Billionaire Brother Gave Me an Empty Card Now I'm Dumpster-Diving Thanks for the Love novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Declined Card
Erin cannot buy soup with the black card her brother gave her, goes home for her grandmother's quilt, is accused of stealing four rolls and an eighty-million-dollar spree, and sees the first charge came while the card was in her pocket.
The register at the dining hall beeped, and the cashier looked at the black card in my hand.
"Declined," she said. "That's the third time."
The line behind me stopped talking.
The soup cost four dollars and fifty cents.
My parents were worth more than the whole university, and I couldn't buy soup.
"I'll put it back," I said, and pushed the bowl across the counter.
A boy behind me said, loud enough for everyone, "That's the billionaire's daughter. The one from the campus paper."
His friend laughed. "Maybe she's saving her money."
I walked out with my face hot and my stomach empty.
Caleb had handed me that card three weeks ago, at my welcome dinner, and said Dad wanted me to have it.
I hadn't been able to use it once.
I hadn't told anyone.
My parents had cried when they brought me home, and I was afraid that if I asked for money they would decide I had only come for it.
So I ate free samples and the day-old rolls the bakery left out back.
That night the heat in my dorm died.
The room had been Caleb's idea. He told everyone I'd asked to live like a normal student.
Nobody had asked me anything.
I slept in my coat, with the window glazed white on the inside.
At two in the morning I knew what I needed.
My grandmother's quilt.
Gran had raised me in a laundromat apartment, and she died the winter I was seventeen.
When my parents found me, I had left the quilt in a box in the Kessling house, in a storage room on the third floor.
I took the bus out in the morning, in the dark.
The housekeeper let me in through the kitchen. She looked at my sneakers and said nothing.
On the counter sat a basket of dinner rolls from the family's party that night.
I was so hungry that my hands shook.
I put four in my bag.
Then I climbed to the third floor, found the box, and pulled out the quilt.
It still smelled like her dryer sheets.
I held it against my chest and cried for a minute, quietly.
When I came down the front stairs, the hall was full of people in evening clothes.
My brother stood at the bottom with a glass in his hand.
Caleb was twenty-eight and kind to everyone in the room.
He smiled at me first.
"Erin. You're up early."
"I just came for my quilt."
"Of course." He set down the glass and looked at my bag, where a roll showed at the zipper. "Is that from the kitchen?"
My face went hot again.
Brynn stood beside him in a silver dress.
She was twenty, the daughter my parents raised while they thought I was gone.
She was the only person in that house who had ever lent me a scarf.
She looked at the roll and then at the floor.
"I'm not angry," Caleb said gently. "The staff counted the silver last night, and now there's food in your bag. I only want you to be honest with me."
A woman in pearls whispered something to the man beside her.
"I took four rolls," I said. "I'm sorry. I should have asked."
"There," Caleb said warmly. "That wasn't hard."
Mom appeared on the landing in her robe.
Her eyes were red, the way they always were when she looked at me.
"Erin, honey," she said. "About the money, I've been wanting to..."
"She's fine, Mom," Caleb said. "I've got it."
Mom's mouth closed.
She held the banister and said nothing else.
Caleb took out his phone.
"Since you're here, there's something else," he said. "Dad's office froze your card yesterday."
"I know. It's been declined for three weeks."
"Declined." He nearly smiled. "Eighty million dollars went through that card in three weeks, Erin."
The hall went quiet.
He turned the screen toward the guests, and then toward me.
It was a statement with my name at the top.
A jeweler in Milan. A yacht charter. A private jet.
I hadn't been to Milan.
I had never even been on a plane until the one that brought me here.
"I never spent a dollar," I said. "I couldn't buy soup."
"Then who did?" Caleb asked, softly. "Who else has your card?"
Nobody answered him, and nobody looked at me kindly.
I had opened my mouth to say sorry again.
I closed it.
"No," I said. "I'm not apologizing for that."
I tucked the quilt under my arm and walked to the front door.
Nobody stopped me.
On the porch I opened my banking app with cold fingers.
My own account showed six dollars and thirty cents.
I had read the top line of that statement before he pulled it away.
The first charge was a necklace, at 8:12 on the night of my welcome dinner.
At 8:12 I had been sitting at the table with the card in my coat pocket.
And Caleb had been two chairs away, looking at his phone.
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