coast. It’s not much, but it’s quiet and feels private. It’s got this lake that turns silver in the fall. And the trees…they go wild with color. Like the whole place catches fire.”

I smiled faintly, my heart slowing down with relief. “Sounds beautiful.”

“It is,” he said. “But it’s more than that. It’s where I grew up. Where my dad taught me how to play guitar and where I first learned how to fix things. Like the camper. I’m trying to frame the place in my mind. I keep trying to tell myself that just because he died there, it isn’t tainted. I can pick up the pieces. With you…if you wanted.”

I swallowed hard, heart aching at the tenderness in his voice.

“I want to show you that place,” he said. “Because it’s mine. A piece of me I’m learning to accept. And I want you to see it. I want…”

Us.

He wanted us.

I could almost hear the word he didn’t say.

I looked down at my hands, unsure what to say. The idea of going anywhere for longer than a few days felt surreal. We hadn’t even figured out where we were sleeping tomorrow. It had become our norm. But the way he said it—like it wasn’t just a trip, but a big step in life—made something happy stir inside me.

“You don’t have to decide now,” he added quickly. “I just… I wanted you to know what I was feeling and…where I want this to go. I know that you have…that you might have other commitments.”

He meant my son.