Chapter One
Dr. Ian Cartwright towered over his students as they looked up at him in rapt fascination. His words shouldn’t have come as a surprise; every student in the room was a senior. Every one of them had enough experience in business classes to give a lecture. But for some reason, every word Dr. Cartwright spoke seemed to draw them all in further.
Hazel Greenwood felt her chest tightening as he walked past her. The gentle wisp of his cologne caused a shudder to run up her back. It always did. As much as she had initially been resistant to take this extra business course, she had to admit that she looked forward to coming twice a week. Even if she wasn’t a business major. Even if she disagreed, in principle, with much of what Dr. Cartwright said.
She had gotten into a verbal altercation with her professor at least once a week since the semester had started, sometimes twice. Once she had gone to his office to discuss his comments on her audience analysis essay, totaling out their fights that week to four. At least he didn’t seem to hold ill-will toward her for their altercations. He smirked when he felt he was “correcting” her naïve assumptions about how businesses should work. It must’ve been entertaining to him.
On Hazel’s end, these fights were much less enjoyable. She’d never had so much trouble getting along with a teacher before. It wasn’t that he disliked her—Hazel wished that she could have that kind of excuse. Over the summer, Dr. Cartwright had hand-selected his class from proposals that the students had given to the program director in the business school. So even if Dr. Cartwright mocked her degree plan and thought that majoring in Nonprofit Management (in addition to Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies) was a waste of time, Cartwright had chosen for her to be there. He should’ve guessed from her application that Hazel would have a fundamentally different understanding of how businesses should conduct themselves.
Leaning on her hand, Hazel looked over the complex maze of information on the board. This class was more of a practicum than a lecture since she and the others already had business plans set out for their ventures, but Dr. Cartwright liked to hear himself talk. Usually, on Tuesdays, there was no stopping him from giving a long, meandering rendition of one of his business experiences.
“You must never confuse language with communication. You can definitely have one without the other, but if you’re looking to make your business as efficient and well-functioning as possible—” Dr. Cartwright pointed his finger around the room at them as the two other female students swooned at his British accent. “—You mustn’t forget to engage in both.”
Hazel closed her eyes for a moment, trying to imagine what it would be like to watch Cartwright speaking without saying anything. Sometimes it seemed as though he did already, but Hazel felt like she must just be unable to parse his communication. Likewise, he didn’t always seem to pick up the meaning when she spoke.
It was easier to imagine Dr. Cartwright shucking off that stiff suit jacket, unbuttoning his shirt with one hand as he continued to talk and talk and talk. Button by button, he’d reveal a broad set of pecs that didn’t belong to a professor…
He wasn’t really a professor though. Dr. Cartwright came by his Ph.D. as an honorary award from the university. His qualifications lay instead in being a multinational corporate billionaire. His suits were filled in such a way that Hazel could tell he had plenty of time to work on his muscle tone outside of his business meetings and classrooms. There wasn’t a girl in the department who hadn’t gone out of her way to check out the ring situation on his left hand.
No ring. Definitely not married. Hazel could’ve confirmed as much before she’d even found out about Topics in Entrepreneurship 5436. Cartwright’s most recent divorce had been well-covered by the checkout magazines at every store. Since Hazel spent most of her nights swinging the night shift at the local discount grocery, Hazel had plenty of reasons to check in on the lives of the rich and the feckless.
“Miss Greenwood?”
Hazel flushed as her eyes popped open to the rest of the class looking at her. Daydreaming in class. How unprofessional. She was a senior now. She couldn’t be doing that stuff.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Cartwright. What were you saying?” Hazel said with as much dignity as she could muster.
His lips curved into a smirk as he crossed his arms and leaned back on his desk. “I was hoping you could elaborate for us how the Nonprofit Sector would handle a miscommunication between partners.”
Hazel frowned and thought on that. “I don’t know that our communication practices are that much different from in for-profit ventures. Maybe in that we have structures in place to mobilize a base of citizens to action…”
“No? I would have thought the tone of the workplace would be different—when none of you are getting paid,” Cartwright said, light teasing undergirding his words.
