The Baby Pact (Babies and Billions #5) - Holly Rayner Page 0,29

with her parents anymore, he had sent her a text:

“Hey, is everything okay?”

The casual tone was an act. He’d been terrified, waiting to see what she would say. Would she tell him that they couldn’t be together anymore? Did she want to end things now, when everything seemed to be going so well? If that was the case, Zach thought his heart might break.

He had never felt about any other woman the way he was beginning to feel about Rhea. And though it felt a bit soon to make the claim, Zach thought he was falling in love.

So he’d waited on tenterhooks for her reply.

But the reply had never come.

And now a month had gone by, and Zach had no idea what could have happened.

The only thing he could think of was that Rhea’s parents must have told her about the fact that they had fired Zach’s father all those years ago. Perhaps that knowledge had made Rhea feel awkward.

But would she really just ghost me over something like that? Not even try to talk to me?

He didn’t want to think so, but he had to acknowledge that he didn’t know Rhea all that well. He had known her fifteen years ago, and that Rhea wouldn’t have ended a relationship just because her father had fired his father. But perhaps time had changed her. Perhaps she wasn’t the girl he had known in college anymore.

Wouldn’t I have noticed that over these past weeks?

Maybe not. It was probably a quality that was difficult to pick up on if you didn’t know you were looking for it.

Zach sighed and shoved his phone into his pocket. He really couldn’t afford to spend any more time thinking about this today. He was driving himself crazy. And he had a party that was starting in a couple of hours. He needed to keep his attention there.

He went into the kitchen, where his team was putting the food together for the party. His head chef, Jeffrey, was working on a tray of zucchini bites.

Zach swiped one off the pile and popped it in his mouth.

“This is pretty good,” he said. “Better than the usual, I think.”

“Yeah, I added smoked paprika,” Jeffrey said. “I think it gives it a little something extra.”

“Are you experimenting on game day again? You know I’m not crazy about that, Jeff.”

“Because you haven’t got my nerve.” Jeff flashed him a winning smile. “It worked out okay, don’t you think?”

“I think you got lucky,” Zach said. “Don’t change up the recipes on the day of a party, okay? If you want to go off menu, I support that, but at least do a sample batch the day before to make sure it doesn’t taste horrible.”

“Nothing I cook ever tastes horrible, and you know it,” Jeff said.

Zach grinned. “I know,” he agreed.

Jeff had been EcoKitchen’s head chef since the company’s inception. He had traveled from Philadelphia to Baltimore with Zach to help open the new company branch, and he was the only member of the original staff who was with Zach now.

Which doesn’t exactly make us friends, Zach reminded himself.

He had to tell himself constantly that although he liked Jeff, he was still the boss. It was his responsibility to keep things running smoothly around here, not to become buddies with his employees.

But that was a hard resolution to keep. Since the death of his father, Zach had been largely alone. Working as hard as he did made it tough to find the time for making friends. If he hadn’t been in charge here, he could have had work friends, the way other people seemed to, but trying to be friends with the people whose salaries he paid seemed like too much of a conflict of interest. It seemed to Zach like it would be irresponsible.

But if I could have a work friend, I think I would want it to be Jeff.

Of course, Rhea had served as a welcome distraction from his lonely state for the short time she had been back in his life. But now she was gone, and Zach was on his own again, left wishing that he had someone to talk to.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Zach started. Was Jeff reading his mind?

“What?” he said.

“I don’t know,” Jeff said. “You just seem like you’ve been kind of… moody lately.”

“Shouldn’t you be focusing on the food?” Zach asked.

“Food’s done, Zach.” Jeff punctuated this statement by sliding his tray of zucchini bites into the oven. “I don’t have anything to do