Page 135 of The Billionaire Boss and the Barista

Emma’s doctors hadn’t said anything of the kind. But that was almost enough to derail him. “No, and you watch too much TV. This isn’t about that.”

He sucked a deep breath. “I just met Stella, Emma’s kid sister.”

Elias grunted. “That clarifiesnothing.”

It was a good thing he was sitting down. Garrett was getting dizzy just contemplating saying this aloud. “I need you to go into my bedroom closet. I have some photo albums on the top shelf.”

His aunt Phil had the family photos meticulously recreated for him almost a decade ago. He had never uploaded the JPEG scans they’d made to the cloud, but the fine leather photo albums the photography studio sent him were right there in his closet.

Garrett hadn’t looked at them in years.

“I need you to find the oldest. Find the picture labeled ‘Iris, first day of school.’”

His mother would have been five in that photo. That would have been the same age Stella was now.

“It should be somewhere in the middle of the album,” he added.

There was no noise on the other end of the line.

“Elias, I really need a copy of that picture right now.”

It was a good thing his friend was quick on the uptake. “Uh, yeah. Of course.Wow. Shit.”

Garrett waited, trying to calm down. If he was right—no, he couldn’t think about it now.

There was noise finally, rustling and stuff being moved around. “Have I ever told you you’re a neat freak?” Elias asked.

“I’m not,” he mumbled. “I just have a very good cleaning service.”

“Shit, there’s like a dozen albums here. Which one is the oldest?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, picturing the albums in his head. “The spines have the years they cover printed on them.”

“Oh, I see them.” More rustling. “I think I got it.”

An eternity later there was a click and then a picture popped onto his screen.

Everything stopped. He could feel every molecule of air in his lungs, the blood rushing through his veins.

“Well? Don’t keep me in suspense. Is this what the kid looks like?”

His mother’s hair and skin were lighter but the eyes and mouth and the shape of the nose were identical. They could have been twins.

“Yeah.” He swallowed. “She looks just like this.”

More silence.

“It could be a coincidence,” Elias said. “A lot of little kids look like each other. Do you have a photo of Emma’s kid sister? You need to do a side-by-side comparison to know for sure.”

“Uh…” He’d met Stella for all of two minutes when Emma introduced her. Damn it, he should have offered to snap a picture of the two of them, to commemorate the occasion.

“Can you check Emma’s old room? It’s the one across the hall.”

He waited.

“No, there’s no picture frames out.”

Garrett groaned. That was what he thought but had hoped he remembered wrong.

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