Why was it that every man over thirty-five thought women thought being undermined was fun?
Hazel felt like she might sprain something rolling her eyes. “There are positions for volunteers, but people in the nonprofit sector do get paid. Job growth for nonprofits was up 57% last year, compared to 36% in for-profit businesses.” She tapped her pencil impatiently. “Anyway, no one’s paying a soccer mom, but you still have to mediate conflict there.”
“Every business has to pay competitively, or lose their talent,” Chris, the male student, said. He sprawled back on his desk, taking up as much room as humanly possible. “You can’t kumbaya your way to having a strong workforce. It doesn’t matter how good your communication skills are.”
“Your goal for a nonprofit is to create a job worth staying for. Job satisfaction is just as important as competitive pay,” Hazel snapped. “There’s a lot of research to prove people don’t only base their job decisions on salary, especially young people entering the workforce right now.”
“I’d be satisfied with a six-figure salary,” Chris said.
Gina, another female student, leaned forward at her desk and gave Dr. Cartwright a saccharine smile. “I’d like to hear about how you retain your… talent.”
Hazel felt her skin burning again and glanced back at Gina, who was grinning completely without shame.
“Maybe another day,” Cartwright replied, to Hazel’s immense relief. “For now, I want us to start talking about how you will each develop rapport with your employees and how you will deploy your communication structure.”
Hazel sighed and pulled up the work she’d prepared for the day. Her mind began to drift back to that daydream and, for a few moments, all thoughts of corporate communication were pushed out of her head by the image of her professor’s bare chest and abs. She had to focus. It was important that she learned as much as she could from every class, no matter how difficult it was to get along with the professor.
***
Ian Cartwright scanned over his classroom with a confident smile. While he’d never doubted his own business prowess—that spoke for itself— the concept of teaching had seemed more daunting at first. Now, a few weeks into the semester, and he looked forward to greeting his students at the beginning of class. They all had such vibrant energy and so many ideas. Granted, plenty of those ideas were complete nonstarters, but the important thing was that every student in this class was highly motivated and highly intelligent. They would be able to feel out the market in time, as they gained experience.
His eyes drifted, as they often did, to Hazel. She didn’t look very impressive at first glance. She had a fair complexion, and almost always wore her ginger hair drawn into pigtails, or one large ponytail nearly on the top of her head. She had a smallish frame and the way she tilted her head back when she was assessing what someone said was almost birdlike. There was something about her, however, that made it hard to keep his eyes off of her.
She leaned over as she spoke, ever the emphatic budding demagogue, and lectured Chris on appropriate team-building activities for employees. The young man was teasing her, of course, amping up his own feelings of superiority. She was right in principle, as usually was the case. It was just difficult to take her seriously at times. She cared too much. And she dressed like she was on her way to a construction site, or she’d rolled out of bed minutes before class and gotten dressed in the dark. Today was another black tank top (with the words I’ll save myself thanks printed over the image of a crown), layered over a white tank top and an electric blue bra. And of course, her jeans, which looked as if they’d survived a hurricane.
It was hard to watch such an articulate young woman holding herself back with her youthful ideals. If she’d clean herself up a bit, put on some makeup and maybe a dress, Hazel would find so many more doors opening to her. But she was so stubborn. Ian wasn’t certain whether that trait attracted or repelled him. Either way, Hazel had managed to catch his interest in a way he couldn’t shake.
“That’s Clarence Thomas levels of wrong, Chris!” Hazel snapped, slamming her palm against the table.
“Clarence Thomas still has a job,” Chris gloated, shooting finger guns at her.
Ian rubbed his fingers over his lips, spotting a few eye rolls from other students, as he walked over to break up their spat.
“If you don’t mind, this is a bit too much drama for the beginning of the week,” he said.
Hazel’s eyes fixed on him, their slate gray suddenly piercing and vivid. “So you think it’s perfectly fine to require all female employees to wear skirts above the knee and plunging necklines?”
