BWWM Interracial Romance 1: Professional Relations (6 page)

When Samantha, one of the other assistant project managers, invited Regina to the Friday night Happy Hour meet-up, Regina only hesitated for a moment before agreeing to attend. She brought a change of shoes with her to work, and when five o’clock came, Regina was out of her office, feeling incredibly shy and awkward as she met the rest of the assistant project managers who had agreed to go out in the office lobby.

“Smart of you to change shoes,” Samantha commented with a grin. “One of the times we went out, Rebecka sprained her ankle from walking around in her stilettos while drunk.” Regina chuckled as Rebecka rolled her eyes, interjecting that the real reason she had sprained her ankle was because of a loose piece of curb.

Regina’s unease began to abate with her first drink, and she found that her coworkers were actually interesting people in their own right—not just personalities she encountered in the office, but people with senses of humor, with interests that she would never have guessed. Regina noticed that Bradley wasn’t among them and didn’t quite ask, though it was on her mind over and over again to do so. If he didn’t like going out, that was his right, Regina thought. She decided to be grateful that he had decided not to come; she would feel even more awkward if he was there.

By the end of the evening, Regina had forged something of a rapport with her colleagues, telling them jokes that Abigail had taught her, and letting them lead her into talking about her interest in music. She talked about the time that she had been given an opportunity to design cover artwork for one of her favorite groups—but that she had been bilked of her pay for it, and couldn’t stand to listen to the album in question ever since. The others shared their stories of projects gone poorly, and Regina laughed and groaned along with them at the trials and tribulations of being a working designer.

She managed to sober up just enough to be able to get home safely, waving cheerily to her coworkers as she made her way carefully to her car in the dark. Regina thought as she drove home that as long as she didn’t find herself fired due to the efforts of whoever was sabotaging her, she could almost be thankful; she wouldn’t have had the impulse to socialize with her colleagues without the need to get to the bottom of her dilemma.

Regina sat at her desk, trying to decide whether she could conceivably accomplish anything else or if it would be more worthwhile to go home. Since she had started socializing with her coworkers more, she had also worked even harder than she had when she came into the new position, documenting her time and putting in extra hours. She came in early; she left late; except on Fridays, she was a slave to the projects her team was working on.

She had been avoiding Bradley the entire time, as well. For over a month since Talitha had given her the news about the poison that was circulating about her in the ranks of the upper management, she had taken to only speaking with him officially, not even paying attention to his attempts at small talk. She emailed him after every meeting, confirming the minute discussions that they had; she dodged any questions he asked about her personally. In truth, she didn’t know what to think of him. If he was the one behind the bad feeling that was developing about her, she didn’t want anything to do with him—she didn’t even want to have to share the responsibility of the project. If he wasn’t behind it… Regina reminded herself, over and over again, that it was a bad idea to get involved with a coworker anyway.

She was startled out of her thoughts by a knock at her door. Regina frowned, staring and trying to think of who could possibly be in the office at such a late hour; deciding that it must be one of the janitors, she called out for the person to come in, bending over to retrieve her waste basket from underneath her desk. She had come to appreciate the night crew who cleaned the office during her late evenings trapped at her desk. They were all kind and considerate—even those whose grasp of English wasn’t very strong.

Instead of a janitor however, Bradley came into her office, a small box in his hands and his expression troubled. He closed the door behind him. “Regina,” he said, sitting down across from her and putting the box on her desk, “Whatever I’ve done to upset you, I’m sorry.”

Regina looked at him with surprise, sitting up and trying to dispel the surprise she felt at his sudden appearance. “What have you done to upset me?” she asked him, confused.

Bradley shrugged, and Regina could see that he looked upset—distressed. “I don’t know what it is. The only thing I can think of is that when we… that night, you must have been upset by something I did.”

Regina swallowed against the tightness in her throat.

“I want to apologize, if that was the case. I should have been more respectful. I should have asked you out instead of just taking advantage of your emotions right then.” He extended the box towards her. “I brought you a peace offering.” He smiled slightly, and Regina thought that if she didn’t know any better, she would think that he was actually worried.

She took the box and opened it; inside was an old generation iPod, fully charged—she noticed as she turned it on. She smiled slightly to herself as she saw that it was absolutely packed with music; some groups and bands she had heard of and many she hadn’t.

