Page 18 of Teach Me
His guess? He’d never get another chance. Never see her unveiled and unprotected again. Not as a friend, and certainly not as a potential lover. Not even if they worked together until retirement.
If he could find a spare time machine, he’d go back ten minutes, extract his head from his ass, and then kick that ass until he shouted his acceptance of her invitation, bloody and exultant. But unless the science department had progressed far beyond the state’s standards of learning, he had no access to a time machine.
He’d have to find another way into her tower, even though his head swam at great heights, and he imagined there would be thorns aplenty along his climb.
It would require time. Patience. Faith in himself.
He had plenty of the first two, less of the latter.
But he was a teacher, goddammit. He’d learn.
Six
He’d said no.Of course he’d said no.
To Martin’s credit, he’d fumbled through the flustered refusal with seemingly genuine regret, and only after a long, fraught hesitation. But in the end, after all the labored explanations, the answer was simple.
No.
Suddenly, Rose didn’t feel so safe after all. Especially after that encounter with Dale.
Vulnerability meant pain. Pity. Judgment. Humiliation. Snide pleasure at her downfall.
She should have known. Shehadknown.
Due to her own misjudgments, her privacy had been compromised, her pride wounded. And she knew what she needed to do, to be, now.
Just as she reached her door, Martin exited the department office. Chin high, she stepped inside her classroom with deliberate slowness—he wouldn’t see her run or hide from him, ever—only to hear a horrible, horrible sound. Footsteps. Familiar ones, originating from the direction of the office.
Shit. A man like him couldn’t let it lie, could he? He’d want to smooth things over. Make sure they left matters on the right note. Reassure himself that she was okay, they were okay, everything was just perfectly, unequivocally okay.
Sure enough, he appeared in her doorway a moment later, his face set in an expression she couldn’t quite decipher. She didn’t try, either. His emotions did not concern her, and hers had been deposited safely out of his reach.
He glanced at the purse on her desk and her closed laptop. “You’re almost done for the evening?”
A lie would reveal too much. “Yes.”
“Then I’ll walk you to the parking lot.”
A direct refusal would do the same. “Won’t Dale want to speak with you? Shouldn’t you go back to the office?”
“Probably.”
He appeared neither bothered by the prospect of Dale’s displeasure nor intimidated by her hauteur. Instead, he just stood there and waited for her to gather her belongings.
Once she had, he preceded her out the door, stood quietly when she locked it behind them, and kept her brisk pace down the stairs and toward the main entrance. Once they reached the nearly-empty parking lot, he scanned their surroundings as they walked.
A few feet from her car door—so close to freedom—he finally spoke. “Does Dale have much influence over your career?”
His voice remained low enough not to carry, a gesture she reluctantly appreciated.
She was too tired for subtlety. “Are you asking me how I’ve avoided disciplinary measures when Dale and I obviously despise one another, and I barely speak to him?”
“I suppose I am.” Martin watched her unlock her car with her remote. “If you’re willing to answer.”
He didn’t need to know. Then again, she’d seen no evidence that he gossiped. So if it would ease that worried furrow in his brow—although she didn’t care anymore whether he was anxious, not in the slightest—she could give him the faintest outlines of the truth.
She swung open the driver’s side door, and he held it wide. “I have influential friends.”
