Page 225 of The Professor's Wife

“You didn’t have to. You were dressed like a god, and he was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. It’s very obvious you’re a high-caliber man, Oliver.”

“You smiled at him and laughed. You encouraged him to keep talking to you.”

I wasn’t naive enough to fall for his tricks. He had been absorbed in Angela and was trying to catch me doing something he could only speculate about.

I let out a laugh, and his face tightened in displeasure.

I didn’t care.

I had to be imperfect sometimes to hide the truth.

“I didn’t laugh at all. He asked if I minded that he smoked, and I told him I did. But then he smoked anyway, and I called him rude.”

The displeasure faded, and he seemed amused. “He wasn’t sweet to you.”

“Not at all! I can’t believe you invited him to the barbecue.”

He chuckled, and I knew instantly that I had dodged a bullet.

He came to me, wrapped an arm around my waist, and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead.

“That’s all right. He might not show up, and even if he does, he can watch my beautiful bride from afar, wrapped in my arms, in a house he will only ever dream of having. He can have his guitar and his voice. I’m the one winning at life.”

His words disgusted me.

If things were different and I didn’t fear being drugged and chained up and maybe even killed, I would have told him that the singer didn’t need those things to win at life.

Tristan might have been angry and hurting, but he was nothing like Oliver.

The certainty should have startled me. I had known Tristan for only minutes, yet my gut insisted he was more real and human than Oliver could ever be.

“You all right?” Oliver asked, studying me as he pulled away.

I hesitated.

I could dabble in this lie and see how far I could push it.

“I’ve been out of it. It’s why I had to take a breather during dinner. I felt nauseous…”

I paused, waiting to see if he would bite.

“Nauseous,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Are you late?”

I bit my bottom lip and slowly nodded. “I think so, but things have been crazy lately, and I haven’t really been monitoring the dates.”

If he hadn’t been so distracted, if he had been paying attention, he would have done the math and known I was actually a week away from my period.

“How long have you been feeling this?” he asked.

I could see the excitement in his eyes.

He wanted this badly, for reasons I would never understand.

“It came on last night.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” he admonished me. “I pushed it tonight. I never would have stayed so long had I known you were feeling this way.”

Excellent.