2

Victor had barely finished speaking when someone in the conference room urged him to sign an agreement transferring port operating rights.

He spared me a quick glance.

"Elena, what are you making a fuss about now?"

I shrank back without thinking. "I'm not making a fuss."

"Isabella says you only have seven dollars left on your card. If you don't want to take part in charity week, just go home. There's no need to joke about something like this."

I was about to explain when an argument broke out on his end.

Victor said only, "I'll handle it when I get back," and ended the call.

Isabella's expression turned cold again. She clearly trusted her brother more than me.

I made excuses for Victor too.

He handled hundreds of millions every day. Maybe he'd really mixed up $200 and two million dollars.

Once I'd had some glucose, Dr. Rossi cleared me for light activity only.

The crew gave each pair of guests $50 to cover a whole day's meals in the neighborhood.

Isabella pointed at a restaurant. "Let's go there."

I checked the menu and quickly grabbed her arm. "The cheapest pasta is $65."

"So?"

"We can't even afford one plate."

I took her to a food truck and bought two of the cheapest hard rolls and a small jar of discounted pickles.

The rest of the money had to last until dinner.

Isabella stared at the rolls, at a loss for words. "Is this what you eat at home too?"

I shook my head.

She had just begun to relax when I added, "I didn't even buy pickles before. I washed the bread down with cold water. It was cheaper."

Her face froze.

Just then, a woman in a baseball cap leaned over and whispered, "Could I have a pickle slice?"

It was Chloe, the fiancée of the heir to Russia's Ivanov conglomerate. According to gossip magazines, one of her necklaces cost as much as an ordinary person earned in ten years.

But all she had in her hand was half a slice of cold pizza from the sample table.

"You didn't eat lunch?" I asked.

Chloe sighed. "Broke."

I stared. "You're broke too?"

She glanced at the camera and lowered her voice. "I only get $300 a month, and I have to pay my own phone bill."

I was impressed. "You get $300? You're richer than me."

She looked at me with sympathy.

We stared at each other for a few seconds, then grabbed each other's hands.

"So you live on a rock-bottom budget too."

"From today on, we're the Budget Alliance."

Isabella and Olga Ivanova, Chloe's future mother-in-law, stood beside us, both looking appalled.

The comments, on the other hand, were dying of laughter.

[Did these two rich families go bankrupt? Their allowances are worse than welfare.]

[Other people come to charity week to network. These two came to start a Budget Alliance.]

Chloe suggested we pool our food. She brought out two hard-boiled eggs she'd taken from the hotel, and I contributed the rolls and pickles.

I put an egg on Isabella's paper plate first.

"You eat it."

"You're not eating?"

"The bread's enough for me."

Isabella frowned. "Acting again?"

"No. Victor will get mad if you go hungry."

Isabella went quiet for a moment. Then she cut the egg in half and put the piece with most of the yolk on my plate.

"I don't eat yolks. Too much cholesterol."

I watched her swallow the rest of the yolk and didn't call her on it.