Nathan sat there in absolute silence for a full minute, listening to the sliding door click shut.When he was absolutely sure she was gone, he placed his champagne glass on the stone deck. He leaned forward, burying his face in both of his hands, pressing the heels of his palms deeply into his eyes.He looked up at the dark, starry Boston sky."Oh God, NO!" Nathan whispered fiercely into the empty air. "Don't tell me you just sent another girl my way AGAIN! You must really hate me, huh?!"Nathan threw his hands up in defeat, the crystal glass nearly slipping from his grip. What were the actual odds? He had come to the most exclusive, shadow-draped hotel in the city just to breathe —to escape the noise of his own chaotic life— and he’d managed to stumble right into the Governor’s daughter.And not just any girl, but a brilliant, jade-eyed pretty firecracker who was headed straight for Braxton College on Monday.His sanctuary felt suddenly very small. If Nina saw him on campus next week

Nathan stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror in his private chamber and let out a deep, grounding sigh. Slowly, the edges of his lips curled upward into a confident smile.He looked good today."Don't I?" he asked the empty room.From the hidden speakers built seamlessly into the ceiling, a smooth, highly advanced voice responded. It was Sky, the AI voice assistant wired into the central nervous system of the estate. The same one in his penthouse."Well, Young Master," Sky chuckled, her vocal synthesis remarkably lifelike, "if I were real, I'd probably say YES I WILL to you."Nathan shook his head, adjusting the collar of his shirt. "And why can you be so confident that I would even propose to you if you were a human?"He smoothed down the front of his jacket. He was wearing something incredibly special today. It wasn't just another off-the-rack designer suit; it was a gift his father, Dr. Sage Walters, had custom-made for him for his eighteenth birthday. Dwayne had kept it se

‘How?’The question echoed in her mind. How was the boy whom she dumped for being too poor to afford her standing there looking like he belonged on a yacht in Monaco? A sharp, unexpected pang of regret pricked at her heart. She had always known Nathan was "sweet," but she hadn't realized he could be this…. Handsome and.. Masculine!He looked powerful. He looked, quite frankly, devastatingly handsome.For a heartbeat, she wondered if she had jumped ship too early. If this was the real Nathan Walters, maybe the BMW and the Epstein name weren't the only ways out of poverty.But she quickly shoved the feeling down. ‘Clothes don't make the man a billionaire,’ she reminded herself. ‘He probably spent every cent of some reward money to try and look like he belongs. A nice watch doesn't pay for a life like the Epsteins have.’"Nathan?" she whispered, her voice trembling just enough to be noticed. She held out the two coffees. "I called you. You didn't pick up."Nathan looked at the two coffee

The class did not erupt immediately. There was a half-second delay, the kind that happens when the brain receives information that it genuinely cannot process at normal speed. And then, like a firecracker with a slow fuse, the room went completely and utterly insane.The noise was spectacular.People stood up. Actual grown adults who had been sitting calmly in a university lecture hall one minute ago were now physically on their feet, raising up their phones, widening their mouths, producing a combined volume of sound that would have been more appropriate at a stadium than a classroom."Oh my fucking god, is that…""That's Nina Delano… No way that is Nina Delano!""Bro, BayMax CEO is in our fucking CLASS!!!"Three separate people tried to shout her name at the same time and just produced a garbled noise that sounded like a malfunctioning radio.Nathan slowly set his pen down.Nina Delano was not just the governor's daughter, which would have been more than enough on its own. She was a

Nina looked at Nathan. He was writing in his notebook. She turned the name over in her head. Nathan Walters. It pulled at something in her memory but she couldn't locate what. She let it go and focused on the thing that was actually bothering her.Two nights ago at the Sunflower Suite, she had handed this person a military-grade encrypted terminal and he had broken it open in under two minutes on a phone screen. She had watched his thumbs move and genuinely could not follow what he was doing, and she was not a person who struggled to follow technical work. Then he had told her his name was Oliver Salmon while looking directly at her face, completely calm, like it was a real name that real parents had given a real child.She pulled out her phone under the desk and searched: Braxton College DemoDay chicken viral video.It came up immediately. She turned the brightness down and watched twelve seconds of it. A guy in a cheap suit, holding a cardboard box, opening it on a stage while a roo