Everyone Used Me for Free, So the Billionaire Taught Me to Send the Bill novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Cake
At the Home's gala Jo is thanked for another free cake while her best friend and boyfriend announce a bakery built on her savings; she asks for the $14,200 back, and the hotel owner says the lease is his.
The director called my name from the stage while I was carrying a three-tier cake across the ballroom.
"And a big thank you to Jo Pennock, who baked this for us for free again!"
People clapped.
I kept walking, because the cake weighed twenty pounds and my arms were shaking.
I wasn't working that night.
I was a guest at the children's home where I grew up, at its thirtieth anniversary dinner, in my only good dress.
The director, Mrs. Lund, had met me at the door with an apron in her hand.
"Just this one cake, sweetheart. The caterer fell through."
It was the fourth cake I'd made for the Home that year.
I set it on the dessert table by the kitchen door, which was also where my seat was.
My phone buzzed against my hip.
My roommate had texted: "Your money is safe, Jo-Jo. Stop checking the account. Go be useful."
I had checked at four o'clock.
My savings account said $0.00.
She said she'd moved it to the joint account for safekeeping, for the bakery.
Fourteen thousand two hundred dollars, five years of tips and overtime.
I had put it in her hands because she asked, and I always say yes.
I've said yes since I was seven, when a lunch lady gave me half a portion of chicken and told me I'd eat the Home into the poorhouse.
I said sorry and handed back the plate.
Mrs. Lund waved at me from the stage and pointed at the bread baskets.
I picked one up.
At the head table a man in an ivory suit watched me cross the room.
Mason Greer owned the hotel, the ballroom and half the names on the donor list.
He had chaired the Home's board for a year, and he had never once said a word to me.
When I passed his chair, he said, "Sit down. You've been on your feet since the soup."
"It's fine," I said.
"Is it?"
He didn't say it unkindly.
I filled his bread plate anyway and walked on.
The lights dimmed and a slideshow began.
Photos of the Home, the garden, and the old Pennock Wing, where I'd lived from age six.
The Home gave every child a surname off its own walls.
Mine came from the oldest building, so I'm a Pennock.
Then Mrs. Lund said, "We have a success story to share," and Kayla and Troy walked onto the stage.
My boyfriend of two years had his arm around my best friend.
"Ames and Doyle Bakehouse," Troy said. "Opening on Lorain Avenue in November."
The screen behind him lit up with a logo.
A croissant with a heart in the middle.
I'd drawn it on a napkin at our kitchen table.
The next slide was a menu.
My pear tart. My rye croissants. My brown butter cake.
Kayla took the microphone.
"We couldn't have done any of it without our friend Jo," she said. "She gave us her recipes and her savings, bless her. And she'll never ask for it back. She never does."
The ballroom laughed warmly and clapped again.
Troy found me in the crowd and winked.
I stood there holding the bread basket.
Mrs. Lund smiled at me with her whole face, and she was waiting for me to smile back.
So I put the basket down and walked to the stage.
Nobody stopped me.
I stepped up and took the microphone out of Kayla's hand, and she let me, because she thought I would say thank you.
"Fourteen thousand two hundred dollars," I said. "I want it back tonight."
The room went quiet.
Kayla laughed and put a hand on my arm. "Jo. Babe. You're tired."
"We'll talk at home," Troy said.
"I'm asking here."
Kayla leaned in, and the microphone was still close enough to carry her voice.
"Nobody else wants you," she said. "Everyone puts up with you because you're free."
I heard it in the back row.
Mrs. Lund stepped between us with her hand on her chest.
"Joanna," she said. "This Home carried you for eighteen years. Please don't be ungrateful in front of our donors."
A few people nodded.
My face was hot, but I didn't hand the microphone back.
Then a chair scraped at the head table.
Mason Greer stood and buttoned his white jacket.
"Mr. Ames," he said, in a voice that reached the whole room without being raised. "Forty-one Lorain Avenue. That lease is with my company."
Troy's smile stopped.
Mason looked at me, not at him.
"Say the number again, Ms. Pennock."
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