Cole's shift ended at nine, the next group of eager volunteers filing in to reach out to alumnshe in different time zones. While she hadn’t spoken to any more billionaires, she'd actually done okay. Somehow, her conversation with Aiden Crux had given her more confidence in what she was doing and herability to do it. He’d said she was doing a good job, after all. And, coming from him, that had to mean something. Unless he was being sarcastic. Oh shit. What if he was? In any case, she'd even started to enjoy herself once she got into the swing of things. Nearly everyone had memories to share or stories to tell, and as she made herway back to herroom across the moonlit quad, she found myself wondering what herstory was. She'd done so well at school that she'd come to university expecting a cross between Brideshead Revisited and an English version of The Secret History, and fully prepared to be a genius. Except Oxford wasn’t like that
He wasn’t actually being mean. Her course had a reputation for being easy—probably deservedly, since the earliest lectures started at eleven and, while they weren’t presented as optional, hardly anyone went to them anyway. “Yes, but how am I supposed to revise every book written in English from 650 to the present day. That’s”—hervoice went a bit shrill—“not reasonable.” “Can’t you prioritize the important ones or something?” “Do I look like Harold Bloom?”“I’d be able to tell you if I knew who that was.” Cole could have explained The Western Canon, but nobody deserved that. They'd been on the same staircase in her first year and stuck together ever since, despite having nothing in common. She was reading Materials, whatever that meant, and constantly getting internships at MIT. She was also captain of the first girls , played basketball, and had recently returned from Uganda, where she’d been part of a team that was
"Okay, how do I look?” Cole turned away from the mirror over the sink and struck a pose. Harper's expression was carefully neutral. “Honestly? Like a kid in her mom's dress.” The post-telethon dinner was black tie for men and blue dress for women and she didn’t have the right kit, so she'd borrowed Harper's. Not completely grasping the impact of Harper being six foot four and an athlete. When she was pretty much the opposite of that. “What if I rolled the sleeves up?” “Don’t you fucking dare. That’s my best dress.” As Cole walked across the room, the dress felt baggy. Harper winced. “Do you really want to meet important alumni looking like that?” “It’s not that bad.” Her hair was having a small rebellion of its own. She'd quiffed six ways to Sunday but the whole thing had fallen sideways like a drunk on Saturday night. But fuck it. Aiden Crux wasn’t coming anyway. Not because of a single conv
It was a typical late spring evening, powder-puff pink and gold, and Cole sprinted over the flagstones, heading toward the front quad and the Lodge and, ohgodohgodohgod, Aiden Crux. Her mouth was tangy with copper, as though she could taste her own too-fast beating heart. The lawns of Spring Well, like pretty much everywhere else in Oxford, were sacrosanct, but she cut across the corner of one anyway because it was a legit emergency. And that was when she saw him. Initially with a faint sense of outrage because, instead of black tie, he was dressed in a midnight blue three-piece suit. And also because her immersion therapy hadn’t prepared her properly. Fairly good-looking her arse. Those Google images had lied. They had actively lied. The man was beautiful. So ridiculously fucking beautiful it was hard to get your head round it somehow. He looked like a film star. Not the modern sort—not one of your am
Especially if it was slutty or degrading. Cole turned around, trying to shut down the porno in her brain. They were in a public place, and she was fully dressed (in several layers of formal wear as it happened), but it felt vulnerable. Giving this man, this stranger, her back. Her trust. His arm came around her from behind. And the heat of it, the pressure. The tightening muscles of his forearm made her a bit delirious. She leaned back and his body was right there, all hard planes and angular curves for her to nestle into. She tilted her hips, wriggling her arse until she was tucked in against him, pinned and protected at the same time, at once safe and overwhelmed. She tried to breathe and an excited little moan happened instead. Aiden tugged her in tighter still. No humiliatingly inappropriate noises from him. But his heart was thudding hard and fast against her spine. A finger touched her lightly under the chin and she tipped her head back
He was sitting on the bench beneath the lime tree, one leg crossed languidly over the other in the way that only really tall people seemed able to manage. He was diddling with a Device but he looked up as Cole skidded to a halt and smiled at her. Not his usual polite, half-smile, but a real one, all heat and unhindered pleasure.She'd given him that. “So this is you?” His eyes did the full sweep, making her shiver. His unrestrained attention wasn’t quite comfortable—Cole was too worried about coming up short—but it was somehow exciting at the same time. She wanted to be worth looking at. For him. “Cole, reporting for duty, sir.” She threw a pretty camp-looking salute. “Did I make it?” For a moment, she thought it might have been nothing but an empty game, but he glanced down at his screen, checking the time, before he answered. “Yes. Four minutes, sixteen seconds.” “What if I hadn’t?” “That would be telling.” He tucked his tech
“On the contrary, that’s achieved through hard work. Passion is a hindrance to business.” “But you must be pretty driven? Otherwise we’d all be billionaires instead of people with Twitter accounts.” “Perhaps. Though I think I would call that resolve.” “What kind of headline is that? ‘Aiden Crux: Mildly Inclined to Succeed.’ How are they supposed to write you up in the Arrow now?” “They’re not. I don’t give interviews to school magazines.” Cole couldn’t quite suppress a giggle at that. The Book of Making You Feel Bad About Yourself was meant to be taken very seriously indeed. “And besides,” he went on, “attaining success is considerably more than a mild inclination for me.” Cole realized then how easily he wore his wealth. How naturally power became him. “I can’t imagine you growing up on the wrong side of the tracks.” “Everything I have, everything I’ve done, is mine and mine alone.” He didn’t sound proud of it, though. Just sad. “But
Yeah right. Cole idly picked up the little cardboard doohickey that was supposed to tell you about the champagne. Floral character apparently. Hints of manuka honey and demerara sugar and notes of cigar leaves. Cigar leaves? She took another gulp. No cigar leaves. Which was surely a good thing? She wished Aiden was still with her. She could have shown him, and he would have…well, he wouldn’t have laughed, but his mouth, his stern, beautiful mouth, would have promised mirth the way some promised kisses. This was getting silly—lingering by the drinks like a wallflower, pining after a man who’d taken her absence for granted. Cole tossed back her drink and defiantly helped herself to a second glass. He had been so sure of her, so sure of being obeyed, she half expected (hoped?) to feel the heat of his body behind her, the pressure of his fingers on hers. She said have one. Except no. She spotted some of the students she'd got to know during the