Page 9 of The Billionaire Boss and the Barista

The nine-hundred-square-foot apartment should have been spacious. Pedro’s furniture was modern and in good shape. Except she didn’t get to appreciate it because it was always covered in stuff.

Junk mail fliers joined piles of kitchen supplies still sealed in their original packages. These would be stacked next to brand-new paperbacks whose spines had never been cracked. There was a corner reserved exclusively for outdated computer equipment.

“This will all be valuable someday,” Pedro had insisted, adding a pink plastic apple computer to a carefully constructed tower. He pushed aside a crowded clothing rack on wheels to make room.

Many of those items were new, the tags still attached, but nonsensical for San Diego, like the heavy parka rated for subzero weather. Add that to the sports equipment he never used and what she called the promotional pile: objects like frisbees, mouse pads, tote bags, and more, all branded with the names of local businesses—things most people gleefully took but rarely used.

Her cousin’s collection material of choice were periodicals. Magazines mostly, but theUnion-Tribunenewspaper was a close second. It would have been first, but she had convinced him to give up his paper subscription in favor of the cheaper online one. At the same time, a few of his favorite magazines had folded.

Emma was convinced the death of print journalism was the only reason her cousin hadn’t been buried under his possessions.

He can’t help it,she reminded herself.

Something happened to Pedro’s brain every time he came into possession of a new object. According to her research, had she stuffed him in an MRI machine and handed him a pen, something in his gray matter would light up like a lightbulb as the pen went from a random object to a precious personal possession.

Maybe it was chemical. Or perhaps there were lesions in his brain as one research paper indicated.

She didn’t know. Emma only knew that trying to take something of Pedro’s hurt him on an almost physical level. That was why she always checked before she threw anything away.

Pedro still spoke of the time his mother had come and cleaned this place out, throwing away every old newspaper and recycling his magazines. He described it the way another person would describe a death in the family.

To him, it was the same thing.

“Emma.” Pedro emerged from his bedroom, flushed but neatly dressed in a blue button-down shirt and khaki pants. If you passed him on the street, you never would have guessed that his apartment would look like this.

“You’re home already!” he said a touch too brightly.

She knew the signs. Pedro was annoyed. He usually moved his hoard around while she was at work.

“I’m late actually.”

And wet but he hadn’t seemed to notice that, so she didn’t mention it.

“Are you rearranging?” she asked, stating the obvious. Her bedroom door was blocked by several large Tupperware containers stuffed full of miscellaneous, yet irreplaceable things.

He held up a finger. “I just need one more hour and it will be as good as new.”

“Uh-huh.”

Pedro bit his lip and winced, looking away. “I got your favorite Italian sausage pasta from the Pizzaz.”

Emma put her hand over her heart, tearingup. “You did?”

He gestured to the kitchen table, hidden by the pile of paperbacks stacked on the table behind the couch.

Thanking him, she stripped off her shoes and wet socks, leaving them at the door. He came to the table a little later—after clearing the path to her room.

“How was your day?” he asked.

Emma told him about the kitten. “I’ve got to get him out of the garage.”

“Try food,” he suggested. “It’ll be hungry.”

“I will,” she said, not giving her weird trip to the top floor another thought. “I have a plan for tomorrow.”

The next day Emma clocked out early. The cat was right where he’d been the day before.

She crouched down behind the red Ferrari, cooing with all her might.

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