Come Down Under

by Parker, Weston

  “Absolutely,” I agreed, smiling fondly when I noticed him trying to swipe discreetly beneath his eyes. “You know you’re allowed to cr—”

  A soft tug on my graduation gown interrupted me, making me frown as I glanced in the direction it had come from. I looked down to find myself staring into a pair of familiar green eyes.

  My heart lurched to a stop. I was so surprised that it took me a few seconds to remember how to speak. “Luke?”

  The little boy giggled, nodding enthusiastically. “It’s me.”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, shock and confusion throwing my brain into a complete haze.

  “Did you really think we’d miss this?” a rich, smooth voice I would recognize anywhere spoke from behind me.

  I whipped my head up and around, then blinked when I saw the most gorgeous man in the world standing there grinning at me. Jude was dressed in a gray suit, looking hot as hell with his dark hair mussed and his eyes shining in the late afternoon sun.

  I couldn’t help it. I pinched myself to check if I was dreaming. But nope. Not dreaming. This is real.

  They’d come all of this way for me.

  My feet jumped into action before my brain could catch up, propelling me into the arms of the man I loved. Although I’d never kissed a boy in front of my parents before, when Jude caught me and lifted me off the ground, I sealed my lips over his and kissed him like tomorrow just might never come.

  He tasted like mint, his lips soft and firm as he kissed me back in a way that made me realize we were out in public. My skin buzzed with the electricity passing between us and he groaned into my mouth before he pulled back.

  “I’m so proud of you, baby,” he murmured, placing me down on my feet but keeping me in the circle of his arms. We were surrounded by hundreds of people, but just for a few minutes, I tuned them all out and focused only on the man holding me.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” I replied, forcing the words past the emotion tightening my throat. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

  “It’s called a surprise,” he teased, but there was a rough edge in his voice telling me he was just as affected by this reunion as I was. “I missed you, Oxford. I knew I had to stay away and let you do your thing so you could graduate, but I couldn’t stay away even a day longer.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t,” I whispered, reaching up to trace the clean-shaven line of his jaw. “I missed you, too. I just didn’t know if I’d ever see you again.”

  “That was what I was afraid of.” He exhaled a slow breath, bringing his hands up to wind his fingers into my hair. “I can’t stop thinking about you, Rose. Lord knows I’ve tried, but I can’t. Phone calls every few days haven’t been nearly enough.”

  I closed my fingers around his wrists, tilting my head back as I searched his eyes. “What are you saying, Jude?”

  “I’m saying that I have too much sexual aggression for a long-distance relationship.” A sexy smirk curved his lips. “It’s killing me.”

  I laughed, shaking my head at him. “Down boy. This isn’t the time, place, or audience for that kind of talk.”

  “Relax, no one can hear us,” he said before lowering his head and resting his forehead against mine. “On a more serious note, I couldn’t let you graduate without telling you that I’m in love with you, Roselyn.”

  The dam of happy tears that leaked before burst wide open as I took in the sincerity in his eyes and heard the truth of the words in his voice. I hadn’t told him how I felt about him, even if I’d known since I’d gotten back. I hadn’t wanted to complicate matters further.

  It also felt like something I had to say to him in person. I just wasn’t sure I’d ever get the opportunity. “I love you, too, Jude.”

  I could’ve sworn I saw moisture wetting his eyes before he tugged me closer for another tight hug. “Thank God. I’ve been so worried that I was going to come over here and make this grand gesture only to have you tell me you’ve been over me for months.”

  “Funny,” I said drily, trying to hide the intensity of the emotions taking my heart on a rollercoaster ride. “I’ve been worried I’d accept the job you offered me, only to arrive there and have you tell me the same thing.”

  “Never.” He buried his head in my hair and shook it. “If anything, I’ve fallen even more in love with you since you left. Every conversation we have, every fact I learn about you, it all makes me love you just a little bit deeper.”

  And there I went, bawling my eyes out as Jude kept me tucked close to his chest, his heart beating steadily against my ear. “You don’t have to come work for Hudson Technologies if you don’t want to, Rose, but can we please have a discussion about it before you turn me down? I can’t lose you, baby.”

  “You won’t.” I dragged in breath after breath, holding on to Jude like he was a life raft as I tried to calm the sobbing down. “I still can’t believe you’re here, or that you love me.”

  “I love you,” he repeated firmly and evenly with every bit of the extreme confidence I knew him to possess. “I love you and I’ll tell you every day, as many times as you want me to, for as long as you’ll let me.”

  A soft cough from the side reminded me that we weren’t having this conversation someplace private. I lifted my head away from Jude’s chest and wiped my eyes carefully to try to control the mess my mascara had to have caused.

  I didn’t even want to look at what I must have done to Jude’s suit. My mom stood beside us, a slight smile on her face as she raked her eyes from one of us to the other.

  “You must be Jude,” she said, holding out a hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

  To my utter surprise, he let go of me and instead of shaking her offered hand, pulled her into a warm hug. “It’s nice to finally meet you, too, Mrs. Joyce.”

