Page 78 of Billionaire’s Promise

I dragged my unwilling limbs to the kitchen. I knew I wasn’t going to find anything in the fridge apart from some sparkling water. I hadn’t bought any food for a while since I started trying out intermittent fasting. I opened the door anyway.

Food.

I rubbed my eyes, just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Pre-packaged food stacked neatly on the shelves. Fruits and what looked like salad filled the vegetable drawer. A tray of eggs. A loaf of bread. Who put all this food in my fridge? There was more than one person with access to my apartment. Mom, Dad, Lincoln, Chloe, Liam and my assistant. It could be any of them. But why?

I wanted to know who did it, but my need to know wasn’t as strong as my need to avoid social contact. It was one of those people who cared about me, that much I knew. For now, it was enough. There were still people in the world who loved me. Even though Kai Li didn’t. Not that I ever asked him to. But our one date together was so bad that he gave up after that.

I took out the first box I could grab and opened it. Lasagna. Perfect.

I stuck the whole box inside of my microwave. The plastic that came with it was safe to be microwaved, even though I could totally hear my mother nagging me for doing so. I couldn’t care less about eating microplastics or having negative energy in my blood. Any kind of energy will do.

Not caring how the lasagna looked, I tipped the whole thing upside down onto a plate and stabbed a fork in it. I could have eaten it straight out of the plastic tub. It would save me from washing one less thing.

Damn. That was what being civil did to me.

Whatever. I could just throw away the plate when I was done with it.

The lasagna tasted fine. It was definitely not my mother’s cooking. Not that she was a bad cook, but her version of lasagna was comforting, greasy and ugly. Even when it was upside down, I could tell that the person who made it definitely put a lot of care into it. It was so good that it could rival some upper-class restaurants.

Wait. Who actually bought this?

Mom was the only person who would cook lasagna. No one else in my family would choose to buy a lasagna like this. Not even Chloe. Sure, they might buy something from a supermarket, but not in a good quality reusable Tupperware container like this with ‘cooked with love’ written all over it. There was no way you could get something like this in New York City.

I rushed to the fridge and opened the tubs one by one. Pork chops. Steaks. Steamed vegetables. Egg fried rice. Chicken fried noodles. Vegetarian looking sausages. None of these things were from the same restaurant. Unless it was made to order. Still no clue of who brought the food.

Turning around, I headed right for the bin underneath the sink. There I found it. A large paper bag with the word Calling on it. One of Kai’s restaurants.

Kai did all this? It was probably his assistant. Still…why?

I refused to believe that it was just something he did for everybody. Nobody would do that. Mr. Doorman confirmed that he hadn’t returned.

I’d had enough of these mixed hot and cold messages.

I picked up my phone and dialed the only number I knew who could explain all this.

“Where is he?” I demanded without a hello from the other end.

“June?”

“Where. Is. He?” I repeated. My impatience was going to pierce through my phone.

“Kai?” My brother’s thick skull finally registered. “I haven’t heard from him.” Shit. My hand lost its grip, and my phone dropped on my floor.

“Hello.” I heard my brother shouting from the phone. “Are you okay?”

A chill traveled up my spine. Something had happened to Kai. Or Jenny. Or Lucy.

I didn’t want to imagine the worst. But this was the kind of shit that happened to him.

The mean, billionaire dude with a reputation like his.

I knew in my gut that they wouldn’t all disappear at once. It must have something to do with the missed calls that he got during lunch.

Picking the phone back up and putting it on speaker, I left it on the kitchen island. “He’s gone.”

It hurt when I heard myself saying that.

“Where is he?” Lincoln sounded shocked. It had to be the first time he’d heard this information.