Page 161 of Ruin Me Gently

Then he reached for the polpette, holding it up expectantly.

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“Why not?”

“No more cheese. I’ll die.”

“You’ve been eating cheese this whole time.”

I sighed, leaning back against his chest. “Yeah, and now I’m at my limit.”

“What do you mean?”

“Me and dairy don’t get along, okay? No more. Please.”

I wasn’t about to go into an in-depth discussion about how right now, I was in his very expensive, very nice, verynot-equipped-for-me-to-shit-myself-inpenthouse. That would definitely have killed whatever was going on here.

I glanced over my shoulder to find him staring over at the whole feast like it had just given him the worst news of his life.

“That explains the oat milk,” he whispered, almost to himself.

I snorted. “What?”

He shrugged. “I always wondered why you never got regular milk.”

I rolled my eyes. “And you never thought to… ask?”

“I don’t know. Thought maybe you were just one of those oat milk people. Well, good job I’ve already had the fridge stocked with it for you.”

The fridge.

Myfridge.

A bolt of lightning struck right through my chest.

“Oh, fuck.”

I jumpedup off the bed as quickly as I could without knocking the food all over. My pulse spiked, brain scrambling to catch up with the flood of panic that crashed over me.

“What? What’s wrong?” His voice was sharp, laced with concern as he stood up to meet me.

“Where are my clothes? I need my clothes,” I muttered, making a beeline for his closet. “And my shoes. Where are my shoes? I need my shoes—”

“Lilith. Hey. Stop. What’s going on?”

“Katniss,” panic rose up my throat, tears prickling at the edges of my vision. “Shit.She hasn’t eaten—oh my God, she’ll be halfway starving to death now!”

I’d left her. I hadn’t even thought about her until now.Shit.I was theworstmother in the whole entire world. She was alone, probably curled up in her tank, waiting for me, waiting for food, waiting for anything—

“Lilith, sweetheart,” his voice cut through the blaring alarms in my head. “Wait. She’s fine.”

“How is she fine?” I snapped. I didn’t mean to, but the adrenaline was rushing too hard for my thoughts to be clear. “She hasn’t eaten, they can go a few months without food, butshit,she should be eating. What if she’s sick? What if she’s dead?”

He stepped in, close and solid, his hands landing gently on my arms as he looked down at me. “Lilith. She’s fine, I promise.”

“How do you know that?”

He hesitated for the briefest moment, his jaw tightening before he exhaled.

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