  “Oh, that’s enough of that. Call me Iris.” She returned his hug, glancing at my dad behind her as she let go of Jude. “This is my husband, Robert. Everyone calls him Bob.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Bob,” Jude said, stepping up to Dad to shake his hand.

  Dad narrowed his eyes but then dropped the pretense and clapped Jude hard on his shoulder. “So you’re the man responsible for taking our Rosie under his wing, huh? It’s a pity about all that nastiness with the press. She says she was very happy working at your company.”

  Jude’s expression darkened at the mention of the media, but he shook it off. “At least it’s been taken care of now, but yes, it was a real pity.”

  “What do you mean it’s taken care of?” I’d specifically avoided looking him or us up on the internet. I’d needed to keep my head in the game, and being distracted by what journalists were saying half a world away wouldn’t have been productive.

  He smirked and slung his arm around my shoulders. “Did you really think I was going to let it go? No way. You’re the new darling of the Australian press. People demanded the journalist’s head who ran that first story on us. There was even a hashtag trending about it.”

  My jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”

  “Yup.” He grinned down at me. “Women, especially, have come out strongly against the abuse of wives and girlfriends of public figures. Unfortunately, it’s much too common that women bear the brunt of getting their names dragged through the mud. Hopefully, that will start changing now.”

  A surge of gratitude flowed through me, but so did the resolute determination that I would never again buy into the crap sometimes spread by tabloids. “Thank you.”

  He dropped a kiss on top of my head. “It was the least I could do, and it’s also an issue I should’ve spoken out about ages ago.”

  “Sometimes, we need to be personally affected by something to see the magnitude of the problem,” Mom said with a tone of finality in her voice. “What matters is that you’ve spoken up now.”

  I could’ve hugged her for that, and judging by the look on Jude’s face, he felt the same way. My parents had been incredible throughout all t
his drama. They didn’t judge me once and believed me wholeheartedly when I’d told them my relationship with Jude was completely different from the picture that had been painted.

  Seeing him here, however, seemed to have cemented that belief. Dad nodded along with my mother, then clapped his hands. “Let’s get back to the celebration at hand. I, for one, could really use a drink right about now.” He looked down at Luke. “And I’m betting this little man would love a milkshake.”

  Luke’s eyes lit up. “I love milkshakes.”

  “Then let’s go get all that, shall we?” Mom said, taking one of my hands while Jude held the other.

  As the five of us headed off campus, I looked around at my family, which had come to include Jude and Luke at some stage, and at the beautiful buildings that I’d had the magnificent privilege of studying in for all these years, and I couldn’t remember a time when I’d had so much joy in my heart.

  Goodbye, Oxford. Thank you for the memories and for giving me the opportunity that led to meeting the love of my life. I owe you one.

  Epilogue

  JUDE

  Two weeks after we got back from England, I stood in the new office I’d set up next to mine. The last week had been a blur of getting my work done, seeing to the quick assembly of this space, and changing a few things around at home.

  Everything had turned out better than I’d hoped it would, and a grin I didn’t bother trying to hold back spread on my lips as I turned in a slow circle. Large, wide windows provided an excellent view of the bay and let in plenty of natural light.

  I’d set up the sleek mahogany desk so that it faced the ocean and had even imported an antique reading lamp from a second-hand store in Oxford to give it a personal touch. Bookshelves lined the walls, and I’d taken the liberty of having some pictures framed for the desk. Luke’s face and mine now sat beside the Joyces on the polished surface.

  Fresh flowers stood on a stand in the corner, and a brand-new coffee station had been set up beside it. A pale yellow area rug covered the open space in the center of the room, and together with the flowers and the subtle incense we’d ordered, it had to be the warmest office we had.

  “It’s perfect,” I said to myself, sliding my hands into my pockets as I tried to determine whether there might be something I’d missed.

  A knock came from the door and Shane walked in a split second later. “Wow. This looks great.”

  “I think so too.” I squinted at the space. “Can you think of anything else that could make it even better?”

  “Yeah, I can. Rose sitting behind the desk.” He smiled. “That’s the only thing missing now.”

  I laughed. “Very true. It’s about fucking time, too. I just hope she likes it.”

  “She’ll love it,” he said, eyes crinkled at the corners. “A room that’s all hers where she can get her work done without you distracting her? Come on. There’s no downside to that.”

  I gave him the middle finger salute, but I still hadn’t stopped smiling. In fact, I hadn’t stopped smiling since she’d agreed to come work for me that day at Heathrow. “I never distracted her, I’ll have you know.”

  His eyebrows jumped up. “Really? Never? You never begged for a quickie in the middle of the day?”

  I knew he was teasing me, but I glared at him anyway. “Don’t you even think about Rose and that in the same sentence.”

  He held his hands up in surrender, his shoulders shaking with barely repressed laughter. “Or what? You’re going to go all caveman and clobber me? I should’ve known you’d be a possessive asshole when you finally fell in love.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t think either of us was expecting it to happen.” I shrugged. “It’s not like I was out looking for love.”

