“Shh!” Annika led June a few steps away. Thankfully, Hudson was talking to Ziggy and hadn’t heard her. “Don’t let him hear you calling him that; his head’s big enough as it is.”

“Well, you would know.”

Annika groaned. “June. Seriously.” After a pause during which June grinned and looked anything but abashed, she asked, “Anyway, what do you mean, what’s going on with us?”

“The way you two were talking, heads together, his eyes all intense and focused on you … What was he saying?”

Annika rubbed the back of her neck and looked away. “I don’t even remember.”

June smiled at her, a wicked glint in her eye. “Liar.”

“Don’t you have dinner to get to?”

“All right, all right.” June sighed dramatically, and walked back to the guys with her arms flung wide. “Ziggy, take me away!”

Ziggy held out his arm to her, and together they waltzed off the rooftop.

Annika watched them go, feeling slightly off-kilter for reasons she couldn’t put her finger on. “Is he a good guy?” she finally asked Hudson. “Ziggy?”

“The best,” he said simply. “He’s one of those people you can always count on to be there for you. June couldn’t have picked someone better.”

Annika glanced up at him. “Oh, I don’t think that’s going to turn into anything serious,” she said quickly.

Hudson shrugged and looked behind them at the waitstaff, who were now stacking empty trays and glasses. “Hey, they’re packing up out here.” A pause. “I could walk you out. I’m gonna take a Lyft home … I assume you are, too.”

Annika looked down at the sidewalk far below, at the lights of the buildings and cars. Hudson was offering to walk with her. He was just being chivalrous, but still, she felt a thrumming under her skin, something vibrant and alive that had been long-dormant. Stop it. This is Hudson Craft, remember? Impertinent idea stealer? CEO of Heartbreak, Inc.? Supervillain extraordinaire?

“Um…” Annika glanced back at her table, still laden with her banner and paperwork.

“I’ll tip Mel extra and he can take your stuff down to my office, if you want. You can pick it up tomorrow.”

“Who’s Mel?”

“My new assistant.” Hudson thrust his chin in the direction of a scrawny white guy who was bossing some of the caterers around.

What was he, a rock star? First this giant glitzy party, and now a personal assistant?

Still, the thought of breaking down when she was tired, tipsy, and ready to go home in shoes that were really starting to hurt didn’t sound especially thrilling. “He wouldn’t mind?”

“Not at all.”

As they got in the elevator—Annika thinking about how this was the setting for the romantic scene in every rom-com she’d ever watched, and then immediately telling her brain to STFU—someone yelled Hudson’s name.