Chapter 21
My first class at NYUC was a disaster.
I was distracted, unnerved, my mind a cluttered mess of emotions and restrained impulses.
Destructive impulses along the lines of striding to the front row, hauling a certain brunette from her chair, and dragging her to a dark corner of the room. Then I’d clamp my hand around her slender neck and find out how her plump lips taste, if they were as sweet as they look.
I’d bite it to punish her for invading my mind, searing a permanent brand there, such that even in her absence, a day wouldn’t pass by without some thought of her, the person who saw through me when everyone else couldn’t.
Fuck. This is all types of wrong.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
When I left LA, I was going to stay away, far away from her, to protect her light from my darkness, to let the little bird fly high in the skies instead of shooting it down. I was going to respect the thick black lines separating my world and hers.
And now she’s back in my life again because fate likes to fucking play me as a fool. She’s once again my student and one thousand times more beautiful and enticing.
I fight the urge to loosen the black silk tie around my neck as I sit on the sofa of Dean Jacob Emery’s stuffy old-fashioned office decorated with dark woods and so many fucking gold antiques and other gaudy displays of wealth and power. My eyes dart to the half-opened windows, noting the curtains fluttering in the breeze.
Why is it still so stifling in here?
Strong footfalls reach my ears before a hearty voice bellows, “Ryland. How was your first day at NYUC? It was on Monday, right? Students have been treating you well, I hope?”
Jacob was Mom’s friend from college, a bona fide workaholic who refuses to retire, saying work is his life. He hangs his suit jacket on the coat rack before taking a seat across from me.
“Things are fine. Thanks for the opportunity.”
He waves me away and smiles, his hazel eyes crinkling at the corners. He looks young for someone in his late fifties. Mom would’ve been his age if she were still here. “Julianna would be proud of you. She wanted to become a professor, you know?”
And she would have if her parents didn’t arrange for her to marry my father and she had to give up all her dreams to become a dutiful Anderson wife per the damn trust. The women married into the Anderson family would either stay home and spend their time in charities, raise families, or would join the family business.
She’d probably still be here if she weren’t entangled with the Anderson family and the curse which killed her.
The pendant weighs like an anvil on my chest. I clear my throat, my mind trying not to think of the generous, kind woman who left my life too early. It’s a pain I don’t think I’ll ever recover from, an agony few people can truly understand.
Except her. My forbidden temptation.
Shit.
“I’ve heard great things about your classes at ULA. Unblemished record of students with a high passing rate and rave reviews,” he begins, and my breath lodges in my throat.
Unblemished, my ass. I shouldn’t be an ethics professor.If he only knew what goes on in my mind, he’d be appalled and fire me on the spot.
He clears his throat. “So, why do you want to meet today if everything is going well?”
“I want to switch classes.”
“Why?”
Because I’m mind fucked over a certain vixen in my classroom. Because I’ve already violated my ethics for her and I’m afraid I can’t withstand temptation the second time around.
I settle for BS instead. “With the IPO in full swing right now, it’s requiring more of my time than originally expected, and the commitment needed for Advanced Ethical Leadership and JEAP is too high. I’m afraid I won’t be able to dedicate my full energy into the year-long program.”
Jacob settles into his chair, a pensive frown on his face. “You’re the perfect candidate for this class. You and your family’s impeccable reputation, your business prowess and knowledge, and frankly, I’m in a bind. There’s no way I’ll be able to find a professor with half your caliber on such short notice. This is the keystone course of our Education Honors Program, the reason our endowments increase year after year.”
Fuck. I knew he was going to say this, and I can’t disagree with him. It isn’t easy to find a leader of a Fortune 500 company who doesn’t have public scandals, who has brokered ethical deals benefiting all parties equally, leading to the growth of Fleur Entertainment Holdings at an unprecedented rate in the last few years.
Even I can’t find another person to replace me.
He leans forward, a shrewd glint in his eyes. “If you told me this half a year ago, perhaps I could make arrangements, but now…it’s simply impossible. But how about this? I know you wanted tenure when we approached you for the adjunct professor position. And you know we don’t offer tenure track to part-time professors without doctorate degrees. Your accomplishments in the business community with Fleur are well-known and much deserving. So much our university can be persuaded to grant you an honorary doctorate.”
I narrow my eyes, a heavy pulse thumping in my ears. Images float into my mind of me teaching full-time, no longer splitting my precious hours between two jobs, designing every aspect of my courses instead of teaching curriculum crafted by others, running my own research projects and teams, spending every waking moment doing the things I love.
Impossible dreams, and yet, seeming almost within reach. If I get tenure, maybe it’s a sign I can approach my family about my discontent with working at Fleur.
