Page 16 of The Grumpy Billionaire

Lizzie narrows her eyes. “It’s suspicious that they changed their mind after theypaidfor your relocation, because they would’ve vetted you by then. So what happened?”

Kelsey grins. “Lizzie has an idea. I can tell.”

“I just want to check something,” Lizzie says. “It’s probably nothing.” She asks me for my contact info.

“My new job isn’t that bad,” I say. “It’s in the administrative pool at Quantum Partners. The people are great, but I’m completely underqualified, as in, I’ll be spending tonight watching Microsoft Office tutorials.”

“Quantum Partners,” Willow says. “They’re the best.”

“Yeah. My older brother’s best friend works there. He got me the job.”

Kelsey turns to Willow. “Not just any brother’s best friend. It’s Hugo Jones.”

Willow’s eyes grow wide. “TheHugo Jones? The quant?”

“You’ve heard of him?”

“He’s legendary,” Willow says.

“Willow runs her own tech company,” Kelsey explains. “She’s all about the math and tech world.”

“What’s he like?” Willow asks.

I gaze out the window, unsure how to answer or even where to start. I’d need a month to fully describe Hugo. “He’s incredibly intense. Brilliant. Super loner.”

Willow grabs a cookie. “I’ve heard he hates people.”

“More like he hates talking to people, aside from a chosen few, like my brother.”

“Really,” Willow says.

I study my fingernails, remembering the intense set of his jaw that showed he was irked. The flash of his gaze when he was intrigued—I’d do anything for that intrigued flash. There were times I thought it was aimed at me, but it was my imagination. “People say he’s oblivious to anything that’s not math, but that’s wrong. He’s aware of everything—excruciatingly aware, a fact that is obvious if you watch him closely enough, which I did. I had the hugest crush on him.”

Kelsey sighs. “Brother’s best friend. The ultimate forbidden love.”

“Did he know?” Willow asks.

“No way. It was Hugo’s life’s goal to ignore and avoid me. Though there were these rare moments when we’d connect. Like sometimes we joked that we were switched at birth because Hugo’s parents are lively and colorful, always having parties. There were times you could hear singing and laughing, even standing on the sidewalk outside their house. Hugo would seem embarrassed, but singing in the middle of the day? Sign me up! Not that I didn’t love my family, but it was the quiet math nerd experience with me as the black sheep. He’d be like, ‘It’s not all fun and games at the Jones house.’ And I’d be like, ‘Hugo, even fun and games aren’t fun and games to you.’”

Lizzie has her phone out. “Googling.”

“He’s the ultimate perfectionist,” I continue. “He has these severe standards that people need to rise to. He’d hate when people seemed lazy or wouldn’t follow through. Even my brother, Charlie, would get frustrated, like, ‘Oh, Hugo won’t do this or that. It’s against his code.’”

“His code? Yeesh,” Kelsey says.

“Little things would drive him batty. Like God forbid that my shoes were untied. He’d tell me to tie them, and I’d say, ‘You tie them.’ And he’d really want to, but that was way too interactive for him, so he’d just stew about it. I’d sometimes untie one in front of him, just to tease him.”

“This you did to Hugo Jones,” Willow says. “THE Hugo Jones.”

“No wonder he avoided me like the plague, right? He and my brother were always into some project, and he ate dinner over all the time. I’d tease him like,‘Roboto, please expedite the salt ten inches at a ninety-degree angle’ instead of asking him to pass the salt. And then he’d be like, ‘That’s not even a thing.’ So disgusted with my antics. He’s no robot, though—that’s the truth.”

“Because you were crushing on him,” Lizzie says.

“Yes. Totally unrequited. I was the cat who went for the ultimate cat hater, or in this case, the ultimate Stella-hater. I wanted to curl up on his lap and have him pet me. And I would nuzzle him.”

“Maybe a nice tongue bath,” Kelsey says.

“You want to know the weirdest thing about him? Antisocial as he is, he has this shocking talent for giving the perfect gift. It’s like a magic trick. He once gave my mom a 3D-printed model of the Mandelbrot set, which is apparently a famous fractal, whatever that means. It’s sculpture made of resin that’s covered with intricate patterns and it was her favorite gift of all time, over and above most of the stuff her own kids gave her. Charlie got a few perfect gifts from Hugo, too, his favorite being an actual tricorder used in one of the Star Trek movies.”

---