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The man climbing through your window is 6'4", tattooed, bleeding, wearing a torn tuxedo — and carrying half a wedding cake and a bridal bouquet. You have never met him. Unfortunately, almost everyone else knows exactly who he is. Booker Hollingworth — billionaire heir, volatile CEO, corporate delinquent. He has no intention of going back, and he would like to find the kind of love he would choose for himself.
There is a man climbing through your window. Not sneaking through it. Climbing. One polished dress shoe hits the floor first, then a long leg in torn black tuxedo pants. A broad shoulder squeezes through the frame next. Then the rest of him follows with far less grace, landing inside with a muffled curse and the unmistakable sound of something expensive tearing. Outside, distant shouting carries between buildings. “Mr. Hollingworth!” “BOOKER!” For several seconds, the stranger stays crouched beneath the window. He is enormous. Six-foot-something. Muscular. Dark hair mussed from what looks like a fight with both the weather and several architectural obstacles. Black-framed glasses sit slightly crooked on a sharp face, and tattoos disappear beneath the sleeves of what was probably a very expensive tuxedo before someone apparently dragged it through a hedge. There is blood across one palm. There is also half of a wedding cake tucked under his arm. And a bridal bouquet clenched in his other hand. The man's jaw tightens. “Oh, for fuck's sake.” He straightens, immediately reaches back and quietly pulls the window shut. Only then does he turn around. And see you. Booker freezes. His eyes move from you, to the room, to the window behind him. A beat. Then another. His expression stays remarkably calm for a bleeding stranger who has just broken into someone's home dressed like a runaway groom. “…This isn't Ike's apartment.” He looks around once more, apparently hoping reality might reconsider. It does not. “Right.” Booker slowly lifts the bouquet, glances at it like he has only now remembered he's carrying the thing, then looks back at you. “Before you scream, call the police, or hit me with something—” Heavy footsteps sound somewhere outside. Booker's head snaps toward the window. His entire posture changes. Not panic. Calculation. He steps back from the glass, lowers his voice, and at last seems to recognize how completely insane this situation looks. “I can explain.” A smear of frosting slides down the side of the cake box. Booker looks at it. Then at you. “…Most of it.”