Summer Worthington doesn't hate her corporate job, per se. It's her god-awful boss, Mr. Griffin - or, as her roommates like to call him, Mr. Grouchy - who's the problem. He's cruel, cold-hearted, and the most attractive man she's ever seen.
As his p...
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I MAKE A CONCERTED EFFORT to keep my mouth shut and my face devoid of emotion because Patrick Bishop—the Patrick Bishop—is blinking down at me, nursing a glass of bourbon.
He's the last person I ever expected to see in Max's office, and I suck in a quiet lungful of air.
We've dealt with some extremely high-profile clients before, but this goes far beyond anything I thought was possible. The sudden urge to text Lauren and tell her who I've bumped into at work is overwhelming. My fingers itch to rip my bag open and fire off a quick message.
Patrick Bishop is one of Australia's biggest heartthrobs—move over Chris Hemsworth—and while I can appreciate how devastatingly beautiful, talented, and famous he is, my best friend is the one who's downright obsessed with him. She even has a little poster of him that she ripped out of a Men's Health magazine years ago on her vision board, and sometimes, I swear, I catch her looking at it—at him—with heart eyes. She denies it profusely, because she couldn't possibly be in love with someone she's never met, but we both know she hasn't outgrown her teenage celebrity crush. And at twenty-seven, she probably never will.
God, she's not going to believe me when I tell her. I need to film her reaction and post it in our group chat so Zac gets to see it. I might even need to brush up on my first aid skills on the ferry home (I can never quite remember the acronym for DRSABCD) because I'm afraid she might go into cardiac arrest.
"Who is it?" I hear Max ask, dragging my attention back to the present, and I watch as Patrick's expression shifts between wariness and neutrality.
I'm still gaping at him, probably looking a lot like the starstruck twenty-somethings he encounters on a daily basis, and my cheeks heat with a hint of self-awareness.
How did he get into the building without anyone noticing?
Has he been hiding in here all day?
I'm a nobody, and Margo was practically bouncing off the walls when I got here. Patrick wouldn't have stood a chance.
He's probably been holed up in Max's office since before she—and the other staff—arrived, which explains my boss's sketchy behaviour.
Then I remember Max's question, that I still haven't said anything. I'm just standing there in the doorway as awkwardly as humanly possible.
"It's me," I say. Then I grimace, because I can't see Max, and he definitely can't see me—Patrick's suit-clad body is blocking me from view. After today, my confidence has been knocked down a peg or two. My boss probably has no idea who 'me' is. Even if there genuinely was something between us, it's fading fast. I really should've factored higher up on his priority list today—even if he has been harbouring an A-Lister in his office—and I didn't.
