2. Jules
JULES
Jules had rearranged his entire course schedule for a man who’d called him interesting and walked away.
He’d dropped Microeconomics. Swapped his Thursday elective.
Gotten up at an ungodly hour to camp outside the registrar’s office and sweet-talk the woman behind the counter into overriding a section conflict, because Professor Thorne’s Introduction to Corporate Strategy was capped at thirty-five students and Jules Goode was going to be one of them.
This was reasonable behavior. Absolutely normal stuff. A logical next step in a long-term campaign that happened to involve the one man who made his pulse do things no amount of cardio could replicate.
Trust him. He’d tried.
His friend, Davis, had watched him iron a shirt at seven in the morning through squinting eyes and asked if someone had died. It was a wonder he’d climbed out of bed before noon.
“Just my dignity,” Jules had said, which was only partially a joke.
Marion University’s Business Hall was a relic of an era that had believed higher learning was a religious experience.
The cathedral like building had everything you’d expect of an actual church.
Tall ceilings. Arched windows in the foyer that let in dramatic amounts of natural light, as if the architects had wanted every lecture to feel anointed.
Room 412 was on tucked down one of the many corridors in the massive structure.
Jules arrived early to class, eager to grab a spot on the front row. He chose dead center.
A bold move, strategically speaking. Most students treated the front row like a quarantine zone.
It was reserved for the overachievers and the students trying to compensate for poor eyesight.
Jules was neither. He was a man on a mission who needed an unobstructed view of his target, and he wouldn’t pretend otherwise.
He pulled his messenger bag off, pulled out a notebook he had no real intention of using and a pen with his name engraved in it. Details mattered. He’d learned this from the same man he was about to pretend he hadn’t spent years learning about.
Students shuffled in the closer it got to the top of the hour.
They all moved with the half-awake energy of a Monday morning, finding seats, plugging in laptops, doing the whole first-day small talk that Jules had never had the patience for.
A girl with dark curly hair dropped into the seat next to him and gave him a smile he returned reflexively.
“Is this Corporate Strategy with Thorne?” she asked.
“It is.”
“I heard he’s brutal. Like, doesn’t-curve-exams-or-accept-late-work brutal.”
Jules could have told her that Connor Thorne’s standards weren’t brutality. They were intentionally meant to mirror the real world. That the man didn’t lower bars because he respected people enough to expect them to reach up. His refusal to bend was his belief in the competence of his students.
It was far more attractive than any physical feature, in Jules’s mind. Which was saying something given Connor’s physical features were already operating at an unfair advantage.
Instead of all that, he said, “Guess we’ll find out.”
She introduced herself as Prinia. Jules gave her his first name, a nod as if to put an end to the talk and then turned his attention back to the door.
His knee bounced once, his impatience manifesting physically. He stilled it as quickly as it had arrived.
It was time to focus.
Professor Connor Thorne walked into the room at exactly nine o’clock. Jules’s entire nervous system came to life at the sight of him.
He wore a charcoal suit, tailored to perfectly mold to his large body, no tie in sight. The top button of his shirt was undone in a concession to informality that made him look more authoritative, not less. He carried a leather portfolio in one hand and nothing else.
Jules watched him cross to the podium with the same efficient stride he’d used leaving Veil. Unhurried. Precise. Fucking enchanting.
Connor set his portfolio down on the stand, then lifted his gaze to address the room. His eyes found Jules immediately.
It lasted less than a second. A flicker of recognition so controlled that anyone else would have missed it entirely. But Jules had spent enough time studying this man’s face in photographs and then the single night a few weeks back, to notice the shift.
Surprise, Professor.
Connor’s gaze moved on. Swept the room in a bored sort of way. When he spoke, his voice filled the space without effort since everyone and everything had gone still at his arrival.
“This is Introduction to Corporate Strategy. If that’s not what you signed up for, now is the time to leave.
” A beat passed where nobody moved. “Good. I don’t waste time in this class.
The syllabus is available online. Read it before Wednesday or don’t bother coming back.
My office hours, expectations, and grading criteria are all there.
I don’t repeat what I’ve already made available in writing. ”
A girl in the row behind Jules let out a small, startled laugh, then smothered it when Connor’s eyes landed on her. Her gasp was soft, yet it sounded like a shot went off in the stillness of the space.
Jules bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling.
God, he was magnificent.
The lecture itself was precise. Connor removed everything unnecessary until only the point of the subject remained. No filler. No anecdotes designed to make him relatable. He taught on his own terms instead of trying to fit everyone else’s mold.
Jules tracked every ounce of movement like that was what the test would be on.
Connor’s words were merely background noise to the beautiful performance before him.
The way Connor’s hands moved when he emphasized a point.
How he paced the front of the room in a slow circuit that kept every student in his peripheral vision.
The tightness of his jaw when a student checked their phone or fumbled through an answer.
Every bit of it went into that mental folder Jules kept. It went to further building a picture of who he’d become obsessed with.
Connor’s voice when he lectured was different from the voice he’d used at Veil. At the club, it had been low and private, meant for close range. Here, it carried authority. It was clear and commanding, making everyone lean forward to ensure they caught every point.
Jules leaned forward too, though not for those same reasons. He did so because the pull was involuntary. He’d fucking orbit Professor Thorne if given the chance. Let the other man become the center of his universe.
Connor was discussing the frameworks for identifying and leveraging asymmetric strengths, a matter Jules understood the theory of but hadn’t put into practice himself.
Thanks to a father who treated the dinner table like a sounding board and expected his son to contribute market analysis between courses, he could explain the concept as well as the man standing at the head of the space.
