Brandi? Was he talking to Rose?
She held Dale’s stare, silent.
To her credit, Keisha tried to intervene. “Dale, she goes by Rose, which you’ve known for fifteen years. Please call her that. And we can look at the numbers later. We should let them finish their conversation in peace.”
But Dale didn’t move. Didn’t look away from Rose.
God, he must hate her. Loathe her with every fiber of his unfortunate being, every beat of his piggish heart. A woman like her would be a waving red flag to a bully, an invitation to charge and break through that pride, that pristine self-containment.
No wonder he’d fucked with her schedule. No wonder he’d struck at the heart of her AP program. No wonder he’d taken away her classroom for both planning periods.
There she stood, a woman. To be blunt—although Martin didn’t consider it an insult, not by any means—a fat woman. No longer a young woman. Dale’s inferior, if only in organizational terms.
But she wasn’t conceding an inch. Not in height, not in dignity. Wasn’t deigning to acknowledge his faux-jocular insult with a single sound.
Somehow, Dale didn’t realize he’d already been beaten. Already declared irrelevant.
“Sorry we overheard your conversation with Mr. Krause.” Dale offered a sly grin. “Hope you’re not embarrassed.”
Each sentence meant its opposite, and they all knew it.
Then Rose smiled, and Martin realized he hadn’t truly seen her before now. Not even a sliver of her.
Because that smile was bright and terrifying and cold enough to shatter them all into glittering shards. She’d gone beyond ice. She was absolute zero in female form, so frigid no life could survive in her presence. Certainly not a prick of Dale’s insignificance.
“I’m not. Please excuse me.” With another glorious, annihilating smile, she left the office.
Dale stepped out of her way, the glee scrubbed from his face as if it had never existed.
And then, for the first time, Martin understood. Not everything, but enough.
He should have realized it before, but he’d been too deep in his own muddled head to piece together an accurate representation of hers.
A woman capable of such sincere, bone-dissolving warmth toward the young and vulnerable didn’t armor herself with fierce, chilly composure for no reason.
Rose had dealt with bullies before.
Rose had been hurt. Badly.
Rose would likely understand his own fears. Might have even been patient with them. Might have helped him overcome them.
And because of those fears, he’d just turned down her unguarded overture of interest, hurt her feelings, and pricked her pride. All in front of the last person she’d ever want to see her vulnerable.
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. She had known.
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.”
Her former in-laws might have raised an egocentric, pompous ass of a son, but from the beginning, they’d treated her with the generous kindness of doting relatives. Sent cards and called on her birthday. Had thoughtful gifts—midnight-dark cashmere gloves during a cold winter, or DVDs of historical documentaries they thought she might enjoy—delivered to the home she shared with Barton. Taught her how to navigate through the iceberg-studded waters of moneyed society. Inquired about her career and supported her training to become an AP teacher.
After the divorce, she’d assumed that would cease. That they’d turn on her, as almost everyone else in Barton’s social circle had. Instead, they invited her to dinner at places where the menus had no listed prices. Suggested shopping trips to stores she could no longer afford and offered to pay for everything. Made their advocacy of her and her career clear to the upper echelons of the school system.