“What do you mean? Are you saying NYUC will grant me a doctorate and put me on the tenure track?” I fight to keep my face impassive, because that is the number one rule in business negotiations and despite this being a dean’s office at a university, everything is business and politics.
Something must have shown through, because he grins and sits back in his chair, his hands clasped on his lap. A position of victory because the damn bastard knows how much I want to be a tenured professor. “This program is important to us, and part of its draw is its distinguished lecturers and professors, including yourself. If you teach this course and take on the faculty adviser role for JEAP, then everything else will just be a formality.”
Tenured professor.
He’s dangling my dreams in front of me like meat to a starving bear fresh out of hibernation. A fucking shark through and through.
A muscle pulses in my jaw, and my nostrils flare. This isn’t a fair game. He had a better hand all along.
Clearly seeing my inner turmoil, Jacob’s voice softens to that of Mom’s good friend once more. “Ryland, I’ve watched you growing up. I’ve seen how your eyes sparkle when you guest lectured here every so often in the past. I’ve never seen that passion when you talk about your work at Fleur. You’re meant for academia, son. Frankly, I really need this year’s revised curriculum to succeed, and I don’t trust anyone other than you to take this seriously and carry it to fruition.”
He clears his throat. “In the last two years, like many universities, ours has had its share of scandals—large-scale student cheating, sordid affairs, bribery in the admissions office, assaults happening on campus. In the past, these cases would have been governed by the Ethics Committee of the Board. But there’s been increased scrutiny and criticism that the people in our governance committees are biased. In the last few years, folks have been clamoring for better representation. The students want to have a say in these cases.”
“That’s why you established JEAP.” Everything makes sense now.
He nods. “So, this is much more than just a class. The media and our peers have their spotlights on us. And you, Ryland, are the perfect person for the job. Impeccable reputation. Respectable family, despite the blip earlier this year with your dad and your half-sisters.”
My lips twitch at the mention of my half-sisters, Grace and Taylor, both lovely women I’ve come to know and love. Dad called a family meeting last year and told us a secret he had kept from us all these years. After Mom died, he fell in love with another woman and had a family on the side. He wanted to shield her from the curse, and so he never married her, but they broke up and lost contact when Grace was a baby and her mom was pregnant with Taylor.
It was a media shitstorm when the girls’ lineage was brought to light. A rare black mark in the Anderson name. But our family embraced Grace and Taylor as our own and since Dad didn’t commit adultery, eventually the press moved onto something else.
Jacob taps his fingers on his desk. “Your reputation is unimpeachable. Under your and Maxwell’s leadership, Fleur is frequently lauded as one of the best places to work. Even your competitors have nice things to say about you. You’re a leader of a remarkable dynasty in the country—that’s how the press describes you, and that’s what we need right now. So, I can promise you this: if you go through with the program this year, I’ll make it my duty to get you the doctorate and secure your placement on our tenure track.”
Impeccable fucking reputation. The very thing our IPO and apparently my dreams depend on. Our family can’t survive another black mark, something like the high-profile son fucking his much younger student. Three hundred years of dead Anderson ancestors breathe down my neck. My lungs burn with the need for fresh air.
If they only knew what goes through my mind when I think of a certain student and the lines I’ve crossed already. How I should’ve reported her and her roommate a year and a half ago.
But in the end, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t ruin the future she described to me before—the one where a little girl would finally honor the memory of her mom, where she would go forth and travel the world and be an inspiration to others less fortunate. The future where a beguiling woman risked everything because her heart was too big, too empathetic, such that she couldn’t bear to disappoint her roommate’s dying mother, because Millie understood how it felt.
Just like how she understood me.
“It’s the right thing to do.”Her words float to the forefront and a fresh torrent of flames burn my insides.
No. She’s a cheater, no matter her intentions. All useless excuses. I knot my hands into fists and attempt to even out my ragged breathing.
If they only knew how filthy and dark the inner recesses of my mind are.
But I still want her and, like the fucking selfish bastard I am, I also want my fucking dreams, even if I can’t find a way out of the family trust right now.
“Son, what do you say?”
My lips twitch and I clench my jaw. There’s no other answer. “Fine, but I hold you to your word, Jacob.”
I’m well and truly fucked.
“In this class, there are no exams, no quizzes,” I announce to the group gathered in the darkened classroom, a PowerPoint presentation displayed on the screen behind me.
There’s a rumbling of excitement amongst the students, clearly excited at the prospect of not needing to study.
“Instead, you and your group mates will be tasked with developing a corporate whistleblower policy in the summer quarter, a leadership training plan in the fall, evaluating your policy against a ‘plucked from the headlines’ case in the winter, and evaluation and final presentations in the spring. The lectures will also include JEAP committee meetings, in which we’ll preside over real-life cases within NYUC and come up with recommendations for the Ethics Committee. This is heavy on real-life education for you to apply the theories you’ve learned over the last several years.”
