The Baby Pact (Babies and Billions #5) - Holly Rayner Page 0,28

that his family stole from mine.

But she couldn’t help it. It was just going to take some time to get over this.

Maybe she should never have let him back into her life at all.

But she couldn’t bring herself to wish that they hadn’t found each other again. The few days they’d spent with one another had been some of the happiest of Rhea’s adult life. And even though they were, by necessity, at an end, she knew that she wouldn’t take them back. Not for anything in the world.

She and Kaylie spent the rest of their lunch hour making plans for their New Year’s party—discussing where it would be held, what kind of food and drink they would serve, and what they would do to entertain their guests. Rhea was pleased with the ideas they came up with. It seemed like it was going to be a pretty low-key party, all things considered—nothing too stressful. It would make for a nice distraction from everything that had been on her mind lately.

When they had finished their meals, they cleaned up the table. Rhea’s lunch had been packed in reusable plastic containers, of course, and as she rinsed them out and put them away in her bag, she couldn’t help noticing the look of guilt on Kaylie’s face as she threw away her chip bag.

“At least you can recycle the pop can,” she said encouragingly.

“I know,” Kaylie said. “I just hate having to throw anything away. You know how it is.”

“I do,” Rhea said. “But if it helps, remember that you’re the one who got me into conservationism in the first place. If it weren’t for you, I would be generating a lot more waste than I do. And I bet a lot of other people can say the same thing, right?”

Kaylie brightened slightly. “I guess that’s true,” she said. “I know my parents wouldn’t even recycle if I didn’t keep hounding them about it.”

“Exactly,” Rhea said. “Give yourself a break. You’re having a positive impact overall.”

Kaylie nodded. “Thanks, Rhea,” she said. “You’re a good friend.”

“You too,” Rhea said with a smile. “This break was exactly what I needed.”

Her relaxed mood lasted until she got back to her office. She looked at the desk drawer in which she had left her phone with trepidation, then opened the drawer and pulled the phone out.

Two missed calls.

He had called twice more in her absence.

Talk about waste.

She threw the phone back in the drawer, not sure whether she was angrier at Zach or at herself.

Chapter 10

Zach

Zach stared at his phone, completely at a loss for what to think.

He hated that this was happening. It was hard to believe that it could be. Things had been so perfect between Rhea and himself, hadn’t they? He had certainly thought so. All those idyllic evenings spent at her place, and at his, snuggled together under the covers, talking about plans for the future—

Okay, so admittedly they had only discussed the short-term future, such as when they had made their plan to spend Thanksgiving together. But that had meant something to Zach, and he had allowed himself to believe that it had meant something to Rhea too.

He had even started planning their Thanksgiving dinner. Food-based holidays were a big deal to Zach, and he had known that if he managed to put together the perfect set of eco-friendly recipes, he would definitely impress her. He had begun to pull a few favorites while she was staying with her family, thinking that he would find a way to ask her about her favorite foods without being too obvious once she got back.

He’d waited for her call, not knowing exactly when she planned to get back from her weekend with her family. They’d agreed that it wasn’t a good idea to tell her family about their relationship yet, so Zach didn’t want to make things difficult by calling her while she was still with them. Better to wait and let her contact him.

So he’d waited.

And a week had gone by.

He had known then, in his heart, that something wasn’t right.

But he hadn’t wanted to believe it. They had been so close. They had said to each other, multiple times, what a miracle it was to be back in each other’s lives and what a mistake it had been to wait so long to reach out again. Zach had meant that, and he’d believed that Rhea had meant it too.

Finally, at the end of the week, certain that she couldn’t possibly be