Hired by Her Husband by Anne McAllister

his throat. He slowed the stroke of his razor. His head was starting to spin again. He wanted desperately to finish up and sit down. But he was damned if he was going to hurry, and damned if he would stop and rest while Sophy was hovering. Instead he leaned his weight against the sink.
    “The world will stop if you don’t teach your class?” Sophy said sarcastically.
    “It’s my job.”
    “Ah, yes. Duty. Responsibility.” She twitched the duvet, flipping it up and letting it settle over his mattress. Her eyes shot sparks at him.
    George tried to remain steady and upright. “You don’t believe in them?”
    “Of course I believe in them. But I also believe in sanity and common sense. Don’t you?”
    He started to grit his teeth but it hurt his head. “I’m only standing in front of a class. I’m not herding cattle or climbing ladders or jackhammering up the pavement.”
    “And you think it’s that important that you go?” She met his gaze levelly. Her tone wasn’t sarcastic now, but it did have its share of challenge.
    “It wouldn’t be the end of the world if I didn’t, but I can be there, so I should be there. It’s a matter of example,” he explained. He expected her to scoff, but she didn’t.
    She pressed her lips together in a thin line. Her mouth worked and he could tell that whatever she was thinking, it wasn’t cheerful. Then she sighed. “Fine. If you don’t cut your throat shaving before it’s time to go, we’ll catch a cab.”
    He paused the razor halfway down his cheek. “We? What do you mean, we?”
    Sophy shrugged. “If you’re going, I’m going with you. It’s my job.”
    She didn’t know the first thing about George’s work.
    He was a physicist. She knew that. And now he taught physics, according to Tallie, at Columbia University. He had had lots of offers, his sister said, but he’d taken this one two years ago after his appointment in Sweden ended.
    “I guess he had reasons to come back to New York,” Tallie had said, watching Sophy for a reaction.
    But Sophy couldn’t think why he would have bothered other than his parents and his sister were nearby. She certainlywasn’t. When she left their marriage, she’d left New York. And he hadn’t taught physics when she was married to him.
    He’d done something with physics. But heaven knew what. Sophy certainly didn’t. He hadn’t told her.
    Ari had always said George was brilliant. Sophy knew he had a Ph.D. And the first time she’d met Socrates, George’s father, when arrangements were being made for their wedding, he had made a point of telling her that George was highly sought after. He had, according to Socrates, a new job offer at a university in Sweden that he was expecting to take a few months after their marriage.
    George had brushed off Sophy’s questions about it. “It’s not important,” he’d said at the time.
    It had been important to Sophy. If he had been serious about their marriage—about making it real—he would have shared that with her. It had to do with their future, after all.
    But in fact he’d brushed off all her questions, not only about his new job offer, but about what he did, period, making Sophy feel out of line asking anything—as if she were intruding where she had no right.
    And as far as what he taught, well, he probably had considered her too stupid to understand anyway.
    It had not been a good feeling.
    Maybe she was too stupid. Certainly physics was a far cry from early childhood education, which was what she had majored in. Well, if she was over her head, she’d simply sit there and watch him being brilliant.
    Because she was going to class with him, whether he liked it or not.
    George didn’t argue with her. And that, more than anything, proved to her how very unlike himself he still was. He looked pained at her insistence. But he didn’t tell her no. He said, “Whatever,” through barely moving lips and went back to shaving.
    His sullen acquiescence was all it took to