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“What?” he screeched.
I held my hand up.
“We just spent the holiday with my family,” I told him in a shaky voice that I tried so hard to keep steady. “He proposed to me there, with my family.”
I felt it necessary to add that my family had met him and approved. That it was serious.
The Dean finally turned to me.
“I can’t believe this! You know this is strictly against the code of conduct we expect our teachers to abide by,” he told Owen. “This is…I cannot abide this.”
Owen leaned on his thighs, looking the man in the eyes.
“Mia is almost done with her degree. She’ll do her dissertation and turn in the final paper, then it’ll no longer be a ‘school’ thing or your problem at all.”
“If I do not do something, next thing you know everybody’s going to—”
“Nobody knows,” Owen said, spreading his hands. “We’ve been very discreet. The only reason the girl knows is because Mia is her roommate and told her about it with the faith of a friend because she’d been bugging her to know who she’d been dating. Nobody found out, and nobody’s going to care as soon as she leaves. And we’ll be married before too long, so you don’t have to worry about me seducing another student, either.”
The Dean rubbed at his eyes.
“Still, something must be done.”
Owen shrugged.
“Let it pass for a couple more weeks.”
“I should fire you,” he said, looking right into my intended’s eyes.
Owen actually grinned.
“Sorry, but do you not remember how you begged me to take this job? I was all set up to start in Birmingham when you called me in here to bribe me with tenure and a department all to myself.”
“Yes, I remember, and replacing you would be a royal nightmare,” he admitted, then turned to me.
“No,” Owen told him. “You send her away and I’m going, too. Dating a student or not, colleges around here would love to have me.”
“Then what do you suggest?” he barked. “I can’t just turn a blind eye! We have a reputation to uphold, and how could I ever really graduate a girl when her professor is as emotionally biased as you are?”
Owen bit his lips for a moment, then nodded.
“As much as I resent that you’re implying I can’t judge and grade her paper without bias, I will concede. You can’t possibly know me and that I would die before misgrading because I liked a student.”
“So?”
“So, how about this? Mia will do her paper and dissertation. I will give you a grade I suggest for the paper, and then you will go over it yourself, with your own unbiased appraisal.”
“But I’m not…”
“It’s just a paper,” he murmured. “I’m sure someone of your position could easily look over a simple paper.”
The Dean cleared his throat and leaned back in his chair, as if considering Owen’s proposal.
“With one amendment,” he said finally, steepling his fingers again.
“And what is that?” Owen asked.
“You continue to keep this…thing under wraps, and Mia will no longer TA for you. You’re on your own the rest of the semester. Since she doesn’t have any personal classes with you, this will limit your interactions here on campus.”
