When the Billionaire Begs novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: Nothing on the Napkin
I woke in Stellan's bed with the river light on the ceiling and his side of the mattress empty.
I could smell coffee.
He stood at the stove in a gray T-shirt, barefoot, frying eggs.
His back was to me and his hair was on end.
"Don't look so surprised," he said without turning. "I do eat."
"I thought you lived on noodles."
"That was for you."
I pulled his sweater over my head and padded across the floor.
On the table lay a thin, battered book with a cracked blue cover.
I stopped.
"That's my sketchbook."
"Yes."
"I lost it the last day of art school. I looked for it for a month."
"I know. I had it." He turned off the burner. "You left it on the radiator in the studio. I picked it up to give it back, and then you were gone to New York with a boyfriend, and I couldn't make myself mail it."
"Seven years, Stellan."
"Seven years. I'm not proud of it."
I opened the cover.
My own handwriting, twenty-two years old, looked back at me.
Sketches of hands, and a bench, and a lamp.
On the last page, small and in pencil, someone had drawn a man's profile bent over a canvas.
It was not my drawing.
"I added that," Stellan said quietly. "The day I decided to keep it. I'm sorry. It was a stupid thing to do."
I looked at the profile.
It was bad, and careful, and it was him.
"Why are you telling me now?"
"Because last night you said nobody should be waiting for you to be ready." He pushed a plate toward me. "I don't want you to be ready. I want you to know exactly who you're eating eggs with."
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