He scratched behind his ear, pointing discreetly behind him. “The press has already got at least a half-dozen shots of you. There’s no telling how quickly they’ll sell their prints off to—”
“How many times do I have to tell you I don’t care about my reputation?” I asked dryly. “You need to loosen up, Shane. Here. Have a drink. Or six.”
Shane rolled his eyes at me again but took the champagne I passed over to him. “I’m not going to convince you to leave here early and sober, am I?”
I curled my elbow to glance at the wide metal-faced watch on my wrist. “Ship’s already sailed on both counts. Sorry. We’ll try again next time.”
“Fine. I’m still not happy about it, but I’m also not going to spend the rest of my night nagging my boss and best friend.”
“That’s the spirit.” I grinned at him, then heard my name being called from somewhere outside our booth again.
“Hey, man,” I called and waved back to the older guy I didn’t recognize. Nearly everyone in the VIP room had noticed me by now, and people arriving made the effort to stop at our table to say hi.
More shots were downed. More champagne corks flew.
At some point after that, I got a hold of the DJ for the VIP room. He had his own setup for later on in the evening. I grabbed the microphone from him and decided it was an excellent idea to make a sweeping declaration.
“Hey, everyone! The bar tab is on me tonight.” I smirked before lifting my fists into the air.
Silence fell before a raucous cheer broke out. Our DJ took the microphone back and whooped into it, then started pumping out his own music.
The night got wild. I forgot about everything but letting the fuck loose, and even Shane eventually joined in.
Now this is more like it.
Chapter 3
ROSE
“Have you seen my Global Business textbook?” I asked Anna, my roommate. She was lying on my bed in the apartment we had shared since our first year, scrolling through her phone.
Her golden-blonde hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun, but the longer tendrils framing her face rippled as she shook her head.
“No, I haven’t. I think you mentioned packing it last night, though.” Anna flicked a manicured finger toward the suitcase lying open near her feet. “Did you check if it was in there?”
Abandoning my search of the well-loved spines of the books on my built-in shelf, I went back to the bed. “It might be. I feel like my brain has fallen out. My stomach is in knots and my hands have been shaking since this morning.”
I held one up to demonstrate, then sighed and frantically tossed half the clothes out of my bag again. Anna propped herself up on her elbows, watching me undo the packing that had taken me all day so far.
“You have plenty of time,” she said. “You’re only flying tomorrow. Everything is on track, okay? Get your panties out of that twist and look at me.”
“My panties aren’t in a twist.” I scoffed, but lifted my gaze to her soft hazel greeny-brown one. “I’m just nervous.”
“You worked for this for years,” she said firmly and evenly. “You will be fine, Rose. It’s the rest of us being left behind that might not be.”
“How’s that?” I finally unearthed the books lining the bottom of my case and lifted the first heavy pile out. “Your mentor is in London. You’re going to be staying with your parents in the city you grew up in. You will definitely be fine.”
“Well, yes.” She picked up her phone and unlocked it. “But my mentor doesn’t look like this.” Sliding the device under my nose to grab my attention when I didn’t look up, she tapped the screen with her thumb. “I’d have given my left ovary to have a mentor who looked like him.”
Jude Hudson smirked at me from the photograph she’d opened up. It was a good one of him, for sure. He was shirtless at the pool of some fancy hotel. To make it even more sexy, the pool was on the rooftop overlooking all of Sydney’s most famous landmarks.
“He’s a dreamboat,” Anna said. “I mean, look at those abs. And that tattoo. Ugh. I’m so jealous.”
She wasn’t wrong about him being a dreamboat, although that wouldn’t have been my choice of word to describe him. The guy was hot with a capital H and two Ts.
In the picture, his dark chocolate-brown hair looked almost black. It was slicked back and his large hands were still in it, as if he’d been captured just climbing out of the water. Although I couldn’t see it from this particular pose, I knew he kept his hair longer on top than at the sides.
With his tall athletic build and a full-sleeve tattoo on one arm that wrapped around his shoulder and ran down to his wrist, he was undoubtedly one of the sexiest men I’d ever seen. Smoldering grass-green eyes looked directly into the camera, and it was like I could feel the intensity of them caressing my skin, even though the man was on a different continent.
Miles of golden skin covered a frame that, according to the internet, stood six feet and two inches tall. Six feet and two inches of pure sex, as he’d been described by the obviously besotted journalist who had written the article I’d read about him. Six-foot-two of pure sex that I did not need to go all gaga over. Which was why, even if it killed me, I needed to keep looking for the chinks in his armor.
I’d heard about Jude Hudson, of course. Most people in the world knew his name and about the apps he had created. I just hadn’t realized he looked quite like that.
The phone’s screen turned black and mercifully took the picture of my stunning new mentor with it. “I just wish he wasn’t so handsome. I’m doing this for my education and my career, not to ogle an Australian billionaire for six months.”
“It’s a nice perk to have such yummy eye-candy while furthering your education and your career.” Anna shrugged, reaching up to take the rubber band out of her hair and shaking the silken threads out. It tumbled past her narrow shoulders and settled around her cinched waist.
If I didn’t love my gorgeous roommate and best friend as much as I did, I’d have shaved her eyebrows off in her sleep for being so effortlessly beautiful. Just like my new mentor.
“It’s not a perk,” I corrected her. “It’s a dangerous distraction.” I finally spotted the not-so-missing textbook and piled the clothes back on top of everything.
“You’re such a glass-half-empty person.”
“No, I’m practical. My parents have given everything so I could get into this school and I won’t repay them by getting caught up in a good-looking party boy.” I rolled my eyes and zipped up my suitcase. With all the books in there, I had to weigh it before I could add anything else. “I can’t believe Oxford couldn’t get a worthier mentor for me. I mean, I realize he’s successful and all, but he’s not exactly… professional.”
“What are you talking about? Of course, he is. The man founded the biggest tech firm in his hemisphere.” She waved the phone at me again. “He’s widely regarded as one of the strategic geniuses of our time.”
“Why? Because he’s proclaimed himself to be the man who fixed dating?” I scrunched up my nose. “Don’t tell me you buy into that crap.”