#meet oc

Hometown: Arlington, VA but spent summers and holidays at the family estate in Newport, RI

Born: October 5, 1990

Siblings: One - twin sister, Cassie Valentine. He’s older by about 20 minutes and very much enjoys playing the older brother role.

Parents: Robert & Olivia Valentine

Grandparents (paternal): Asher & Myra Valentine

Grandparents (maternal): Henry & Gloria Maxwell

Education: Bachelor’s degree in International Political Economy and Business, Georgetown University; MBA in Multinational Management, Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania

Brief family history: Jonathan Hudson, was an innkeeper in Virginia in the early 1900s. He didn’t have sons to carry the legacy, but his daughter Alma married Beauclaire Valentine who was a natural at being an innkeeper and soon the family business expanded to cover hotels up and down the Eastern Seaboard, and eventually the United States. Now, there are Hudson properties across the United States and most major international destinations.

The business was originally called Hudson Inns, but it eventually became The Hudson Group. They kept the Hudson name in a nod to the founder, but everyone knows that it’s the Valentines that have run it for almost a hundred years. The Valentines are industrious with a serious work ethic that the twins inherited in spades.

Biography:

Max Valentine definitely got the overachiever gene in the family and is extremely ambitious. He loves every aspect of the hotel business and could never imagine doing anything else.

He and Cassie were expected to work in the hotels part-time throughout high school and university. He did rotations in all areas of the business during that time. If he was going to lead the company one day, he wanted to make sure he knew exactly how every part of the hotel worked, from front desk to kitchens to marketing.

Now, he and his team are responsible for identifying properties anywhere in the US or the world that could be either developed from scratch or converted into a Hudson Group resort. He has a boss, reporting into the Vice President of Development, so no free ride because of the family name. But he runs his own team and is the boss of that.

His job requires a lot of travel, often for weeks or months at a time. He’s used to it since his father had the same job when he and Cassie were younger. They travelled with their parents during that time until their dad moved into a corporate management role.

At that point, they settled permanently in Arlington, Virginia where the group headquarters is located. He and Cassie started high school (grade 9), their first formal school experience there. She liked being in one place as she’s more of a homebody, but it took Max longer to adjust.

He loves travelling and experiencing different cultures. That’s the fun part of his job; the not so fun part is the jetlag and not knowing where he’s going to be next. That makes it harder to make plans and he’s had to miss out on things, like Cassie’s ethics trial, as a result.

He can be too focused on his work which has resulted in broken dates and girlfriends that accused him of not paying enough attention to them. He doesn’t care. He’s determined to prove that he’s worthy of taking over the family business because he earned it and not because of his name.

Because of his busy schedule, he’ll block off a month every year to decompress, relax and just do nothing. He has a place in St. Thomas on the US Virgin Islands that he goes to for his vacation. He’ll stay offline as much as possible but is always available to his sister and parents.

He’s protective of people he loves and has a tendency to try to fix things, make it easier for others. But if Sienna or Cassie tell him to back off and let them figure it out on their own, he will do it.

On Money: He and Cassie have a trust fund that they’ll have access to when they turn 30. But because he’s been working for so long, he (like Cassie) invests his earnings and has a sizeable investment portfolio of his own money.

Random Facts: Unlike Cassie, he’s an early riser, often up at 5 am to get a workout in before going into the office. He’s usually at his desk by 7 am. He can be very laid back in his personal life, but in his professional life he turns into a shark.

He prefers tea to coffee (much to Cassie’s dismay) and spends way too much money on luxury watches and expensive liquor (he can afford it, so why not?). The last is something he and Ethan have in common, both being whiskey and scotch aficionados, the older the drink the better.

Past Relationships: He’s had two serious relationships in his life. The first was Sophie in high school; they dated for almost two years but broke up after graduation. It was amicable; they just chose different universities and didn’t want to do long distance. They met up again in their mid 20s and had a Friends with Benefits arrangement for a few years.

The second one was in university, Eva Rodriguez, who was Cassie’s friend and a dancer in the same ballet company as her. They were together for a little over three years, but Eva got an opportunity to audition for and then get a spot on the Les Ballet de Monte Carlo. She took it without mentioning or discussing it with Max and he found out from Cassie. They had a huge fight about it and the relationship ended badly.

Does he believe in the Valentine’s Love Forever concept? Yes, and no. He’s certainly seen evidence of it; it’s part of the family lore and he knows exactly what Cassie has with Ethan. So, he can’t say that he doesn’t believe it, but is more skeptical of it.

A part of him is still hurt by everything that went down with Eva, even though he doesn’t actively think about it. He’s not ready to fall in love yet, and certainly not the forever kind. But he would be open to it when it happens, and yes, he would know that it’s for life.