Mr Malloy: A BWWM Teacher-Student Romance (7 page)

Still, Amara refused to confess those feelings to herself. This situation was already messy and complex enough without real emotions finding their way into the balance. Jason too, couldn't help but notice that his heart lifted every time that Amara looked at him, and that he felt butterflies every time she walked in the room.

He found it easy to confide in her and he appreciated all the qualities in her, which he sought so desperately to protect: her strength, independence, intelligence and her good heart. All these things found him genuinely falling for her, but he couldn't admit that. After all, he was the older American professor who had offered marriage to a young and vulnerable girl in a difficult situation. Jason did not want his noble intentions to be misconstrued because he'd started to feel very deeply for the girl.

So Amara and Jason went on, trying to make a true love that they were both pretending was false seem true again on the surface for the benefit of the agents who trailed them everywhere they went. Being Jason's wife came easily to Amara. She looked forward to opportunities to hold his hand and walk together with him or tell him about her day and their intellectual discussions had not ceased. She liked the way that he appreciated all of her, not just her beauty and her youth, but her mind as well, while Jason found it easy to be Amara's husband because she was an easy woman to love.

It would have been difficult for the agents watching to find any falseness in their romance, but things became much more complicated the day that Matthieu showed up at the house.

*

When Amara opened the door and saw Matthieu standing there, she first wondered what on earth he was doing there, and then how he had ever found her. She recognized him from the few times that she had met him at her father's company events. He had short black hair and dark skin. He was slim with arrogant eyes and an air about him that said he thought he was God's gift to women. He was more than annoyed.

"Amara!" he announced boldly. "You and I must speak!" There was no doubting his insistence.

"Matthieu! What are you doing here?!" she gasped, stunned to see him.

"You will not ask the questions!" he demanded haughtily, "I will ask the questions! What are you doing staying in America with an American man? We are engaged to be married! You are my woman! No one else's!"

Amara gaped at him in disbelief and stood firmly at the door to stop him from entering the house. "I am
not
your woman, and we are
not
engaged to be married,” she said emphatically. "You proposed and I declined. That means that there is nothing between us! You are a stranger and I have no idea what you are doing in this country or on my doorstep!"

"Your father called us to tell us that you are not returning to South Africa. That is not your choice to make! You never should have left your home! Your family is not happy, my family is not happy and so I am here fix the mess you have made and to set things right!" he lifted his chin, lording himself and his opinions over her in a misogynistic manner.

"Things are already set right, Matthieu." Amara insisted. "I am married now to a kind man and I am very happy. You can tell my family and yours that there is no chance of marriage between us. Go home, Matthieu. We're done!"

Jason heard the commotion and came to the door. By the color of Mathieu’s skin and the sight of his angry expression, Jason could only assume that this was someone that Amara knew from her home in South Africa. Judging by the age of this man, which more or less matched his own, Jason assumed that he was either a brother or the irked fiancé that Amara had refused to marry.

"Is this the supposed husband?" Matthieu demanded, eyeing Jason up and down with contempt and jutting his chin out at him aggressively. "You have left me, your family, your commitments, and your country for this pathetic man?"

The professor put his arm around Amara protectively. "There is nothing for you here. Amara wants to be with me and to stay in America. This is her home now and I am her family."

"Go home, Matthieu." Amara repeated. "It was a waste of time for you to come after me at all."

"I will go for now, but I am not returning until we speak properly," he told her, and then he leaned in toward her and looked down his nose at her with a nasty glare. "and, I am not leaving to go back home without having you right behind me, where you belong." He turned to leave and it was when his body had moved from the doorframe that the couple noticed the agents lingering right beside the gate.

"Escaping an arranged marriage, is it?" Harold sneered. "Well," he almost chuckled, "you can be sure that I'll be reporting on this. Sam, keep an eye on these
lovebirds
while I follow her real fiancé for a while. Let's get to the bottom of this."

Amara watched the older agent as he followed after Matthieu in a hurry, and she ran her hands through her hair in a panic. "Why is my family trying to ruin my life?" she asked exasperatedly. "They know my decision! They know I've ended their attempts to run my life!"

"It's alright." Jason promised her, pulling her into his arms to comfort her. "You're married to me. There's nothing he can do."

Sam, who was still lingering by the gate at the command of his senior, timidly stepped through it and up to the front step to reassure them. "I haven't been on the job very long," he told them. "But I have already seen enough couples who truly are faking their marriages. You have obviously rushed things along for a number of reasons, but there's no doubt in my mind that your feelings are real. My report will reflect that no matter what Harold says."

Amara was caught by surprise, and looked at him, smiling at him gratefully. "Thank you." She said sincerely. "We just want to be happy together."

"Enjoy your evening." Sam nodded. "I'll be out here. If you like, I'll keep that man away."

She couldn't believe he had offered to help them, but she smiled at Sam again. "I would appreciate that. Thank you so much."

Amara closed the door and she and Jason sat down on the sofa. She sat close to him and he put his arm around her. She felt as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders. As deeply as her feelings were beginning to run for this man, she owed her family a lot and her culture and her traditions were not easy to walk away from. As much as she just wanted to get through this final stretch of observation by the immigration agents and then get on with her life, the ties to her past were holding her back and she felt she owed it to her mother at least to speak with Matthieu.

"Are you thinking about speaking with that man?" Jason guessed. As someone who was supposed to be pretending to know her well, he was very convincing.