  Shane clutched his heart and batted his eyelashes at me. “You know what they say, love finds you when you’re not looking for it.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Does anyone actually say that?”

  He dropped his hands back to his sides and lifted his shoulder. “I don’t know. It seemed profound. What time is her flight getting in?”

  I glanced at my watch and my heart skipped a beat when I realized I’d been standing in here much longer than I’d thought. “Any minute now. If I leave now, I’ll make it to the airport by the time she’s disembarked, gone through passport control, and all that.”

  “Go get your girl,” he said, grinning as he opened the door for me. “Tell her we’ve all missed her and we can’t wait to have her back.”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that.” But there were a few things we had to talk about before I did.

  And before we talked about any of it, I needed to make sure she was okay. Rose was flying in to move to Sydney permanently.

  Getting the paperwork processed in such a short amount of time had been difficult, but there had been some things that worked in our favor. In the meantime, Rose had gone back home to the States to spend some time with her parents.

  We figured it might be a while before she saw them again, so it seemed like the best idea for her to go home to them while we waited for her applications to be approved. That way, if it ended up taking longer, she wouldn’t be sitting in England alone just waiting for the day she could fly here.

  She’d had a hard time saying goodbye to them at the airport, and I was looking forward to trying to brighten her spirits. Deciding to come back to Australia hadn’t been an easy choice for her, but it had been the right one.

  I knew it.

  Even her parents had agreed. After her graduation dinner, I’d taken Luke back to our hotel to get him into bed at a decent hour.

  Rose hadn’t told me at the time, but she’d spent a couple of hours discussing the different options for her future with her parents. She’d laid it all out there, and together, they had decided that she should accept my offer.

  It had been Iris, apparently, who had sealed the deal for her. She’d told Rose to follow her heart, and her heart had led her here.

  I’d never been so grateful for anything in my entire life. During that same night, I’d tossed and turned while considering possibilities for opening offices wherever she ended up. Since it would have meant taking Luke out of his school where he was finally happy, and either away from my mom or asking her to move as well, I was immensely relieved it hadn’t come to that.

  After I got back, I’d reached out to the Joyces and offered to help them set the wheels in motion if they were interested in coming here to be closer to Rose. They’d declined, but they would be coming to surprise her for Christmas.

  Once they were here, perhaps we could talk more about future visits. All I knew was that I wouldn’t let Rose coming here to be with me mean that she couldn’t see her parents as often as she’d like to.

  I knew the sacrifice she was making for me, and I’d worship at her feet for it for the rest of my natural life if that was what she wanted. At the same time, I’d do everything in my power to make her happy and to show her how much I appreciated her taking the job in Sydney—with me.

  Rose walked through the sliding doors into the terminal, a giant smile on her face when she saw me. Even after such a long flight, she looked beautiful. Her hair was pinned back and her face was devoid of any makeup.

  She wore an oversized sweatshirt and yoga pants with purple sneakers on her feet. A backpack was slung over her shoulder and she wheeled the same big suitcase I’d helped her pack on that fateful Sunday morning behind her.

  “Jude,” she exclaimed, running into my arms as soon as she cleared security. I held her close, raining kisses down on her hair and every part of her my lips could reach.

  She lifted her head back to offer me her mouth, and I took it without a moment’s hesitation. When I finally got to taste her sweet lips again, it was like the world around me slammed to a halt. There was all the activity around us that was the norm at an international airport in the middle of the day, yet I no longer heard any of the announcements or other people talking.

  There was only Rose
and having her back in my arms where she belonged. We kissed for a long time, and when it slowed to a natural end, she smiled up at me. “Now that was a welcome worth waiting for.”

  “I’m glad you approve.” I took the backpack and the handle of her suitcase, then slid my hand into hers. “How was your flight? Are you okay?”

  “It was fine.” She sighed and covered a yawn with her free hand as we walked out of the terminal. “I’m fine, too. Just tired. I didn’t get much sleep on the plane.”

  “I never manage to get much, either,” I said. “But don’t worry. There’s a big, comfortable bed waiting for you.”

  She bumped her shoulder into mine. “I guess we won’t have to be afraid of people seeing us together at the hotel anymore. I saw Shane even did a press release on behalf of Hudson Technologies saying how happy you are to be welcoming me back.”

  I grinned. “He said to tell you he can’t wait to see you, but first, we should probably talk about being seen together at the hotel.”

  “Why?” She frowned, turning her head to the side and giving a pointed look at the people surrounding us. “We’re holding hands in the middle of the airport. Again. If you didn’t want people to know about us, you probably should’ve warned me.”

  I released a long-suffering sigh, shaking my head as I smiled down at her. “That wasn’t what I meant at all.”

  “What did you mean then?” she asked as we stepped out into the sunshine, dragging in a deep breath of fresh ocean air.

  My heart did skips and jumps as I watched her tipping her head back to feel the sun on her skin. “What I meant was, how would you feel about not going back to the hotel?”

  She moved her gaze to mine. “I know I’m probably going to have to look for an apartment or something more permanent, but I’m okay at the hotel for now.”