Read Online Degrees of Passion by Michelle M. Pillow - Free Book Online

turf. A broken leg will get me out of Collins’s internship for sure.’
    Professor Collins was her advisor and the head of one of the humanities departments. He had taken a keen interest in seeing her graduate, going so far as to petition to stay her advisor even as she kept trying to change her major. At 25, Sasha had been a college student for six and a half years and that wasn’t counting the early courses she took while still in school. Collins pushed her to find some focus. How could she explain to him that deciding what to do with the rest of her life terrified her? She didn’t understand it completely herself.
    ‘I think you’re just scared of actually finishing a degree,’ Jo said, astute as always.
    ‘I’m scared of those student loan payments that will come due as soon as I do,’ Sasha answered. Giving up on waiting for the coffee pot to finish, she grabbed the carafe and followed Carrie’s example in making a mess. ‘I have nightmares about receiving my diploma and opening it up to find a huge bill, like the kind you get at a hotel after your stay, only this one is as thick as a phone book and—’
    ‘So the idea is to keep adding onto the debt?’ Carrie laughed, only to add sarcastically, ‘Great plan, Sash. Maybe you should switch to a financial planning degree.’
    ‘Huh, don’t think I’ve done that one yet,’ Sasha drawled sardonically. ‘I’ll be sure to get right on that.’
    ‘Why are you worried? That rich boy of yours will pay them off for you. Kingston’s family could buy you fifteen degrees.’ Jo eyed her cup, but didn’t reach for the pot. Carrie sighed and did it for her. ‘Not that you’ll listen to me. If you did, we’d have a new television in here and an espresso machine.’
    Sasha automatically glanced back towards her room to see if Lulu heard. Jo sighed heavily. Carrie said, ‘She can’t hear us. Besides, who’s she going to tell?’
    ‘I don’t understand why this is such a big secret,’ Jo said, shaking her head in disapproval. ‘Your friends know, his friends know.’
    Sasha wasn’t so sure she understood it either, but guilt over what she’d done kept her from pushing Trevor for more of a public commitment. They’d got to a really comfortable place in their relationship and she didn’t want to lose that. Also there was the small matter of how she hadn’t told her family about him. How could she pressure him for a public declaration when she couldn’t bring herself to tell her family?
    ‘It’s not as bad as you make it sound. I have dinner at his parents’ all the time. We just don’t do the public paparazzi thing. He’s New York royalty and we don’t want the pressure of having our relationship become fodder for the tabloids.’
    ‘Wow.’ Carrie nodded slowly. ‘I can almost believe you meant that this time. This isn’t Hollywood. Who cares if all of New York sees he’s dating. It’s not like you’re a leper. You’re skinny as a rail and photograph well.’
    ‘Society pages can be just as bad as the tabloids,’ Sasha said.
    ‘Leave her alone, honey,’ Jo scolded, though the disapproval on her face matched Carrie’s. To Sasha, she said, ‘Kat called yesterday, by the way. She said your brother-in-law is back from Africa and he wanted you to know that if you need help coming up with an idea for your final project to give him call. He’s got new specimens that he’s cataloging for the museum.’
    Her sister, Kat, had married an entomologist, Dr Vincent Richmond, who ran his own laboratory in the DJP Department of Entomology at one of the big museums in the Upper East Side. He was filthy rich, adorably absentminded and lacked the arrogance of the rest of his family. Predictably enough, his parents were friends with Trevor’s parents. She used to think that news of her dating Trevor would get back to the family that way. It never did. Apparently, Mr and Mrs Kingston didn’t talk about their son’s girlfriend.
    Sasha shivered. ‘I