Chapter Nine
“You’re looking healthy.”
Hazel pursed her lips at her mother and refused to rise to the bait. “Healthy” was code for “Did you gain weight?” It was possible, even probable, that her semester of late nights and Pop-Tarts had resulted in some college pounds, but it was nothing she’d noticed beyond a little bloating, and she was due for her period soon anyway. But, of course, Martha Greenwood would notice and felt obligated by law to comment.
Instead, Hazel chopped squash at the table. She hated Thanksgiving. Beyond the political problems with the holiday, it meant a moral obligation to go home and take on an undue portion of the work while the boys fooled around, all while trying to survive the absolutely nasty smell of wet roasting turkey carcass for an entire day. If she were honest, Hazel would admit that sometimes she got a craving for a burger around that time of the month, and she missed rotisserie chicken, but turkey was just nasty. She’d been trying to block off her sense of smell since the moment she walked into the house.
“How are Basil and Briar doing in school?” Hazel asked. “Are they getting ready for the SAT yet?”
Martha scoffed. “They’re just freshman.”
“Hence, why I asked. Some people start early these days. It’s harder to prepare for now that they changed it. There’s more math and more historical readings.” Hazel shrugged. “I would’ve struggled with the new version, and I know B and B don’t like reading all that much.”
“The boys are fine, Hazel. Why do you have to judge?”
Hazel bit her lip and tipped the squash into the pan with the other vegetables. If she wanted something to eat besides mashed potatoes, yams, or some other kind of tuber filled with sugar, she had to make it herself. It had been that way since high school, and it was most of the reason she’d learned to cook, and why she showed up early to make sure most of the vegetables were made without butter slathered all over them.
“Hey! What’s our little hippy up to these days?” her stepfather Steve asked as he went to get another beer from the fridge.
“Just grinding out her senior year,” Martha said. “I think you’re working too hard, sweetie. You look tired.”
“I have a lot of professional opportunities right now.” Haze pulled out the sliced eggplant from the fridge and took it to the sink to rinse. “I have to work hard if I want the last few years to pay off.”
“That’s the spirit, kiddo.” Steve reached over and mussed her hair. “You know, if you ever need something to get by, there will always be a spot at the office for you.”
“I appreciate it, Steve, but I’m not really interested in the insurance game.”
“No, just in the businesses-that-don’t-make-money game.” Steve laughed at his own joke.
Hazel flattened her expression. “Yep. That’s me.”
Martha shook her head as she put together the yams. “You should at least make the time to date a little, Hazel. I know you’re into politics and everything, but college is the time for you to be looking for someone to spend your life with.”
That stung. Even if those two thoughts didn’t have anything to do with one another, her mother would always connect her life failures to her choice in major. And, unfortunately, she couldn’t just tell them that she had been sleeping with her professor for the better part of two months. “Okay, you know it isn’t the 1950s, right? I’m not getting a Mrs. Degree.”
“Don’t get snitty with me.”
“I’m just saying… women don’t have to meet their husband in college.” Hazel sprinkled her herb mixture in with the vegetables and olive oil and started to stir. “You met Dad in college, though, and that worked out just awesome.”
Steve snorted.
“If I hadn’t met a husband in college, the world wouldn’t have been blessed with your miraculous self,” Martha said.
“Yeah, that would be a huge loss.” Steve laughed again and kissed Martha on the cheek. “Don’t clog up the oven with that rabbit food. We gotta get the turkey in there.”
“Don’t worry. Rabbit food cooks faster than bird corpses,” Hazel drawled.
“Oh, don’t be vulgar,” Martha said.
Hazel rolled her eyes and arranged the vegetables on the roasting pan.
***
Hazel didn’t think she was going to make it through dinner. The smell of the turkey was more overwhelming than she remembered. Plus, it was a little overcooked because her mother always got distracted by watching football with the boys. Hazel tried to close off her nasal passages by force of will but only succeeded in forgetting to breathe. She got up and excused herself from the table.
No one noticed.
Hazel went into the bathroom and shut the door. After splashing water on her face a few times, she put the lid down on the toilet and sat on top of it. She pulled out her phone and sent a message to Ian.
Should have taken you up on Chinese food Thanksgiving. How is it?
She stared at her phone, hoping against hope that he would get back to her. It was pathetic, being so dependent on this guy she couldn’t even call her boyfriend, but she couldn’t help it. They saw one another almost every day. They worked together. She was halfway through writing his book. He’d even expanded his company’s charitable contributions just to keep her around.
Even so, they had never talked about where things were going. Beyond fun. Beyond sex. After New York, which had been wall-to-wall sex and expensive outings (with a couple of business meetings attached), Ian had made a point to find places to take her whenever possible—day trips to nature preserves, nights out dancing, tickets to the symphony. Hazel spent more time with Ian than anyone else, but she still couldn’t bring herself to ask him where all of this was going. The longer it went on, the longer she worried that he was just having a nice fling with his student, and it would be over once the semester ended, or he grew bored.
Her phone buzzed, and Hazel looked at it hopefully. It wasn’t Ian though. It was the Period-Tracker app giving her a message that she should have started today. Hazel frowned. Usually, the app was dead-on. Maybe she would start later that day.
She sighed and washed her hands, looking at herself in the mirror. She did look a little tired. No doubt being home had something to do with that.
When she opened the door, Hawk was standing outside with his arms crossed.
“Sorry, did you need to go?”
“No. I just wondered where you disappeared to. It seems like Steve is bothering you more than usual.”
