Page 37 of The Billionaire Experience

He couldn’t.

He transferred both bags to one hand and reached into his pocket, showing her his Spanish coin. “This is the only coin I have, and it’s worth a hell of a lot more than a quarter.”

She plucked it up and examined it closely. “Antique?”

“Probably. My dad gave it to me. It’s lucky. Sort of.” Lately he’d wondered if it’d lost its luster. He’d been stumbling for a while—not his normal MO. She returned his coin, which he dropped back into his pocket.

“I need one of those.” He tapped the plexiglass next to a gold watch with a face that read Faux-lex. “Be right back.”

He set their bags at her feet and returned a minute later with three dollars in quarters. He piled the coins into her palm. “Knock yourself out.”

Her eyes lit up like he’d handed her a thousand dollars instead. She continued to surprise him at every turn, which, as a guy who liked unpredictability, suited him just fine.

She fed the machine four times. Then, her hands full of clear plastic balls with trinkets inside, she started for the door. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He carried the bags to the parking lot. “What was that about, anyway?”

“Nothing. Just a thing I do.”

“So you mentioned. Why don’t you explain it over lunch?”

“No way. I have too much to do. You’re piling bags full of my to-do list into the backseat,” she said as he did just that. “But before we go back to the house, I need to make a pit stop at my storage unit.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

That was all the explanation she offered until they arrived at said storage unit. She hopped out of the truck, and he followed. When they arrived at number 805, she brandished a key from her jeans pocket.

“The suspense is killing me,” he said. “Is the whole unit packed with crates of plastic jewelry?”

That earned him a laugh that made him want to kiss her. And not for the first time. The kiss from Friday night had been on his mind often over the last few days.

She raised the door, revealing mostly empty space. There was an armchair, a stack of cardboard boxes marked with neat block lettering, a matching dresser and nightstand, and an empty clothing rack on wheels.

“Dustin hated this.” She brushed her fingers along the red upholstered armchair. “This, and the dresser and nightstand, was the only furniture I kept after I moved out. He had an old-world style I didn’t much care for.”

She popped the top on one of the cardboard boxes. “And I couldn’t move furniture into Kelly’s apartment. It’s a one-bedroom, so I couch it.”

“I couched it plenty when I wrote my first book,” he said. “Sleeping on the couch was more comfortable than in my car.”

“You slept in your car?”

“More times than not.”

“And this was when you wrote the book where you pretended to have no money.”

“The book where I chose not to live off my wealth,” he corrected.

“But you still had access to it.” Her forehead crinkled.

“Yeah, but I didn’t use it.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just hard to picture you crashing on a couch with a million or so in the bank. You do seem approachable, though.”

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