Page 34 of The Billionaire's Fortunate Accident
This is really going to happen!
Chapter Eighteen
Jessa
-Wanted to say hi. I see now what you were saying about how something you feel passionate about can take up almost all of your time. I’ve only got time to catch a few hours of sleep, and my mind keeps going even then. Miss you. Thinking about you. -
Midnight had just rolled around, and I was writing a financial report at Hamburger Hut. It had only been three days since I’d last seen Stone. The day he’d brought me the brown bag special that was unlike any special I’d ever had.
-Miss you too. Proud of you, though. One day, you’ll be able to slow down a bit, catch your breath. When you do, I hope I’m at a slow moment in my life too. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, someone once said. I’m here to say that it’s true. I’ve grown quite fond of you, Stone. Night. -
It wasn’t easy to get Stone off my mind as I added and subtracted numbers for the report. Once my shift was over, I went home, feeling a little lonely. I hadn’t even realized that I’d gotten used to Stone’s company, even if it hadn’t been more than bits of stolen minutes here and there. I missed seeing his face and hearing his voice.
He must’ve been swamped if he hadn’t had time to call in the last three days. Even though it was on a much smaller scale than an entire restaurant, opening a bistro must be hard and time-consuming work.
The next morning, I’d packed a turkey sandwich and a bag of chips for lunch and grabbed it on my way out. Getting to the hospital, I’d hid the bag way in the back of the fridge, hoping no one would find it. I’d written my name on it too, but that would mean nothing to a starving nurse or intern or even a doctor.
When I walked past the nurse’s station in the emergency department, I smelled something with cinnamon. Looking around, I found a tray of small golden cubes. “These for anybody?” I asked the closest nurse.
“Yeah. You have to take and fill out a card, then leave it in that little box. Or you could do it online too.” She pointed them out, and I took a card before taking a sample.
The nurse took a sample too. “It’s my third one, but I can’t help myself. They’re so good.”
Taking a nibble, I wasn’t sure what I was eating — I tasted egg, ham, and something sort of nutty and cheesy. “Wow, like a full breakfast in one bite.”
“Yeah, breakfast bites,” she said, then pulled out a card she had in her pocket and wrote something down on it. “One of the questions is about product names. I think breakfast bites fits.”
“I agree.” I popped the whole thing into my mouth as I looked at the card. The ingredients were on the back of the card, together with the nutrition statistics. There were a few questions on the front of the card. One of them was what names you would give to this food. Another one was about appearance. And then there was one about the taste rating on a one to ten scale. “I’d rate this an eight.”
“I’d give it a ten,” the nurse countered. “It’s got it all in one bite. I’d say maybe five or six of these things, and you’ve got an entire meal out of the way.”
The web address was vague, too — answerfoodquestionshere.com.
“Do you have any idea who brought these?” I had to wonder if Stone had something to do with it. The food was great. The nutrition stats had him written all over them too.
“Not a clue. I’m thinking it must be some food company that wants to see if these are good enough to package and sell, probably in the frozen food section.” She looked around as the door to the ER opened. “Duty calls.”
“See ya.” I went down the hallway then took a left to see if I could find a doctor to shadow for the first part of my day. No one was around the emergency department, so I headed to the ICU and found some more food there. “Hey,” I said to the intern snacking on something. “What have you got there?”
“Well, it’s ham rolled around some cheesy tasting eggs. But the egg is flat, so they roll up great together. And there’s some other stuff in the egg, like bell peppers and stuff like that. It’s good. One was pretty much good enough to fill me, but they taste so good that I’m on my second one.”
More little business cards sat next to the tray. I picked up a card and a ham roll, reading the ingredients. “It says there are hemp hearts in this.” I had no idea what those were. “You feeling okay after eating two of these?”
“Are you serious right now?” he laughed. “That stuff can’t get you high. Not even a little. Do you know anything about pot, Miss Moxon?”
“No, not really.” Real pharmaceuticals classes didn’t hand out any information on marijuana. I took a bite and found it good even though it was at room temperature. “Yum.”
I took out my pen and jotted down breakfast rolls where it asked for a name for the product. I knew it was a spin-off from the breakfast bite, but I didn’t care.
Another intern walked up with something in her hand. “Hey, I found these in the maternity ward. Check it out.” She opened the lid of a Styrofoam container. “It’s a freaking Monte Cristo sandwich. Only it’s got lots more stuff in it. Red, yellow, and green bell peppers are mixed in with the scrambled egg. And it tastes like there’s cheese in it, but there ain’t any. It’s something called nutritional yeast.” She held out one of the small cards. “Look at the ingredients.”
“Sourdough bread.” I stopped and looked up as I remembered that Stone had used sourdough bread in the last thing he’d made for me. “Interesting. Smoked ham, farm-fresh eggs mixed with a variety of bell peppers, and nutritional yeast to replace cheese.” I noticed there was kosher salt on the list too. I knew that was something Stone used exclusively over regular salt. “Did either of you see who delivered these trays?”
They both shook their heads. I popped the rest of the breakfast roll into my mouth before setting off to check out each department’s nurse’s stations for healthy foods.
I found most of the trays empty by the time I got to them all. And no one had seen the person who’d delivered these things either. So, since I had the night off from Hamburger Hut, I got on the computer as soon as I got home.
Pulling the business card out of my pocket, I punched in the web address, confident that it would give me more insight into who was behind this. I’d been wrong. The page was in black and white and offered nothing about who or what company was behind the free samples.