“I think I’m just hormonal. Or maybe he is more irritating. Or maybe I just wish Dad still came for holidays.”
Hawk shrugged. “Well, he’s got his new family. I think he gave up on us after Steve knocked Mom up.”
“He could at least call,” she pointed out.
“He could, but that would revoke his position as abandoning father.” Hawk launched himself from the wall. “We can escape to my room after dinner—get away from them for a while. Plus, my room smells more like Gain than turkey.”
“That sounds nice. I was going to try to cut out early, but I’ll stick around if you want to play video games.”
“Always.”
***
It was a bit late when Ian heard the doorbell. He went to the intercom and asked Dave the doorman who it was, then instructed him to send Hazel up. In truth, he barely counted this as a holiday, and so had been in his study for the bulk of the day, making notes over Hazel’s latest draft.
The elevator opened on a sweater enveloped Hazel, whose eyes were a little red and her eye makeup smudged. Ian wrapped his arms around her and kissed her head.
“Darling, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. Holidays are just hard.”
“Alright, then.” Ian rubbed his hands over her shoulders and guided her to the sofa. “Maybe you need a holiday from your holiday, then. We could go somewhere. I do have the jet.”
“No, I don’t want to go anywhere.” Hazel snuggled up against his side. She looked a bit pale, in addition to everything. That sweater seemed to swallow her, but the leggings underneath probably didn’t provide much warmth.
“How about I get you a glass of wine?” he offered.
“No. Um, thanks, though.” Hazel bit her lip. “I could go for some mint tea, if you have any.”
“As you wish.” Ian kissed her cheek lightly and went to the kitchen. There, he put the kettle on and snuck glances back at Hazel. She seemed tired, but that was no surprise. He often thought that her vegan diet, as rushed and unplanned as it was as a student, didn’t offer her enough protein to get through the day, let alone a full class load and three jobs. He returned with two steaming mugs of tea (though his was caffeinated), and a plate of cherry-oat bars with almond butter that his shopper had picked up from the store from the vague list item “high protein vegan snacks.”
“I could turn on the television,” Ian suggested. He reclined beside her and offered an oat bar, but she shook her head. She was clearly nervous about something. She hadn’t looked like this around him in some time. “We could just space out for a little bit? Get your mind off of whatever happened with your family?”
“Do you have issues with your family? I guess they don’t do Thanksgiving in the UK.”
“No, but we do have such wholesome holidays as Guy Fawkes day, whereupon we celebrate setting fire to traitors.”
Hazel raised both brows as she stared up at him. “I had no idea Britain was so intense.”
“We did try to take over the world for a time.” Ian combed his fingers through her hair. “My family has always gotten on okay. Mum is still around. I do miss my father, but again, he did mentor me in his business. Did I ever tell you how the company got its name? Cartwright & Benton?”
Hazel wrapped her fingers around the hot mug and blew on her tea. “No.”
“Benton was my mum’s maiden name. My father considered her a partner.”
“Oh. That’s really sweet. Kind of romantic.”
“Trust that you would find a business arrangement romantic.”
“I just think if you’re going to be with someone, you should respect them.” Hazel heaved a heavy sigh.
Ian licked his lips as he considered that. “Do you think I don’t respect you?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“I wouldn’t let someone co-write a book with me if I didn’t respect their work,” Ian said. Where did these anxieties come from, he wondered. He thought back to their first night, when she’d been nearly moved to tears that he thought highly of her.
“My work yes, but…” Hazel shifted so she could look at him more directly. “What are we? I mean, are we a couple? Are you my boyfriend? That sounds so weird to call you that.”
“Do we really need to put a label on this? Aren’t you having a good time?”
Hazel seemed to pale even further. “I am, but it feels wrong to be doing this with someone for as long as we have without trying to define what we have at least a little. I’m not asking for a ring or anything. I just want to know if we’re going somewhere.”
Ian sighed and took her hand. “You know we can’t be open as a couple.”
“Does that mean we are a couple? I’m sorry, I know it’s not ‘cool’ to need to know these things.”
Ian lifted her chin and kissed her lips. “I don’t want our relationship to ever hurt you. I can use my influence to keep things under wraps for now. We can worry about all of this later.”
A little wrinkle appeared above Hazel’s brow. Her annoyance tightened her jaw and pursed her lips.
“We could date officially, then, once the semester is over? Once you’re technically not my teacher, and we’re just two people working on a book together. Theoretically, we could,” she pressed.
“In theory, yes.” Ian moved his arm around her waist and kissed her again. This time, she kissed back.
He knew he was being vague about their relationship, but it was necessary. Even if he didn’t care about the job at the university, the scandal that would come from him dating a student might be enough to disrupt his business substantially. And it would definitely be bad for Hazel’s career.
If he’d been able to resist starting this with Hazel, as young as she was and looking up to him as a mentor, he would have. But it had been impossible—looking into her stormy gray eyes, being close to her lovely, willowy frame, listening to her impassioned words—not to want her. Not to touch her. He had to have her. Now that he did, however, he was afraid he would lose her in trying to protect her.
On top of that, he had to admit to himself that after two failed marriages and all of his dalliances, he was hesitant to make their relationship official. If what they had together became something tangible and definable, it could be taken away. They could break up. It could crush Hazel. No, Ian needed for this thing between them to remain flexible and free, just for a little bit longer.
If Hazel could stand it, they had the time to enjoy themselves and each other. They could worry about the future when it came.