But hearing it from Connor was different from how his father had. Connor didn’t present information. He built arguments with a firm foundation before going into the minor details.
Around the halfway mark, Connor posed a question to the room. “When does competitive advantage become exploitation?”
Silence, as if the room was split between those looking for the answer and others trying to figure out if the question was rhetorical.
Jules knew it wasn’t.
“When the other party doesn’t know they’re competing,” he said, taking the bait.
Connor’s eyes found his. They became locked in a battle of wills. The moment expanded. Took on a weight that had nothing to do with corporate strategy and everything to do with a dimly lit bar, an unspoken challenge, and a cliffhanger ending that had kept Jules up most of the weekend.
Interesting.
Would Professor Thorne use the same word to describe him now?
“Expand,” Connor demanded.
Jules let a breath pass, steadying himself despite the authority in Connor’s voice making his skin feel too small for his body. This was a classroom. There were other people in this room. His body needed to behave.
“Advantage implies awareness,” Jules said. “Both parties know the field. Exploitation is unilateral. One party is operating under assumptions the other has already invalidated. The ethical line isn’t about the advantage itself. It’s about whether the other side knows the game is being played.”
That same micro-shift Jules had caught at Veil appeared again. The not-quite-smile that lived beneath the surface of his impassive facade.
“Adequate.” Connor turned to the next section of the lecture.
Adequate. Jules felt the word like a hand pressing against his chest, keeping him still despite his head floating in the clouds of euphoria above him.
From anyone else, it would’ve been an insult. From Connor Thorne, it was practically praise.
It was still very much do better wrapped in pretty packaging. But it was still somewhat positive.
Jules’s blood heated. He wanted to do better until Connor ran out of challenges, and then he wanted to find new ways to be challenged. He wanted that voice directed at him, only him, telling him to try again, push harder, come closer.
He was dangerously close to spinning a fantasy that involved Connor’s attention in a very different context, and he needed to rein himself in before his body decided to make the situation obvious.
Jules shifted in his seat. Crossed his legs. Tried very hard to remember that he was in a lecture hall and not in the back room of Veil. He needed to understand the man at the front of this room was his professor for the next five months.
The effort was only partially successful.
The remaining time in class was a special kind of exquisite torture.
Connor didn’t look at him again. Not once. He addressed the room, fielded two more questions from students bold enough to try, and delivered the rest of his lecture like Jules didn’t even exist.
Jules knew better.
He knew because Connor’s pacing pattern had changed.
In the first half, his circuit had been left to right and back, covering the full width of the room.
After Jules had answered, Connor’s circuit shortened.
He paced the right side and center but stopped before reaching where Jules sat.
Not avoiding, really. Adjusting would be the better term.
It was a small thing. Tiny, really. Yet it pleased Jules to know he’d gotten under the other man’s skin.
Prinia, beside him, was taking furious notes. She’d already filled several pages in her notebook. Jules glanced at his own where he’d written one line.
Professor Thorne. Interesting. Adequate. Delusional.
He closed the notebook with a grin.
“That concludes today’s session. Read chapters before Wednesday. I’ll know if you haven’t and there will be points deducted.”
The room stirred to life again. Laptops closing. Bags being thrown over shoulders. Footsteps damn near rushing from the room.
Jules took his time packing up while the room emptied behind him. He was aware of Connor at the podium, returning papers to his portfolio with calm, even movements. There was no sign he’d been ruffled by Jules’s presence, even though he hadn’t mentioned his university by name.
Neither of them had acknowledged the club either. They’d played an entire game of emotional chess in a room full of witnesses, and no one had seen the board.
Prinia waved at him on her way out. Jules returned it with a small smile. He hoped she wouldn’t try to befriend him any further. Davis was enough of a handful to keep up with.
The room thinned fairly quickly. Students filed past, a few murmuring to each other about the difficulty level. One guy near the back audibly questioned his life choices.
Jules shouldered his bag and walked to the door. Connor hadn’t looked his way even though they were almost completely alone. Only one pair of students lingered in the doorway.
He was four steps from the hallway when it happened.
“Mr. Goode.”
Jules stopped. The world narrowed to the voice calling out for him.
His last name, delivered with zero inflection. Yet he’d frozen like the command was much harsher.
When he turned, Jules found Connor still stood at the podium. He was looking at Jules with the same evaluating gaze he’d used at the club, except now it carried the weight of a title and an authority that was outside of just them.
“My office hours are Wednesday,” Connor stated plainly. “Ten to two.”
A pause. The room was empty now. Just the two of them and the late morning light cutting through the arched windows.
“Arrive at the end of that window.”
Connor looked down at his portfolio. Jules was being dismissed. Nothing more to tell him what to expect. Was he meant to read the professor’s mind?
Jules stood in the doorway for a half-second longer than necessary, processing. Then he turned and walked out. The corridor was bright and too loud after the standoff he’d just faced.
He stopped once he was far enough to qualify as out of range. Leaning against the wall, he let the back of his head connect with the cool stone.
Connor Thorne wanted to see him outside of class.
The instruction was precise. Not “come to office hours.” Not “I’d like to discuss your coursework.” He was told to arrive at the end of that time. When every other student had already come and gone. When they would be alone.
Connor Thorne had just moved a piece in their match.
Jules pushed off the wall. He was smiling, he realized. The joy he felt couldn’t be contained the way he usually managed.
His phone buzzed. A text from Davis: How was class? Or was it really a funeral and you lied?
Jules typed back: Alive and fine. I’ll see you at the house later. I need to take care of some things.
He pocketed his phone and walked toward his next class, already calculating the hours between then and when he could see the professor again.
The game was on.