“I noticed you love music,” Bradley said. “I’m kind of a music fanatic myself, so I thought you’d appreciate it.”

Regina’s smile grew. It was an incredibly thoughtful gift; she could see the charger cable tightly coiled in the box underneath where the iPod had lain. There was something underneath the cable as well—Regina lifted the cord out and saw that there were two tickets to an upcoming music festival.

“What’s this?” she asked, looking from the tickets to Bradley’s face.

He was blushing slightly, the bright pink of blood rushing into his pale skin giving him almost a glowing quality that Regina admired. “I had hoped you would be willing to go with me,” he said, licking his lips self-consciously. “If not, I mean, you can go on your own, or with whoever you like.”

Regina bit her bottom lip, eyeing the tickets with both appreciation and concern. She knew she shouldn’t go on a date with Bradley; she didn’t know what involvement he had with her current state of career insecurity. On top of that, she told herself, it was a bad idea all around to date a coworker.

But she couldn’t deny that even while she had been avoiding him, Regina had been plagued by thoughts of Bradley’s skills as a lover. The brief, hurried tryst they had shared had reawakened her sexuality, and more than once she had awakened in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, her body on fire from a vivid dream of what it would be like to have him again. Part of her brain pointed out that if she got close to him, she could potentially root out his sabotage, if he was involved in it, and find out a way to get the justice she deserved. Another part of her mind thought that if she was in bad odor with the management anyway, she might as well enjoy herself while she still had a job. A third part of her brain screamed that it was a stupid idea, and bound to bite her in the ass. That she should reject the gift, tell Bradley that she wanted a professional relationship, not a personal one, and move on with her life.

“I’d love to go with you,” Regina said. She blushed slightly. “But you realize we can’t tell anyone about this.”

Bradley nodded slowly. “There’s a lot of rules and regulations about inter-office romance,” he agreed. “But we can do this, I think. I hope.”

Regina felt herself smiling, excited and giddy as she hadn’t been in years. “Well this will certainly make working late a lot more appealing,” she said, feeling daring and courageous. Bradley stood, stepping around the desk and leaning in to kiss her lightly on the lips.

“I look forward to it. But isn’t it a bit late, even for you? Geez, woman, get home and have dinner and go to sleep. You’re not going to get anything worthwhile done this late at night.” He lifted her up out of her chair and kissed her again, more hungrily this time, his hands trailing over her body.

Regina broke away from the kiss, laughing and pushing him playfully away. “If you keep that up I’m going to end up staying even later just to have you right here on the floor.”

Bradley grinned and brushed a strand of hair out of her face, giving her one last fleeting look of affection before he left her office.

The festival was even more fun than Regina expected it to be. She heard music that she would never have been curious about if not for Bradley’s enthusiasm for the bands and groups. She danced, she laughed, and for the first time in months, she felt completely comfortable, not looking over her shoulder. Regina knew that she shouldn’t let herself fall too much for Bradley—she didn’t know, after all, whether or not he was involved in her current career troubles. But after the long day of music and fun, Regina had been more than happy to invite him to her home. Bradley ran his hands over her sun-warmed skin as he slipped her clothes off, leading her into bed and pinning her underneath his greater weight while they kissed and caressed each other.

The next morning, Regina was startled to find that Bradley was awake before her; when she tried to detain him, wanting a little bit more of his affection, he ruefully admitted that he needed to be elsewhere.

“Really? It’s a Sunday—where do you have to be?”

Bradley had stopped in his efforts to get dressed. “Please don’t freak out that I didn’t tell you before, but I have a daughter.”

Regina’s eyes widened. She had wondered on more than one occasion why, if Bradley was so willing to stay late at work, he never went out on Fridays with the rest of their coworkers. He took his phone out of his pocket and Regina watched as he opened up an app, scrolling for a moment until a truly delighted smile lit up his face. He extended the phone to her. “Her name is Denise, and she just turned five a few months ago.”

Regina looked down at the picture and saw a diminutive but charming looking little girl with dark eyes and long light brown hair, glancing up from a picture book with a bright smile that showed she had recently lost a baby tooth in the front. Regina smiled in spite of herself, thinking that the little girl had her father’s nose—still forming, but the basic structure there—and his smile.

Bradley took the phone back, looking at his daughter with a sigh. “She looks so much like her mother, more every day.” That brought Regina crashing back to reality.

