“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.”
She placed her hand on top of his.
Hot damn, as the Americans said. He linked his fingers with hers.
“Refreshing enough to have dinner with me?”
Her pause doused his enthusiasm, his hope.
She inched her hand free, patting his wrist lightly before twisting her fingers together. “I’m flattered, truly, but it’s not a good idea.”
Yes, she had pulled away, but he was certain he saw disappointment, even regret in her eyes.
So why then did she reject him? Anger fired hotter inside him, unusual to him as he was more used to an even keeled life. Not knowing how to hold in these alien emotions, he snapped. “Are you saying no because I am not American? Because my skin is not as white as yours?”
“Whoa, hold on.” She leaped from her chair and rushed to his side, kneeling. She took his hand in hers and held his eyes unwaveringly. “First, you know me better than that and I thought I knew you better because the last thing I would expect is for you to insult me like that.”
Her cool touch against his inflamed skin made it difficult to speak. “I am sorry. And second?”
“Second?” She blinked fast, her pupils widening with a flash of awareness.
“You said ‘first,’ which implies there is a second point.” He very much wanted to know more about her thoughts.