6. Peter Is Nosy
6
Peter Is Nosy
“ I hope you’re not allergic to cats,” Kristoff says, voice completely insincere, as he unlocks the door to his home. “They have run of the condo. There’s cat dander in every single nook and cranny.”
I’m not allergic to cats and I can smell immediately that Kristoff’s home is immaculately clean. There isn’t even the tiniest whiff of cat. “They?” I can’t help but ask. “How many do you have? Are you secretly a crazy cat lady?” I detect zero evidence of cats, but the condo Kristoff ushers me into is pitch dark. The only light comes through the windows in the form of twinkling city lights seen from far above. Beyond the lights is the huge black void that is Lake Michigan at night. I haven’t gotten a good look at it and I’m already jealous of his view.
“I have three cats,” Kristoff says flatly, then, “Lights.”
The lights around us blaze, making me blink. When I’m accustomed to the brightness, I see his place is cavernous. You could take my enormous office at Minola and dump eight of them in here and still have room left over, and that’s just what I can see. There’s a huge, sterile-looking kitchen, a massive dining table with a dozen chairs, and a seating area facing the view of both the city and the lake. One wall is covered in bookcases so high it has one of those rolling ladder things to reach the upper shelves.
Like Kristoff’s Mercedes, this place is both understated and ostentatious as fuck. There’s no obvious bling or anything at all showy, unless you count that library ladder, but the entire space reeks of effortless wealth.
The conspicuous waste of it sets my teeth on edge. He’s one human, with three theoretical cats, living in what amounts to a high-rise mansion. He doesn’t need half of all this expensive square footage. He doesn’t even need an eighth of it. Meanwhile his father can’t afford the cancer medication my mother needs. It makes me want to smash things.
I turn and thrust the folder full of Beckett’s notes at Kristoff, hitting him in the midsection and forcing a soft “oof” from him. “Start translating this for me.” Then, because I’m nosy, I make a beeline for the wall of bookshelves.
“Just make yourself at home,” Kristoff says dryly, then goes to sit on a high stool at the kitchen bar. He opens the folder and starts sorting through the papers inside.
Leaving him to it, I traverse the wide expanse of his home like a hobbit on a mission to find the One True Ring until I’ve reached the nearest bookcase. I was expecting the painful tidiness of the condo, so I’m unprepared for Kristoff’s bookshelves. The only order I can see is that there is no order at all. It would probably give Marie Kondo a heart attack. Battered and threadbare books are shelved carelessly next to ones that look pristinely new. There’s A Tale of Two Cities next to O n the Origin of Species , which almost makes sense in that they were published at the same time, but next to them is a tattered copy of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. I think maybe the connection is that they’re all written by English authors but the next book is Running With Scissors so I give up figuring out the mysteries of Kristoff Minola’s book collection. Mysteries aren’t my forte, anyway, which is why I’m here in the first place.
For lack of anything better to do I move on to the next bookcase, but I feel the ankle of my slacks snag on something. I look down and see an orange paw hooked into the fabric, so I stop and stoop down to see the first shred of evidence that there are cats in this condo.
This cat is barely contained on the second shelf from the bottom. He’s absolutely massive, and at first I wonder if this is two cats, or if the cat is female and pregnant with a dozen kittens. Tentatively I pet the cat’s soft orange fur, eliciting a loud asthmatic purr.
“That’s Falstaff,” Kristoff says absently. “He sheds, drools, and might throw up on you.”
I turn to look at Kristoff, but he’s still got his head bent to his task. “Charming,” I say.
Kristoff grunts but doesn’t otherwise reply so after extricating myself from a pawful of claws, I move on. For every book I recognize, there are two or three here I don’t. Fiction, non-fiction, historical, scientific, and every kind of genre fiction I’ve ever heard of and a few that I haven’t. Space opera and steampunk novels are next to mysteries featuring bakers and, inexplicably, corgis. There are several fantasy novels involving cats, although I suppose those make sense to a cat daddy, but just as many books with dragons and unicorns. There are even romances in here, which are probably the oddest find of all. I can understand Jane Eyre . That’s literature. But right next to it are several vintage bodice rippers, complete with shirtless heroes and heroines almost wearing gowns on the covers, and most unexpected of all, Amish romance.
I pivot to look back at Kristoff. He’s now flanked by two Siamese cats, each one sitting on a stool next to him. Their blue eyes watch intently as he flips over pages and writes down what each one means.
“Why Amish romance?” I ask.
Kristoff looks up, one inky eyebrow raised in aristocratic hauteur. “Why Amish romance in what way?”
“No. Just why Amish romance? Why does it exist and why do you own it?”
“The books exist because there is a market for them. Did you pay attention in any of your classes or did my father just buy your degree?”
