Semua Bab The Secret Billionaire in Aisle 9 : Bab 61 - Bab 70

For all the wild stories Brenda Liao had collected in her years working retail—Black Friday brawls, toddler tornadoes, microwave explosions—nothing compared to the bombshell Marcus dropped on her in the breakroom the day before. Eli. The awkwardly charming, quietly observant, always-helpful Eli... Was Elijah Dane Whitaker. CEO of BuyMore. The man whose name floated above every corporate memo, whose signature was digitally stamped on every bonus payout, whose identity remained a mystery to nearly every employee nationwide. And he was here. Stocking printers. Managing returns. Getting tangled in ribbon aisle disasters. Brenda didn’t know whether to scream, laugh, or faint. But mostly—she was just... confused. At first, she’d tried to brush it off. People had secrets. She got that. Eli hadn’t hurt anyone. He wasn’t misusing pow

The store lights flickered softly overhead, humming in the stillness that came only after closing time. Shelves stood tidy. Registers sat silent. A faint lemon-scented cleaner lingered in the air. BuyMore, for the moment, was at peace.But Elijah Dane Whitaker—currently disguised in khakis, a store vest, and the name tag that simply read “Eli”—was not.He sat on the edge of the breakroom table, staring down at the floor tiles like they held some sort of cosmic solution to his impossible dilemma.Tell Callie the truth... or keep pretending just a little longer.Just until he could be sure.Sure she wouldn’t walk away.Sure she wouldn’t hate him.Sure he wouldn’t lose her.“Alright,” came a voice from the doorway, breaking the quiet. “Let’s rip off the Band-Aid.”Eli looked up. Brenda and Marcus stepped into the room, both wearing expressions too serious to ignore.He straightened automatically. “Hey, what

The next morning at BuyMore started like any other—humming fluorescents, the distant clang of a misaligned stock cart, and the comforting aroma of stale coffee wafting from the breakroom.But for Marcus and Brenda?Everything was different.They just hadn’t told anyone yet.“Okay,” Marcus said, walking alongside Brenda as they clocked in. “Let’s lay ground rules.”Brenda arched a brow without looking up from her tablet. “Rules? Already?”“You’re the one who said we had to be smart about this,” he said, holding open the staff room door. “No PDA, no gossip, no workplace drama. I’m just getting ahead of it.”Brenda stepped inside and turned to him with a smirk. “Fine. Rule one: No flirty comments in front of Callie. She already thinks everyone’s distracted.”“Got it. Rule two: No calling you babe while you’re yelling at the inventory software.”“Thank you,” she said flatly, placing her lunch in the fridge.

The BuyMore store felt unusually calm for a Friday.Not quiet—there were still the usual cart squeaks, distant register beeps, and Brenda’s voice over the intercom reminding customers of the “Buy Two, Get One Free” promo in seasonal décor—but calm.It wasn’t the kind of calm Callie trusted.She stood at the corner of the stockroom hallway, clipboard in hand, eyes narrowing as she watched Eli from a distance.He was joking with Felix and Naomi by the clearance shelf, sleeves rolled up, hair slightly tousled in that maddeningly attractive way that made it hard to stay mad at him—even when she very much wanted to.His laugh rang out, easy and warm.Normal. Too normal.Callie’s gut twisted.For weeks now, something hadn’t added up. Her instincts, once dulled by late hours and managerial overload, were sharpening again. The data inconsistency from the employee system. The falsified apartment address. The way Brenda a

The Tuesday morning rush at BuyMore had come and gone like a brief windstorm, and now the store hummed in a slow lull. But inside Callie Rivera’s head, it felt like thunder was still rolling.She stood by the customer service desk, arms folded tightly across her chest, eyes locked on the employee attendance log. Not because she was studying the chart—she’d already memorized it—but because staring at something concrete kept her from spinning off into yet another mental rabbit hole.Eli had clocked in on time, like always. Worked the floor, made customers laugh, restocked shelves like a pro. Nothing seemed amiss on paper.And that was what bothered her the most.Everything about Eli was just a little too perfect lately.The performance review had gone well. No red flags. No inconsistencies. He had passed with a smile and a cheeky wink, as if he’d done it a hundred times before.And that, Callie realized, might’ve been her first clu