My eyes sweep the room, noting the students rapidly typing on their laptops. Teaching seniors in the honors program has its advantages—folks appear more focused and serious about their work.
I try not to notice her.
And fail miserably.
Because it’s impossible. Even in a room so dark, I can barely make out the faces of the students below the stage. But she glows brightly from within, beckoning all to look at her.
Her magic makes me weak.
Her thick, glorious hair is curled over her shoulders, a pensive pout on those sexy lips, her delicate brows furrow in concentration. Swaths of smooth skin lightly bronzed from the sun show around her simple white tank top, which clings to the heavy swells of her tits, her body seeming to have grown more luscious, her earlier innocence now laced with a heavy dose of feminine sensuality.
My imagination during the countless dark nights where I’ve taken my erection in my hand and indulged in fantasies of her, my cock having lost all interest in other women, does not remotely compare to reality.
The aching lust and want I’ve tethered away with my iron will come roaring back like a tsunami, attempting to obliterate the battered sea walls guarding my heart.
God, she takes my breath away.
My cock stirs in my pants, and I shove my hands into my pockets, hiding my clenched fingers and look away. Stay away. Your reputation. Tenure. The IPO. Fuck.
“Professor?” Millie’s sweet voice drags my attention back to her. I give her a curt nod. “Will you give us details of the case before we start the project? That’ll be helpful before we spend too much time on it.”
“Yes. You’ll receive your materials before you begin.”
She nods and follows up with another question. “As with all ethical dilemmas, interpreting the case and its conclusions are very subjective. How will you evaluate our performance? Especially if you may not agree with our assessment, which doesn’t mean the case isn’t completed to satisfaction?”
Gone is the tentative honeyed rasp of the wide-eyed sophomore in ULA. In her place is a woman on the cusp of taking the world by storm, the posture and cadence in her voice strong. If I thought the innocent coed was attractive before, this version of her threatens to undo me.
She’s a confident prey taunting a seasoned predator and fuck if that doesn’t turn me on.
“Great question.” A blond guy, someone who looks like he shows up to church every Sunday and plays bingo with seniors in his free time, stares at her with fucking hearts in his eyes. I want to grab him by his buttoned-up collar and toss him out of my classroom.
Shit.
“Everything will be listed in black and white in the instructions on the portal. Be patient.”
My words come out harsher than intended, and she stiffens before tilting her head up.
“Thank you, but with all due respect, Professor, not everything in this world is black and white. In fact, most of the world is gray. I just want to ensure the beholder of said grayness is impartial.”
Chloe, the girl next to Millie, nudges her sharply on her side, but Millie keeps her unwavering gaze on me, a hardened glint in her eyes. She’s daring me to call her out on her impertinence.
Blood rushes south to my stiffening cock, which is now at half-mast. I’m fucking glad I’m standing behind the damn podium.
Leaning forward on the sturdy surface, I keep my gaze pinned on her. In the past, she’d flush and waver. The pulse would throb against her throat like her body was waving a white flag.
But no, this Amazonian in front of me meets my stare head-on and instead of cowering, she sits up taller, thrusting those luscious tits out and cocking her damn brow.
My fingers twitch at the challenge in her eyes. My lips twist in a half-sneer. “Are you questioning my reputation and impartiality, Ms. Callahan?” I ask, my voice a hoarse rasp.
The room drops ten degrees as everyone swivels their heads toward the Siren in the front row. All we’re missing is the popcorn.
Chloe grabs Millie’s arm, but I barely notice, my attention affixed solely on the bane of my fucking existence before me.
“No, sir,” she murmurs, and the word, sir, out of her lips, her only sign of submission, has my dick roaring at full-mast, my body not registering how inappropriate my reactions are. “Of course not.” She feigns a demure smile.
I want to snarl, my entire body aching, throbbing, needing to grab her, to pull her against me so I can feel her soft curves flushed against mine, and growl in her ear, “Run, and don’t let me catch you.”
Fuck it all.
Apparently, my body believes the right time to think about women and Noire is in the middle of a fucking class with someone who is completely inappropriate in so many ways. Someone who has the power to carve out my heart and decimate it when she leaves, or when I destroy her, leaving me a shadow of a man like Dad and Maxwell after losing Mom and Sydney, respectively.
My mind clamors for rational thought—a person drowning, flailing his arms, and trying to grab onto anything.
The cheater. Fucking cheater. She’s the same, Ryland. The same. Don’t forget that.
My nostrils flare and I tug at my cuff links. “Questions from anyone else?” I bark into the relative darkness.
The room is still and quiet, so silent I could hear crickets if it were nighttime. My body is on fire, my mind a beast trying to tear at the chains binding it into civility.
How will I last the entire year with her here?