“That’s rich, coming from you,” I snipe back.
“Excuse me?” Kristoff sets his pen aside. “You’re the one who can’t read shorthand and didn’t think to do any kind of exit interview with Steve. Meanwhile it’s fortunate for you that I do read shorthand. Because I hoped to take over his position, I became knowledgeable with Steve’s day-to-day tasks as well as any projects that were coming up on the horizon. I graduated magna cum laude with my bachelor’s from Yale and summa cum laude with my MBA from Harvard. I earned my education. I’m beginning to wonder if you can say the same.”
His words make me angry enough to throw one of his precious books across the room, but I breathe through it. I was accepted at both Harvard and Yale, as well as Princeton, but where I went for undergrad was the University of Michigan and then I did my MBA at Northwestern. The schools I went to are top rated for business, but they’re not Ivy League, and both were considerably cheaper than a Yale/Harvard double whammy. No expense was ever spared for the son who couldn’t be bothered with his family. The red-haired stepchild got the scraps. Which is fair, I suppose. I’m not blood. But I have done everything to be the perfect son. I’ve swallowed my true thoughts, I’ve pretended to be straight, hell, I’ve jumped through every single hoop like a trained dog. Nevertheless, I’m never good enough. I will always be lesser to people like Kristoff. There is nothing I could ever do to prove that I’m worthy.
It makes me that much more determined to win this little game we’re playing. I’m the one who deserves to be Baldwin Minola’s heir. Kristoff lives in this giant, beautiful home and inherited half of his grandfather’s money. He doesn’t need to work a day in his life. I need this job way more than he does. I don’t have a trust fund to prop me up my entire life. All I have is my education and a shit ton of determination. I will win.
I have to.
When Kristoff hands me the translated notes I read through them, wondering if he’s setting me up, but what he’s got here makes sense, based on what I already know independently. I nod and thank Kristoff absently.
He gives me a very strange look in return. “Um. You’re welcome?”
It occurs to me that I’ve been polite and courteous, which is my default setting. I’m supposed to be antagonistic twenty-four/seven, but it’s late and I don’t have the energy right now. Still, I’m not supposed to be nice to this asshole, even if he’s not at all what I expected him to be. He’s haughty and arrogant and obviously a snob, yes, but he has the most interesting library I’ve ever seen, and he owns a fat, drooling, and vomit-prone cat. There is more to him than what he shows on the surface, which is all prickly asshole.
“Be in my office tomorrow at six,” I say, knowing that won’t allow much sleep for either one of us. I look at the couches in his library and want, more than nearly anything else in the world, to curl up on one and go to sleep.
Kristoff’s expression changes but is still off in a way I can’t quite put my finger on. “Is that when I have to face your consequences?” he asks.
That throws me for a second, which shows how tired I am. “Uh, right. Yeah.” I have no idea what kind of punishment to mete out. This kind of situation was not covered in any of my business classes.
Kristoff smiles sardonically. “You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”
“I know exactly what I’m doing,” I snap back at him. This is, however, debatable.
He nods sarcastically, which up until now I didn’t know was possible. “Do you, though?”
I glare at Kristoff, my drowsiness temporarily pushed away by my anger resurfacing. “Just be in my office at six,” I say stiffly. “Don’t be a minute late.”
He raises an eyebrow at me again. “Or what?”
Why is he pushing me? It’s like he’s throwing down a gauntlet. Mental note, Kristoff does not lose his edge when tired. If anything, he’s edgier.
“Guess you’ll have to find out,” I say in as carefree a voice as I can manage. I tuck Beckett’s notes under my arm then stroke each cat behind its ears. I’m amused to find this is what finally ruffles Kristoff. He looks sulky as fuck that his cats like getting scritched by me. “Jealous I didn’t rub you behind the ears too?” I ask him sweetly.
Kristoff grits his teeth then says, “I’ll see you in the morning, Peter.”
“I believe we already established that it’s Mr. Verona or Sir.”
He shoots me an undecipherable look. “Put it on my tab,” he says. Then he stands, clucks his tongue, and says, “Time for bed, boys.” The two Siamese on the stools jump lightly down onto the floor and the fat, orange library cat oozes off his self like a fur sack containing no bones whatsoever. Kristoff turns his back on me and strolls away into his home. I, clearly, have been dismissed.
Shaking my head, I let myself out of his condo and order a taxi to take me home. The entire night was very strange and I’m not sure exactly what to make of Kristoff. There’s a push and pull to him I don’t understand. At least not yet.
It Isn’t until much later that it occurs to me. Kristoff never explained the reason why he had Amish romance in his book collection. Kristoff is a puzzle, but I’m going to take him apart, piece by piece.