Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 100277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Rafe’s kiss good-bye that morning had been a quick peck of the lips in his kitchen before I slipped out to make the early meeting Pamela had with another client. The whole nine to five, Monday to Friday, was a sham. For the last six weeks, since starting with Pamela, I’d worked all kinds of hours.
I’d seen my friends once in that whole time, and I hadn’t spoken to any of them in a week because their texts were as dry and as empty as Rafe’s kiss.
Rafe was pulling away from me.
Taking on more hours at the clinic, while I took on more hours in the office.
Sometimes we were like ships passing in the night, except we stopped for sex. The sex was still awesome. But it seemed like it was the only time we really connected. Like . . . it was the only thing keeping us connected.
“A seven a.m. start again?” Rafe commented that morning upon returning from the gym to find me stepping out of the shower.
“Yeah.”
“You know you don’t have to stay in this job if you don’t want to,” he’d remarked.
“It’s fine.” I’d shrugged.
“Do you even like it?”
“Yeah, it’s fine.”
His expression had hardened in that way that made my stomach twist and, without another word, he’d slipped past me into the bathroom.
What could I tell him? Pippa, Jen, even Gigi, they were so happy I was doing well in this job with Pamela. Things were better between Hugo and Rafe, and Hugo had made no snide comments toward me. In fact, he’d been perfectly pleasant. We were all getting along great.
Mercurious had gone to auction and the original company interested in purchasing it won, so the takeover would be underway soon. The Whitmans were at peace with it, which mattered more than anything else.
I couldn’t rock the boat by quitting the job with Pamela.
Though it wouldn’t matter about any of it if Rafe was losing interest in me. I was just so confused. When we made love, it didn’t feel like he wasn’t interested in me, but . . . we didn’t talk anymore. I couldn’t because I was afraid of what I might say and he . . . he just seemed frustrated with me all the time. Maybe the shine had worn off Star Shine Meadows after all.
I was lonely.
“What do you think? Star?”
A hand waved in front of my face and I blinked rapidly, coming out of my depressed musings to find Pippa staring at me across the small bistro table, wide-eyed. Pamela sat next to her, one elegant eyebrow raised in concern. We’d squeezed in a quick coffee break with Pippa this morning.
“What?” I stared at them and then shook my head. “Sorry. I was somewhere else.”
Pippa waved off my daydreaming. “It’s fine. We were just saying we think you should change your name.”
I laughed softly. “Right.”
“No. I’m serious,” Pippa said, seriously.
My pulse increased as that knot of dread in my gut tightened. “Change my name?”
“Yes. Star just isn’t a name that people take seriously. You’re a professional now. You should have a strong name.”
“Meadows is a little wishy-washy too,” Pamela added.
“Oh, but that shouldn’t be an issue.” Pippa shrugged. “She’ll be a Whitman soon enough.”
“Really?” Pamela smiled at me. “Things are that serious between you and Rafferty?”
“Of course they are. Rafe is nothing if not a serial monogamist. He has an MO. Meets girl, practically has her living with him within the first few weeks, then actually living with him within a few months. He usually dates the same woman for several years and has never proposed, but he’s getting on a bit and, this time around, I can see him popping the question soon.”
Wait. What? Reeling, I practically wheezed out, “His MO?”
Pippa frowned. “Yes, Mr. Serial Monogamy.”
So she was telling me that all the exciting rush of wanting to be with each other all the time wasn’t because it was me Rafe was with. It was because that was just who Rafe was in a relationship?
I wasn’t special? He hadn’t embroiled me so deeply into his life because I differed from the women who had come before me? It was because it was his MO?
I sucked in a breath as I remembered our conversation in his car that night after family dinner. He’d reiterated that he’d never loved Camille or any of the women he’d dated. The only woman, outside of family members, he’d ever said “I love you” to was his high school sweetheart.
Never since.
He hadn’t told me either.
Right.
Okay then.
Having no clue that my heart was cleaving in half before her, Pippa leaned toward me. “Now, what about Sarah?”
“Excuse me?” I still wasn’t over the devastating implication that I was just a cycle in Rafe’s relationship routine. That I wouldn’t be the one he said those three little words to. Because surely he’d know by now. He’d have said the words by now.