Yet, her eyes did not light on him the way they should, with a fire that answered the one burning inside him. In fact, she had such solid walls in place, he did not know what she thought and he was growing impatient. Time for a more direct approach and what better moment than now as the only other teacher working this late slipped out the door?
Samir nudged his glasses. “Annie, are you seeing someone?”
She glanced up from her papers and set her pencil down closely, precisely. “Seeing?”
“Dating.” There. He’d said it. He’d made his interest in her official.
He felt queasy.
“Sam, you live here on campus just as I do.” She cupped her mug of steaming coffee and lifted it to her perfect-as-a-peach lips. “There’s no way to keep a romance secret around this place.”
“Then do you have someone back at home that I do not know about?” If she did, why hadn’t she spoken of him in the past twelve months? Why had she spoken of no one for that matter? It was almost as if she was every bit as much an orphan as the students they taught.
She looked down into her mug. “There was someone… But he died.”
Even with her emerald eyes averted, there was no missing the sadness, the loss. And something else… Guilt?
“I am sorry.” He wanted to touch her. He settled for resting his hand beside hers. “Was his death recent?”
She looked up with a bittersweet half smile. “No, years ago, and we’d already grown apart because of my job here in Africa, among other things.”
“Then you are free.” He almost shot from his seat to cheer.
Her smile stretched into a full-out grin. “Sam, are you propositioning me?”
“I meant no disrespect.”
“None taken. So?” She tapped his hand lightly with her pencil. “Are you propositioning me or is there someone else you left back in Egypt?”
He thought of the woman he’d dated for a couple of months before moving, a woman who’d made him wonder if maybe it was time to settle for companionship. She’d worked at the chemical research facility with him… and then he’d learned she had been planted in his company by a rival business attempting to steal his work on water purification.
His trust came slower these days, the reason it had taken him a year to make a romantic overture to Annie, regardless of how deeply she moved him. Trusting his own judgment now was even more difficult than believing in others.
“There is no one waiting for me in Aswan.” His family had stopped speaking to him when he gave up the more prestigious job to teach. But he was doing good work here too, even if they didn’t realize or understand. “I am asking you out on a date.”
“A date?” She leaned back in her chair, giving nothing away as she crossed her arms over her chest. “To where?”
She was going to make him work for this. All right then. A fire sparked inside him at the notion of the chase.
“To dinner, downtown, away from the school and curious eyes.”
“There’s no need to go to the trouble of hiding anything from the rest of the staff. Everyone here thinks we are already sleeping together.”
He sat up ramrod straight, enraged. “Who said this?”
“Calm down. They’re just rumors because of how much time we spend together. No one seems to believe a man and a woman can have a platonic friendship anymore.”
“I will not have people talking about you that way.” Did she see their relationship as platonic? Disappointment seared through him when he’d only just begun to hope.
“You really are old world, old school.”
“Old school?”
“Old-fashioned.”
A hint of irritation spiked through his frustration. “I do not think you are complimenting me.”
“Your manners are refreshing.”