Page 158 of The Professor's Wife

In desperation, I’d opened the door to his office and hurried in, my plea flooding out of me.

He finally looked up, and the frown on his face made me still. Fear shot down my spine, but I refused to cave. I couldn’t cower, even when every part of me wanted to.

I expected him to retort or dismiss me, but his voice came out shockingly soft.

“Daisy, you knew this day was coming.”

I shook my head. “It’s too soon, Oliver.”

“He’ll flourish—”

“He’s eight! He’s too young. It’s too soon. Please.”

Oliver turned his attention to his fountain pen. For several seconds, I watched him carefully place the lid over the tip and screw it shut. Then he set it down on the paperwork and leaned back in his leather chair.

It creaked beneath his weight.

He appeared so big all of a sudden, even as he sat there. Even as I stood on the opposite side of the desk looking down at him.

“The school he’s in now is an underfunded waste bin,” he finally said. “The teachers are run-of-the-mill rejects who scraped together degrees because their former plans in life fell through. Do you think these incompetent idiots have a chance of helping the forty-something children wedged into their classroom like sardines?”

“There are better schools—”

“I thought you were arguing to keep him with his friends.”

“I want him here with me.”

As the final word fell, I knew I’d made a mistake.

Oliver’s expression deadened as he looked at me. My body shook as I tried to hold myself together.

“I’m his mother,” I said when the silence pressed in from all around me.

Another tear fell.

“He’s my son, Oliver.”

He’s not yours.

He’s mine.

I didn’t have to say it.

He heard the words anyway.

This was dangerous.

At the beginning of my punishment, he had made it clear that Rowe was also his now. That he could twist the narrative however he saw fit and make sure I couldn’t win if I ever challenged him.

He’d kept me in that fucking cabin for months.

Then I had returned, altered, to this house. To an existence that was just as confining as the cabin.

I still shook with fear.

Fear that never loosened around my limbs. That left me paralyzed and sick. I still waited for him to strike while he waited for me to falter. To make another mistake and wind up back there to waste away and die.

His displeasure showed immediately.