Page 39 of Billionaire Unreachable: Wyatt

“What’s wrong, Ted? You didn’t like the stroganoff today?” I asked as I stopped strolling around the small dining room at The Friendly Kitchen to talk to one of the regulars.

I didn’t know every single person who used the facility, but I knew some of the regulars who used the soup kitchen often. Ted hadn’t been using the facility for long, but he came here almost every day.

Wyatt had convinced me to be cautious, so I’d agreed to start doing all of my volunteer work here during the day.

Because Wyatt had asked, I’d also turned down any catering gigs for now, which had made it easier for me to shift my volunteer hours.

In many ways, I enjoyed that change.

I got to spend more time with the people who used the soup kitchen instead of just doing the prep work.

I now came to The Friendly Kitchen in the afternoon Monday and Tuesday to prep and cook. After that, I was able to spend a little time during the early dinner hour to check on the diners to see how they liked the food.

After listening to all of Wyatt’s reasons for doing so, I’d also decided to give up my apartment because it was the reasonable thing to do.

I was never going to live there again. I’d need to find a new place once we sorted out what had happened with the break-in. Even if we could figure out who the perpetrator had been, I’d always feel uncomfortable there because of what had happened.

We’d put a lot of my things into storage, and I was now saving a ridiculous amount of money by not having to maintain an apartment while I was hanging out somewhere else.

That needed to end soon.

I couldn’t stay with Wyatt forever. I’d already been at his house for over two weeks, and the police had zero leads on the case. Although he never seemed to mind my presence, I felt guilty for freeloading at his place.

I could find an apartment with a better kitchen that would work for me.

Really, between the ridiculous wage Wyatt was giving me for dog sitting—which he refused to stop paying—and the money coming from my increased efforts with my blog, I didn’t need what I’d made for catering events.

I was also getting close to finishing my cookbook, which I hoped would be successful now that I was getting more name recognition.

Financially, I was doing well because my blog was becoming even more popular and profitable every day. Wyatt was helping me monetize it in ways that wouldn’t compromise the quality of the blog, which had helped me a lot.

He’d been so much more than generous with his time in the evenings, and he was patient.

Little by little, communication had become much easier with Wyatt, and he seemed more comfortable dropping some of his bullshit when we were alone together.

I could feel the presence of Wyatt’s security personnel around me. They were posing as diners, but they were apparently good at blending into any environment. No one else even seemed to notice them.

Luckily, nothing weird had happened since the burglary, which was making me relax a little more every day.

“I liked it,” Ted finally answered with a frown. “I guess I’m just not that hungry today.”

I sat down in a vacant chair across the table from him, my heart aching for this big man who had apparently spiraled down in the world so quickly.

Nobody knew a lot about him, but it was common knowledge that he’d lost his entire family—his wife and three children—in a car accident not so long ago.

He’d started drinking, and from what I understood, he’d lost his job.

I could empathize with his loneliness and his sorrow, and I could certainly relate to losing a family to a tragic accident.

I reached out and took his hand as I said, “I could make you something else. You didn’t eat much.”

His eyes went to our joined hands, his expression sad and hopeless. “I don’t want anything else. I just want my family back.”

“I know you do,” I said gently. “And I wish I could give them back to you. I lost my parents in a car accident. I know it’s not the same thing, but I know a little about how difficult it is to get over something like that.”

He looked down at his nearly full plate, and he asked in a desperate voice, “How did you get through it?”

“It was hard at first, but I knew my parents would want me to have someone else in my life who loved me. I was lucky. I had family. Do you have anyone, Ted?”

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