"My whole family wants me to marry him and return home." Amara told him. "I can't help feeling that if I turn my back on them it will be forever. There is the choice between my home and family and everything else that matters to me and it's not easy to decide between them. I owe my family some loyalty at least, don't I? Don't I have and obligation to them?"

Jason didn't answer her, he just held her tightly as she spoke her thoughts aloud.

Inside, he was furious that she would even consider talking to that man or returning to South Africa after all that her family had done to take her dreams away from her and try to stop her from being the smart, determined woman she was. But on the other hand, he couldn't be angry at a girl of nineteen years of age, who was homesick and afraid.

As much as he was beginning to feel that he loved her, Jason knew that this marriage had been undertaken as a means to an end. If he started calling the shots for her in regards to Amara's future, then he was no better than the family he was trying to save her from. Everything in Jason wanted Amara to stay with him, to stay in America and to fulfill her potential, but if she stayed, he wanted her to stay because she had come to the decision on her own, and not because he or anyone else had forced her to do so.

This whole charade had been founded on the principle that Amara had the right to be free and to make her own decisions, and Jason would still stand by that principle now, whether he agreed with her decisions or not.

"I think you have a lot to offer the world," he told her thoughtfully. "I think if you stayed and studied and graduated, you would go on to do great things. I also know that you love your family and it is important to you to honor them, so I won't try and influence you one way or another. Whatever you do must be your own decision, or none of what we have done together here matters."

Amara didn't know what to say to that. Part of her felt affronted that he hadn't begged her to stay. After all they'd done to keep her in the country, she almost wanted him to make her decisions easy for her by reminding her of all he had risked to get her this far.  She wanted him  to try to convince her to stay  because she meant something to him.

The other part of her understood Jason was a man of honesty and integrity and that he respected her too much to command her to do anything and that is why she cared for him as strongly as she did.

The young bride sighed deeply and simply rested her head against Jason's shoulder and said nothing more. He too remained silent and stroked her hair without saying a word and they were each lost in their own thoughts, terrified of losing everything that they held dear.

*

The next day when Jason was teaching one of his advanced classes and Amara was free, she made a point of sitting unaccompanied on a bench on campus, knowing that Matthieu would be nearby and Sam too, to protect her from any anger that Matthieu might still harbor towards her. As she suspected, Matthew eventually came and sat at her side.

"Have you changed your mind?" he asked. The pleased expression on his face suggested that he believed she had or she wouldn't be sitting there alone.

"I don't know, Matthieu." Amara said honestly. "I love my family, but my dreams are here."

"You have a family who loves you." Matthieu told her in a quieter tone than she had ever heard him use. "And I am a good man who wants to be a good husband to you. I have money and property and the approval of your family. Eventually, when you are a mother, you will look back on all this and you will think yourself a foolish girl for causing such trouble. In the end, no matter what you choose, you will be a wife and mother, so it is wiser to choose a man who will look after you well. Don't you want your family to be happy?"

Amara listened to his words and felt conflicted. Everyone was telling her that she was destined to be a wife and mother and as strong as Amara's desire to be a lawyer was, she also didn't want to sacrifice those other parts of herself. She wanted to set up a home and have some children to look after and enjoy the pleasures of a family life.

She wanted her mother and sisters to laugh and joke with her and to reminisce about her childhood. She wanted however many children she may have to have doting grandparents. In truth, she missed the ports and mountains of Cape Town and the friends she had left behind. She missed the comfort and familiarity of home and she had underestimated how difficult it would be to be alone in America.

She sighed heavily. "You do not respect me, Matthieu." She said at last in a solemn voice.

"Of course I respect you." Matthieu retorted. "I think you are a beautiful woman and I know more about you and your life than this American. We share a history and a culture and family ties, Amara. We are destined to be together in a way that this American cannot understand, and what kind of life will he provide for you? Your father and my father work together and are rich men. I will inherit all of my father's wealth, and when I marry you, I will inherit part of your father's wealth, and when I do, I will share it with you. Is that not respectful?"

"I will treat you like you are a princess." he continued. "We will live in a big house with a pool and beautiful gardens. I will hire a house full of servants to take care of you and when your mother grows old, she will live with us so that you can take care of her in her old age, as a good daughter should. Will your American do the same for your loved ones?"

Amara felt a stab of guilt at the thought of leaving her mother alone in her old age. Of course, she had a sister who could take care of her too, but Amara had duties toward the woman who had raised her, which would be forgotten if she stayed here to pursue her own selfish ambitions.

"I can be romantic." Matthieu insisted with a soft voice, leaning closer to her. "I will do whatever you want to make you happy. We will take vacations abroad and I will show you the world. Your American will never have the means to give you all that I can give to you."

"But my American loves me,” she said at last and even as the words fell out of her mouth, she knew that they were true. “You do not love me, Matthieu. I am a sound investment to you and that is all, but you do not want me. You said it yourself: I am trouble. I will always be trouble for you and my family. That is why it is better that I stay. I will never be the quiet housewife who follows her husband's orders. Whether I am here or in South Africa, I will be Amara and I will do great things and I will let no husband or father hold me back. I am sorry, Matthieu, but my future is here."

Matthieu sat quietly for a moment and thought about what she said. Eventually he sighed, shook his head and gave a little shrug. "I don't know why I assumed that you would be like your sister." He told her. "You are not like any girl I have ever met. You have your own mind. You are strong, and you are right. I do not want a woman who will give me a headache with her impossible ambition. I think it is better that you stay and become a lawyer. The people are more progressive here. I think you will do well with your American."