39 Chapter 39

Vernon realized that Chloe was eating very slowly. Too slow, in fact, that it started bothering him.

He glanced at her while she was busy munching a slice of thumb-sized meat in her mouth. She munched it so slowly and even stopped a few times. Vernon counted that Chloe took at least ten minutes to chew that small bite of meat.

Vernon said nothing, but he kept observing by giving her a side-glance while eating his portion. Chloe ate the cherry tomato and mashed potato in a tiny portion and then started her ten-minutes chewing again.

At some point, Vernon had already finished with his big portion of food, while Chloe was eating maybe about 4 spoonfuls of the pot roast at most.

Vernon continued eyeing her until he couldn't help to get aggravated by her slow eating.

"Why are you eating so slowly? Do you not realize that you took at least ten minutes to chew?" Vernon asked.

Chloe went stiff instantly. Of course, she knew that she ate very slowly. Hence, she wanted to refuse to eat with Vernon at first because eating with her would make any food look unappetizing.

"S—Sorry…" Chloe apologized meekly and stopped eating, leaving most of the food on her plate untouched.

"Why are you apologizing?"

"S—Sorry—"

"Damn it, stop apologizing and start eating now!" Vernon raised his voice, and Chloe jolted in fear. It was like an order coming from his mouth. Thus, Chloe grabbed the spoon despite not having any appetite.

She tried eating another thumb-sized bite of the tender beef and then started chewing again.

Yet, Vernon got even more aggravated after looking at Chloe, who chewed so painfully slow. It actually got him so annoyed.

He had to put up with women he dated that tried to act like elegant princesses whenever they went on a dinner date. He had already crossed them out of his list because he didn't like a woman who pretended too much.

Now he had to put up and tolerate Chloe, who tried to pull off the same thing as well? Oh, he was already so tolerant of her.

'Come on, I've dated a real princess secretly, and she doesn't even eat like that! This is so damn irritating,' Vernon cursed in his heart. He continued staring at Chloe, who got nervous. She even started counting her chewing, hoping it shouldn't be too slow.

Gulp.

Chloe swallowed the tender meat that had been slowly chewed almost fifty times in her mouth. How could she know that she chewed it slowly fifty times? Because she consciously counted every bite, of course.

"Why are you eating like a little princess in front of me?"

"Ah— I'm not—"

"Do you think you can impress me by eating like this? I've been with so many women, and many of them tried to impress me by eating so slow in a tiny portion," Vernon said. He seemed to be absolutely pissed just because Chloe ate so slowly.

"I—I—" Chloe was tongue-tied. She was also speechless by Vernon's mood swings. She wasn't intentionally trying to 'impress' him by eating slow.

In fact, she also blamed herself for eating so slowly. She would eat quickly if she could, of course.

But her stomach seriously couldn't handle eating so fast—

"I know you're eating normally when I was a child," Vernon said. He got up and crossed his arms, "Eat fast before I return to my work. You're making me annoyed!"

Chloe started panicking. She ate a spoonful of meat and chewed it quickly— at least by her standard now, she was trying her best.

Vernon continued watching her eating quick, from one spoonful to another, until her plate was cleaned.

Vernon nodded approvingly, "See? What's so hard about that? You don't need to act so elegantly in front of me. It peeves me out."

"Y—Yes…" Chloe said weakly. Her face was already pale and sweating coldly all over her body.

'Why does she looks sick by eating normally?' Vernon wondered. But he had no time to think about it, as long as he saw Chloe eating just fine and didn't pretend. He turned around and grabbed his iPad to his bedroom.

After ensuring that Vernon entered his room, Chloe covered her mouth and ran to the bathroom near the kitchen.

She opened the toilet lead and vomited everything that she had just eaten. She slumped on the bathroom floor while vomiting nonstop until she could feel nothing but burning pain inside her throat and stomach.

It took a while until Chloe could recover. She grabbed the sink to prop herself up.

Chloe looked at her expression in the mirror.

She was ghastly pale, and her face was drenched in a cold sweat. Of course, she knew well what had happened to her because she had already done the same routine for a long time, especially when her depression was at its peak.

She would constantly cry and vomit anything she ate, to the point that she almost ate nothing but liquid, like an elderly.

What Vernon didn't know was that… Chloe had a long-time problem with body image and two eating disorders, anorexia and bulimia, all stemmed from her depression and the fact that Vincent always called her a 'fat bitch' or 'whale' so ruthlessly. As if Chloe was nothing but a piece of meat waste in front of him.

Vincent even allowed his secretary to call her 'blobby' many times without ever reprimanding his secretary. Chloe was so devastated that she started dieting, but her obsessive diet turned into anorexia and bulimia, and she would automatically puke everything she ate if she ate too fast or too much— by her standard now, of course.

'Visit (Mybo x novel. com) to read, pls!',

She was thin now, even thinner than her original weight before marrying Vincent.

But, she was also on her way to keep shedding her weight until she might become truly anorexic.

"Ah, what should I do? Vernon cannot hear about this," Chloe mumbled while staring in the mirror. "If he knows I have a problem with my body, he might find me annoying…."