Master Class: An Alpha Billionaire Romance (+ Bonus Book 'Silent Daughter 1') Read Free Page A

first time on an Ivy League campus, and I am greatly humbled by this invitation and the interest of such well achieved individuals as you are."
    Murmurs fill the hall as people try to process this unexpected compliment. I am beginning to wonder whether this is already part of his lecture: How to make people feel good about themselves in your presence. Making friends and allies must be essential for making good business.
    I wonder if I should take notes already? Who knows if things like this might come up in an exam later on.
    It strikes me, suddenly, that I have absolutely no idea how this man will go about evaluating and grading us. Will there be quizzes every week? A big exam at the end of the semester? Does he expect us to write essays? Will he teach us more about econometrics? The latter would mean that I really should have brought my calculator...
    "Even though I can see that some of you have already read my book," he adds, nodding toward one of the students who placed a copy of it on her desk. "Let me start by telling you a little about myself. Not the kind of things that you will find in there or in the newspaper. Something new, something you didn't know yet."
    He pauses and smirks. "After all, this class is supposed to teach you something exclusively new. Why else should you be sitting here, right?"
    A murmur of approval greets him.
    "Okay," he continues. "This class is called Introduction to Entrepreneurship. I don't like that title, but I had to come up with something. I was asked to teach a graduate class full of bright and promising students such as you guys, and when they asked me to do this, they probably thought I could teach you something about success. About launching your own business, about start-ups, about Silicon Valley, the dreadful place where a lot of great things started - and a lot of not-so-great things failed and died."
    He pauses, scanning the hall with narrow eyes and a somewhat sullen expression.
    "And this is where the problem starts," he says. "Failure. No one ever likes to talk about it, and it is certainly not what they had in mind when I was asked to give this guest lecture. But you know what?"
    He adds another dramatic pause, his eyes resting at a random spot somewhere at the far back of the hall.
    "I can tell you more about failure than I can tell you about success," he resumes. "I have failed many, many times in my life, before I managed to succeed even once. And I think that those hurtful, yet inevitable failures taught me more than my success has. They made me who I am. They made vigorous, strong-willed and persistent. I failed, but I never gave up. They taught me more than just the simple lesson of what not to do. They molded me, they helped me grow and they eventually lead me to success more than any school or any class ever did."
    The auditorium is stock-still, with my fellow students hanging to Mr. Portland's every word while I'm starting to seriously dislike him. This is supposed to be a graduate Econ class, not a self-help seminar, after all. Also, I don't like where he is going with this whole 'failure taught me more than school'-thing. Of course, someone like him would have to say that, since school was among his many failures.
    I raise my hand.
    He doesn't see me at first, and when he does, he seems to be startled. I reckon he is not used to being interrupted.
    His eyes meet mine with an explicable determination, as if he was preparing a defense for whatever I might have to say this early on.
    "Yes, please," he says, pointing in my direction. He takes a few steps toward me, reducing the distance between us. A weird sizzle travels along my spine when he approaches. It unsettles me for a second, before I'm able to brush it away.
    Heads are turning toward me, some of them - I am sure - accompanied by rolling eyes. I know I'm anything but popular among some of my peers, but I couldn't care less about that.
    "I'm sorry," I say, raising my voice as much as possible. "I am not exactly