Page 67 of Empire of Hate (Empire 3)

Usually, I don’t.

Usually, I swallow my food without even chewing. It’s only a mundane thing I religiously do so I’ll survive. I’ve never taken pleasure in eating.

Not since I saw my father kissing that woman with food all around them; then a week later witnessed him fucking another woman, by inserting all sorts of vegetables and fruits inside her arse while he had his limp dick in her cunt.

Place of the traumatizing event—the table we ate at every day.

Time—when I was twelve.

I told Astrid I loved my mother’s scones and we often fought for them, but whenever I had a taste of those unfortunate things, I threw them back up when my friend wasn’t looking.

It’s a habit I had for seventeen years, so I became a professional at training my stomach on which times it’s allowed to be a freak and which times it has to act as if food is the creation of heaven.

The taste of this pasta, however, is…peculiar. Simple yet exquisite in its ordinary ingredients.

“I didn’t,” Nicole replies to my earlier question. “Attention exhausted me. I always had to look a certain way, speak a certain way.”

“Be a bitch in a certain way.”

“That, too.” She has the audacity to flip her hair and I’m tempted to pull her down by it. “Couldn’t let anyone beat me in anything.”

“Until you lost it all.” I take another forkful, pausing to savor the taste. “Hurts to fall from grace, doesn’t it?”

“Not really. It felt peaceful.”

I narrow my eyes. “It felt peaceful to lose everything you ever owned?”

“It was never mine. I only enjoyed what I was given.”

“Am I supposed to applaud you now? Be fooled by your “I’m a changed woman” speech?”

“I don’t want anything from you, Daniel.”

“Not even your job? Because the door is right there.”

“Aside from my job.” She focuses back on the papers, fingers digging into the edges as if she’s stopping herself from ripping them to shreds.

It’s then that I realize I finished the pasta, the first meal I’ve enjoyed in…forever. I don’t even remember liking food all that much prior to the “Dad fucks with food” episode.

“What’s the name of the restaurant?”

Nicole’s head whips up so fast, I’m surprised it doesn’t roll on the floor post-decapitation style. “W-why?”

“Give me a name.”

“They’re…nobodies. I mean, they’re small. If you didn’t like it, I promise not to get you anything from there anymore.”

“On the contrary, I need all my future meals from there. What are they called?”

“Lolli’s,” she blurts, then winces.

“Bit weird name for a restaurant. Sounds like a stripper’s stage identity.”

“It is what it is.” She pauses, then asks suspiciously. “You really liked the pasta?”

“It’s fine.” It’s the best meal I’ve had since I was a teen, but she doesn’t need to know that. “Just tell them to have more variety and I’ll pay handsomely.”

“Got it.” She has a shit-eating grin on her face, and it makes her features happier, shinier—almost too girly.

---