Billionaire Romance Boxed Set 1(118)

“See,” I said as he sniffed the salami and began to lick it. “It’s food.”

He knew it was food, too. He sat down on his thin haunches and began to tear at the salami until it was shredded by his tiny teeth, clutched between his paws. He ate ravenously.

My smile turned off when I recognized the cause of the rapidity with which he ate. He was starving.

I knew what that was like. More children know starvation than you might think, but most of the other children couldn’t eat because their families were poor. I knew part of that with my Nagy, once my father abandoned me to her. His wife didn’t want any of her money going to feed me, and my grandmother found it hard to stay steadily employed with only her needlework and tailoring.

I had learned to turn off my appetite when it was needed. When my friends and I had gone on field trips to amusement parks, I would smile and laugh and watch the other children buy ten dollar lunches, claiming I had eaten a huge breakfast and then drinking lots of water. Water would fill my stomach, swell it out so that it looked like a normal teenage girl, or approximately that. Sometimes people would be kind and offer me some of their food.

“Here, have some of my fries. I can’t eat them all.”

Oh, to be so full that you didn’t want to eat french fries! What that must have felt like! Whenever I had the opportunity, I ate. Who knew when the next time would come? At buffets, I stuffed myself until I was overfull, and the binging way I ate ruined any chance at healthiness.

I had rituals with food, and every food had its own special way of being eaten. Cookies I would dip three at a time in a glass of milk, so that the third one had almost turned to mush by the time I got to it. Sandwiches I nibbled around the edges, saving the middle, uncrusted part, for last. Broccoli I munched the heads off of first, then sliced the stems into little cubes that I ate with a fork, like peas. Coffee I would sip even while it was burning hot, just to feel the way it trickled down my throat to my stomach and warmed me from the inside out.

Chocolate—oh, chocolate. I would smell the chocolate in my fingers, letting the warmth of my hand melt it slightly and deliver an intoxicating aroma to my nose. My tongue licked the side of the chocolate bar, tasting it first before placing it directly on the middle of my tongue, pressing it to the top of my palate and inhaling again, savoring the taste for as long as I could before it melted away. God, chocolate. Both my downfall and my salvation, chocolate could tempt angels to sin, if sin involved eighty percent or more of cacao.

Before that, though, I knew hunger for a different reason than poverty. My fake family was rich, but they starved me of love, and a single word from their lips could shrivel my appetite, and did.

Now I watched the kitten lick the taste of the salami from the floor, and I wished I had more to give him.

“I’m sorry, kitty,” I said, holding out a hand in apology. The kitten, tamed by his desire for food, padded quickly over to my hand and licked it questioningly. I let my fingers stroke his tiny head, his ragged ear. My thumb brushed over the snowflake pattern between his ears. A soft purring filled the space between us.

“You’re a lucky kitty,” I said. “It’s good luck I found you here.” I looked up at the dimly lit stairs. “Kind of lonely here, huh?”

The kitten skidded away from me when I stood up, but he stayed close at my heels as I picked up my bag and walked through the rooms to explore. It didn’t take long. The upstairs and downstairs had been built with the same layout, two rooms each, a bathroom, and a tiny kitchenette between. Each room had six bunk beds in it, two on each wall. I poked my head into the bathroom. Just a dingy shower, a sink, a toilet. One bathroom for twelve people? I shuddered.

The air in the rooms was stale and frigid, and I couldn’t find any kind of thermostat for the radiators. I considered calling Eliot—I had his number—but he was probably at his dinner with his brother. I wouldn’t want to interrupt. I tried to turn the stove on, thinking I might just leave the oven open for warmth. The pilot light flickered but the flames sputtered dead within a few seconds—gas must be off. I yawned. It had been a long day, and I just wanted to sleep. Dim light shone through the window, but I was exhausted from the plane rides.

I returned to the bedroom I had somewhat claimed as mine—the only one with a small window that you could look out of from the top bunk. I put on another two layers of shirts, but that was all that would fit under my tight hoodie. I put on another pair of socks, and the thin gloves that had protected me through the California winter, and sweatpants over my normal jeans. My teeth still chattered and my nose ran like nothing else.