Help needed

[itaintme]

Hi all, I am a male in his (very) early thirties who works at a staffing agency in the UK. In my work I come in contact with clients and people seeking for jobs on a daily basis. Three months ago something happened to me that had never happened to me before in my working life. A woman in her late twenties applied for a job and I made an appointment with her for a job interview a couple of days later. When she arrived at our office and we had the interview, I immediately felt very much attracted to her. Not so much because she is a beautiful woman, but for the most part it was her sweet, gentle character that I felt attracted to. Just a few hours after we had our interview and I had forwarded her curriculum to our client, I got a call from this client that she was awarded the job. Because of the nature of the company I work for and the services we offer, she is employed by my company but she works for another company. As I result I am the one in charge of paying her salary and keeping connected with her. For her job she works at a lot of different locations and I am responsible for supplying her with all the information she needs on a daily basis. As a result, over the course of the last three months, I have had a lot of contact with her via email and telephone. In the way she talks to me and writes me emails, I suppose she likes me as well. She almost daily makes me compliments about the way I keep her informed, that she has a lot of respect for me in what I do for her etc. etc. I've been working in this business for a couple of years now and from experience I can tell you that this is not the way women usually react to me. The way I communicate with other women that work for our company is very much in a professional sort of way and not at all comparable to the way I communicate with this woman. Ever since the day she first walked into our office and our business relation began, I can't get her out of mind (that is also the reason why I am writing this on a wednesday evening).

I have now come to the point where I truly want to get to know her better, outside from our work relation, so I am considering to just ask her out to have a drink together somewhere. I have not done so yet because I fully realize that in the end, our relationship is just business-wise and that I should maintain my professionalism and not get involved with her outside of my work. Basically two things scare me. First of all I am still a bit afraid that she would reject such a move from my side and secondly that in that case my colleagues find out and I get into trouble at my work. Our company is a very professional club of people and I just know that something like this would not at all be tolerated.

My question is how to handle this situation; use my gut feeling and ask her out risking her rejection and trouble at work, or just wait until one day she or I leave our jobs so that I am 'free' to do as I please? Help me for this is eating me away and I just completely adore this woman.

[xxazurexx]

Just ask her out and try and keep it hush hush. If I liked someone and the feeling was mutual, I wouldn't let the fact we worked together, prevent us from getting together.

From the UK huh? Not what your flag suggests.

[itaintme]

Thanks for the reply. Flags changed ;-)