“Where is her mother? If you don’t mind me asking.” She was mortified that Bradley might say he was still married.

“She’s… no longer with us.”

There was sadness in his eyes as he said it, and Regina felt her heart lurch at the sight of it. She told herself firmly that even if she had agreed to see Bradley, she shouldn’t let her feelings run away with her—she might have to break up with him in the future, if she discovered that he was the one behind the management’s sudden distrust of her.

“My parents help to take care of her—I want to make sure that she never lacks for anything.”

Regina nodded understandingly. She had, at one point, wished that she and Richard would have a child together. As his abusive tendencies had increased, however, she had been grateful they didn’t.

Regina gradually learned more about Bradley’s situation; though she didn’t press him for details.

On their third date—a dinner and movie night where Bradley insisted on splurging to pay for the most expensive items on the hibachi grill menu for the two of them—he explained that Denise’s mother had died giving birth, and that he had taken an extended leave from the job not only to mourn but to care for his infant daughter. “Talitha was pretty understanding,” he said, smiling slightly. “She let me work from home so I wouldn’t have to go on unpaid leave, and I even brought Denise into the office a few times, because even with her nurse, I didn’t want her to be on her own.” His parents had taken over half of the care of his daughter as she progressed from infant to toddler, with only an occasional babysitter stepping in when they had appointments or other obligations.

Regina and Bradley were careful not to ever allude to their growing relationship when they were in the office. While they technically weren’t violating the rules—neither of them was in charge of the other—there could be trouble from human resources nonetheless. They made a standing arrangement to go out on Fridays, with Regina sometimes meeting up with the other assistant project managers for a drink or two just to cover her tracks before she slipped away to meet Bradley. When they had to work late, they were careful not to be too obvious in spending time together, using the conference room and the need to compile reports and presentations for Alistair-Pole-Richards as their excuse for being alone together. What no one knew was that more often than not they were each working on separate projects, taking breaks to kiss and cuddle and fool around as a way of lightening the pressure they both felt.

Regina didn’t forget that she had yet to get to the bottom of the mystery of who was sabotaging her career; but it was proving difficult for her to get any worthwhile information on the situation. She had to pretend not to know that the upper management was talking about her. She thought it would be so much easier if she could ask Bradley outright if he knew anything about it—but if he was the person behind it, Regina knew it would only make matters worse for him to know that she was aware of what he was doing.

While she was worrying over her job security, Regina was growing accustomed to seeing Bradley, and she knew that she was developing real feelings for him. Several times she was on the point of forcing herself to put a stop to their clandestine dates, but when it came down to the moment to turn down his offer of a date, or to bite the bullet and break up with him, she couldn’t make herself do it. Even if she suspected him, it was far too easy for her to cast doubts on her own suspicions.

As their relationship progressed, she felt guilty that she didn’t even tell her sister about it. The few times she had to cancel their standing lunch date on the weekends, she gave Abigail excuses that were only too plausible. She said that she had to catch up on work, or that she had a doctor’s appointment, or even that she had made a date with a coworker—a female coworker—to visit a museum or to attend an industry event. Abigail never questioned her, and Regina was always glad she was giving the excuses over the phone rather than in person, where her older sister’s penetrating gaze might have detected something amiss.

Regina and Bradley challenged each other’s horizons, both on the dates they went on as well as in the bedroom. Regina found that when the specter of abuse was gone, she didn’t at all mind a dominant male in her bed; Bradley’s prowess between the sheets, his desire to make her reach climax over and over again, and his delight in her body, made Regina more comfortable in her own skin than she had been for years. She gave into his fantasy of tying her to the bed with reservations at first—but when he had teased her for an hour straight, going from her breasts to her pussy and back until she was drenched in sweat before finally finishing her off, Regina had been only too happy to volunteer to be tied up again. He gave her a “safe word” and told her to use it any time she felt the slightest bit uncomfortable—he wanted her to enjoy every moment.

She had used it just once; his dirty talk had veered into territory that reminded her just a little too much of her husband. She gasped the word out, cringing as years of expectation of punishment roared through her mind. Instead of harming her, or yelling, Bradley had stopped immediately, pressing the release on the handcuffs that had bound her wrists and taking her in his arms. “Shh, Reggie, it’s okay. You’re amazing, Regina.” He had soothed her, apologized for pushing on her sensitivities too hard, and Regina was stunned to find herself crying unreservedly.