Page 28 of The Billionaire's Fortunate Accident
Pulling the tray towards me, I removed the lid, since I knew he wasn’t about to give up anytime soon. “I had no idea how tenacious you were, Stone.”
“There are lots of things that you don’t know about me yet. We’ll fix that as time goes by. So, what’s your first impression of this meal?”
“Honestly, it looks colorful. I know from the nutrition courses I’ve taken that colorful food means healthy food.”
“Ah, so you do know a thing or two about nutrition. You simply don’t follow a diet full of nutritious foods.” He tapped the desk with his fingers. “Is that because you don’t have any available foods that are good for you and taste good while working here or at the hospital?”
“Yep.” I pulled a plastic-wrapped fork out of the desk drawer. “I’ll give this a taste. From what I see, it looks appetizing. But the real test is the taste. Just because something looks good doesn’t mean that it is. From my experience, healthy foods don’t have much flavor. Or if they do, it’s on the acidic or sulfuric side. I hate broccoli and cauliflower because they taste like sulfur.”
“Noted,” he said as he sat up, watching me like a hawk. “Be honest with your critique, please.”
“Is this supposed to be served at room temperature?” I looked at the microwave on the small table. “Should I zap it first?”
“Don’t you dare,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s good at room temp, I promise.”
“Okay then.” I went for a bite from the yellow bell pepper first, making sure to get some of the filling along with it. “Are these chickpeas?”
Eagerness filled his face. “They are.”
“Oh.” I’d never cared for those. “Okay, well, here it goes.” The bell pepper had a slightly sweet taste, the chicken balanced well with the other ingredients, and the texture was good. “A nice crispness to the pepper. I like that. It’s not mushy at all. You’ve used some seasonings that I’m not familiar with. But I like them. And I couldn’t make out the chickpeas, so that was good because I don’t care for them.”
“Would you buy something like this?” he asked with wide eyes as I took another bite.
As I chewed it up, I tried to be honest while remaining objective. I swallowed the bite as I thought about the question. “How much money would something like this cost? Not to make it, but to buy ready from a restaurant.”
“The cost of the ingredients was around fifteen dollars. It made six servings. So, it cost me about two dollars and fifty cents for each serving. It took around an hour to make. In most restaurants, it would probably sell anywhere from ten to fifteen dollars, depending on their overhead,” he said.
“So, here’s the thing. I get a free meal here. At the hospital, I have a budget of ten dollars a day. And that’s for snacks and lunch. I couldn’t afford this, is what I’m saying. If it was within my budget, I would buy it, though. It’s really tasty, and from the ingredients, I can see that it would be a lot easier on my stomach than what I have been eating. And the fact that you can eat it at room temperature and it still tastes good is a winner in my book.”
“Thank you,” he said, then stood. “I’ll leave you to your work then.” He turned to leave but then stopped and turned back to face me. “For the record, I’ve never hung around with any woman long enough to have an argument with her. The fact I wanted to talk things through with you means a lot. Just wanted you to be aware of that. I’m not about to walk away because it gets a little uncomfortable at times. I’ll see you tomorrow with something else to eat. Ten-ish again?”
I nodded. He’d kind of blown my mind, and that had left me feeling a little speechless. But then I found my voice. “Just so you know, I haven’t had arguments with anyone I’ve dated. I never cared enough to let them know what I thought about anything they did that bothered me. We would just sort of drift apart. You don’t seem to be a drifting-off type of man.” A smile pulled my lips up at the corners. “That’s kind of cool.”
With a wink, he asked, “What if this all works out, and you end up believing in things you never thought you would?”
Chapter Fifteen
Stone
With one item added to my menu, I felt like I’d finally achieved something. But one item wouldn’t be enough. I needed more. So, I made a list of superfoods that packed the nutrients people needed to be healthy.
Nuts and berries, leafy greens and whole grains, cruciferous vegetables and tomatoes, legumes and yogurt, olive oil, and fish; these made up the list of foods said to be super. But these foods alone couldn’t make up the dishes I would serve. The food I made had to be as tasty and beautiful as it was healthy.
Going back to the lunch I’d had with Patton, I thought about the egg roll and burrito idea. Those would be foods people could eat on the go, and I could fill them with only the best ingredients. Snack packets filled with nuts, dried berries, dark chocolate chips, and coconut flakes would be an inexpensive pick-me-up.
Ideas started flowing in, and I wrote them all down as I perused the internet for all the information I could get on the foods I would serve. My eyes fell on the clock on my laptop screen, and I realized it was six in the morning.
“Crap, I’ve gotta come up with something for Jessa and have it there by ten.” With only four hours left to come up with an idea, buy the food, then come back and make it, I had to hurry.
Amazingly enough, even though I’d had very little sleep during the night, I was wide awake and raring to go. The usually full parking lot at the grocery store that stayed open all night was almost empty at that early hour. When I went inside and grabbed a cart, I felt like I had the place all to myself.
“Hi,” a woman’s voice came out of nowhere. “You’re up early.”
Spinning around, I saw her coming out of a side door near the entrance. “Oh, there you are. Hi. Yeah, I’m beating the crowds this morning.”
“Happy shopping.”
I was about to have some very happy shopping. I went to the vegetable department first, finding a ripe avocado, some fresh cilantro, a Roma tomato, some fresh garlic, and one small, sweet onion. I also found a shelf with egg roll wrappers — luckily, the coconut ones were in stock, so I got them.
