Read Online BWWM Interracial Romance 1: Professional Relations by Elena Brown - Free Book Online

was once more under the tyranny of some man, once more betrayed.
    Regina thought about all of the times that she had been beaten by her ex-husband, all the times that Richard had told her that she was nothing without him—that she would never amount to anything, that she was talentless and an idiot to boot. She heard all of his scathing rants, every insult he had ever hurled at her, and shook as she relived the moments that she had tried so hard to tell faithfully in court without breaking down.
    Regina felt her shaking begin to ease, her sobs quieting and her breathing gradually returning to normal. She couldn’t give in to her panic and fear for very long, she reminded herself firmly, wiping at her face with tissues she grabbed blindly. She had to fight for her job; she had earned it, she wanted it, and she needed it. She wasn’t about to let someone take it away from her.
    As she began to calm down, Regina wondered what she should do about the situation, other than taking her own measures to demonstrate that she was working every bit as hard as Bradley was. Should she confront him? Ask him what he thought gave him the right to spread lies about her? Regina knew that her sister’s advice would be to do that. And she knew it would give her a certain amount of satisfaction to see the shock in his face when he realized that Regina was onto him.
    But Talitha had said that she didn’t think Bradley was the source. While Regina couldn’t quite put it past any person to be vindictive, she thought that there was a possibility that it was someone else. She couldn’t think of whom—after all, Regina really only spent time with her team, with her boss, in meetings with clients, and occasionally, when she couldn’t avoid it, with Bradley. She didn’t have a social life outside of her sister, and she was too busy with too many projects to spend much time talking to anyone in the office in any capacity other than work.
    But Regina knew that her lack of social interaction was in some ways just as damning as spending too much time socializing. When she had been with Richard, she had been motivated to isolate herself; Richard demanded that she be home exactly twenty minutes after the day ended—he didn’t even accept a traffic jam as an excuse. On top of that demand and his jealousy whenever Regina so much as mentioned a coworker’s name, she had kept herself to herself for so long that she wasn’t comfortable with the idea of getting to know anyone other than professionally.
    So, she thought, wiping at her face and pulling out her makeup with unsteady hands, it could just as easily be someone else in the office who didn’t like the idea of a black woman in a position of authority. She didn’t think it could be one of her own team—but she didn’t know. Regina re-applied her makeup, taking deep breaths and doing what she could to calm her nerves. Or, Regina thought, giving herself a watery smile in her compact mirror, she could change tactics. She had avoided social contact with her coworkers, which was clearly a mistake; maybe if she started to cultivate something like a social life, if she became friends with some of the people she worked with, she could find out where the rumors were coming from. It was as good a plan as any, she thought; even if she was uncomfortable with the thought of putting herself forward, of going out on a limb.
     
    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