“We don’t want our clients to be bored!” Chris laughed at his own joke.
Hazel turned her glare back to Chris. “And require employees to attend biweekly parties hosted at the male executives’ houses? Are you trying to court a lawsuit?”
“It’s important for employees to socialize with one another.” Chris grinned.
Hazel was about to snap back when Ian touched her shoulder gently.
“That’s enough. Chris, you know you can’t require those kinds of things. We’re looking for businesses plans set in this century, after all.” Ian patted Hazel’s shoulder.
For some reason, this only served to rile her up more, but she bit her lip. Literally. Her eyes, however, were calling for his death.
“Finish up your notes, everyone. I’d like to set out our objectives for the next class meeting.” Ian strolled back to the front of the classroom.
Hazel let out an audible sigh. Had she really been that angry? Over a joke?
The class seemed to calm down as he discussed what their next reading, due Thursday, would entail and what he would like them to prepare. Hazel’s fingers flew across her tablet, taking notes. She was the perfect student, sometimes. Others, she really could be a pill.
“Miss Greenwood, could you spare a moment?” Ian asked after he’d dismissed the class.
She had been putting her things into her messenger bag, and she looked up curiously and gave a nod. “Sure. What did you need talk about?”
Ian leaned back on the table at the front of the room and thought for a moment how to phrase what he wanted to say.
“If you’re going to reprimand me for arguing with Chris again, I’m going to remind you that he’s the one wasting class time trolling us all with ideas that we all know could never be put into effect in a real business setting—”
“Hazel,” Ian said.
“Plus, before you came over, he was suggesting a “Guys’ Night” for all the men in the company, so they can bond over video games in which you murder prostitutes!”
Ian rubbed his forehead. “I wasn’t going to talk to you about that, but I will send him an email about not fooling around during class activities.”
“Thank you.” Hazel pulled the strap of her messenger bag over her head and crossed her arms. “You set the tone. He’ll follow whatever you do. So when you laugh or act like it’s okay, he’s going to keep doing it.”
“I would never condone actions like those in a business. You know that.” Ian shook his head. “Honestly, what you must think of me.”
“You condone it here,” she argued.
“I’ll handle it,” he replied firmly.
Hazel drew in a deep breath as she nodded again and seemed to shrink.
“I don’t always appreciate the way you challenge me in the classroom.” Ian held a hand up when she automatically began to argue. “However, I think it will ultimately prove useful to me. I was hoping that you might consider shadowing me at my office here in the city. I could use an assistant.”
Hazel’s mouth opened, then closed.
Ian smirked. “Not for coffee, or anything that you would find ‘offensive’ but rather, for research. I’ll be working on a book about mentorship in business over the next year, and you are by far the most scholarly of my students, with your double major and impeccable GPA.” Ian stood and took a few steps to close the distance between them. She looked up at him, her rosebud lips parted just slightly and her cheeks flushing.
Part of him adored how intimidated she was by him. Another part loved that she didn’t let that intimidation keep her from speaking her mind.
“What do you say, Hazel? It would be a superb opportunity for your career, even if you insist on wasting yourself on nonprofits.”
“I um…”
Hazel wet her lips and looked down at her bag for a moment. Then, she squared her shoulders and looked up at him, with her brow furrowed and that stubborn little wrinkle across her nose.
“I’ll have to think about it. I have a lot of commitments,” she said with a confidence that her body language didn’t support.
“Well, do let me know. I’ll need to hire someone in the near future, and it needs to be someone who isn’t going to be making jokes all day.” Ian left her to pack up his briefcase. “You may go.”
Hazel bit the inside of her cheek and wished him a good day. As she left, Ian stole a look back at her. Those battered jeans of hers slipped just a bit, revealing the blue hem of her panties. How a person could be both a killjoy and sexy as hell at the same time, Ian wasn’t certain. He’d never spent time with a woman quite like Hazel, but he knew she’d take him up on his offer. It was too good for a smart girl like her to refuse.