“Yes, I do.” He walked up to her desk. “And you’re right, I do feel like a dick.”

“So what happened?” She threw her hands up in the air. “Why did you all of a sudden decide I wasn’t good enough to have lunch with?”

Shit. He shut his eyes and pitched his head back.

“That’s not what I think, Samiah.” He hated that he had to continue this lie, but what choice did he have? He couldn’t tell her about the reprimand he would face if his real boss discovered what he was doing.

He settled for a partial truth.

“Look, I know this is no excuse, but I’m still a bit gun-shy after everything that happened with my ex.” He held his hands out in a plea. “Yours is the only real friendship I’ve made since moving to Austin and it would kill me if I’ve ruined it.” Regret lodged in his throat, but he swallowed past it, desperate to make this right. “Is there any way possible that we can still be friends after this?”

She continued to stare at him with that blank, impassive air about her. After several excruciatingly painful moments passed, she leaned back in her chair, folded her hands over her stomach, and said, “You have all the nerve in the world, do you know that?” She huffed out a breath and shook her head, but then shocked the hell out of him when she said, “I guess we can try.”

Daniel was afraid to trust what he thought he’d just heard.

“Is that everything?” she asked.

“Umm…yeah.” He nodded, the tension in his body slowly ebbing as the strain in the room began to recede. “Thank you.”

Her smile was pleasant enough, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She shut down her desktop and retrieved her purse from the bottom desk drawer.

“Are you calling it a night?” Daniel asked.

“Yes.” She stood, pulling the purse strap over her shoulder. “I have a standing date on Friday evenings.”

The lump of unpleasantness that lodged in his throat nearly cut off his air supply, but he swallowed it down like nasty medicine. If there was one thing he didn’t have the right to feel, it was jealousy.

“Have a good time,” Daniel said. At least he didn’t choke on the words.

“Thank you.” She looked at her reflection in the now blank monitor and smoothed a hand over her flawless hair. “I always do.”

The effort it took to stand there and watch her ready herself for a date with someone else nearly killed him. He accepted it as his penance for being an asshole toward her.

She walked past him, leading the way out of her office, but instead of following, he called, “Samiah, wait!”