Page 49 of The Rebel Billionaire

"Not your business,Aiden."

Aiden matched my glare for a long moment before he let out a long,resignedsigh.

"You're right, it's not my business," he said, the growl still in his voice. "And you're wrong because everything about my baby sister is mybusiness."

I let out a growl of my own and started past Aiden toward the stairs, saying over my shoulder, "You're annoying. I'm going up into the attic to grab some stuff. You're workingfromhome?"

"Just for a little while," he called after me. "Stop into my office before you leave. And give a shout if you have anything heavy to bring down. I'llgetit."

I shook my head at him as I climbed the second flight of stairs up to the attic. Aiden, for all of his alpha-male bossiness, had his mother-hen act down toanart.

The attic was not as creepy as it sounded. Our house was old, but not ancient. It'd been built at the end of an era in which families like ours had live-in staff. What we now used as the attic used to be staff quarters and thenursery.

These days, the only live-in staff were Mrs. Williamson and the gardener, both of whom had small private cottages on thegrounds.

In the years since we'd downsized, these rooms had been taken over by a disorganized array of old furniture, unused artwork, unlabeled boxes, and plasticstoragebins.

At some point in the last five or six years, Mrs. Williamson had taken a stab at bringing order to the chaos, but she didn't get very far before deciding it was a waste of time. Running Winters House was a full-time job and organizing the attic was a massiveproject.

She'd settled for making sense of a single room, the one that used to be the nursery. Now, it was lined with custom-built shelves filled with neatly stacked bins, all meticulouslylabeled.

This was where Mrs. Williamson stored holiday decorations, extra linens, and anything else she deemed important for the proper management of Winters House and the Winters family members in hercharge.

The other rooms remained a mess. I picked my way through the room where I thought I'd dumped my stuff fromcollege.

Hands on my hips, I surveyed the hodgepodge of boxes, bins, and loose junk strewn around the room. We really needed to do something about this. The problem was that sorting through old dusty boxes of stuff wasn't anyone's idea of fun. It definitelywasn'tmine.

I opened the first bin that looked like it could've been a few years old. Baby clothes, whose I don't know. Maybe mine or Annalise's based on all the pink. I refastened the lid and shoved it aside, reaching for a dusty greenplasticbin.

Papers and manila envelopes. A quick glance through the contents told me this was decades worth of report cards. I was not going throughthose.

The next bin had clothes, but not mine. These were for a boy, bigger than baby but not anadult.

Why did we save all thestuff?

As I realized the answer, tears filled my eyes. My mother had been a packrat. I'dforgottenthat.

Surrounded by storage bins she'd probably packed herself, I remembered my father teasing her about her need to hold on to every scrap of ourchildhoods.

She always smiled at him and said, "Someday, you'll thank me." I rested my forehead on the side of the bin and let outasigh.

I wished I had more of her than this. We had pictures, and somewhere up here, someone had probably packed up their clothes and things for us to deal with later. I wasn't sure if I wanted to find themornot.

Either way, they were both gone. Both my parents and my aunt and uncle. All of them gone. I dragged in a ragged breath, scrubbing my wet cheeks with the heel ofmyhand.

Crying about it wasn't going to do anyoneanygood.

I stood up and picked my way through the stacks of bins on the floor, looking for a new section to try out. I saw a bin that looked newer than the others, closer to the door. That couldbeit.

Peeling back the lid, I spotted a faded Emory Athletics T-shirt I remembered caging off an oldboyfriend.

Jackpot.

I tossed the lid on the floor and rummaged through the neatly folded clothes. Jeans, cut off shorts, piles of T-shirts. Exactly what I waslookingfor.

I checked the sizes on the jeans and was relieved to see most of them would still fit. That was something, but I'd thought there was more thanonebin.

Putting the top back on, I shoved it through the door and out into the hall. There'd been another bin next to it. Same color, looked to be the same relative age. I was pretty sure I'd filled one with sandals and sneakers and a fewsweatshirts.