BWWM Interracial Romance 1: Professional Relations by Elena Brown

stifle the regret that the interlude hadn’t lasted longer, but she also knew—with a sharp sense of guilt—that she should never have let it happen in the first place. She smoothed her hair and reached for her bra, taking a deep breath to dispel the lingering lust she felt for the man who only moments before she had thought was the most annoying and frustrating coworker she could ever encounter.

Rumors and Repercussions
     
    After her confrontation with Bradley— which had ended so unexpectedly in a tryst— Regina decided that as much as she had enjoyed the outcome, she couldn’t let the same thing happen again. She hesitated to tell her sister about the situation; she wasn’t sure whether Abigail would be more amused or appalled at what her younger sister had done. Regina had staked her career on professionalism, and to have engaged in an elicit fling right in the office with a coworker was enough to make her feel incredibly guilty and ashamed of herself.
    Regina’s solution to the trouble was to attempt to pretend as though it had never happened; she didn’t mention it to Bradley, even though he gave her more than one knowing glance. She avoided being alone in the same room with him, and when she did have to work late, she made sure to keep her office door locked or to take one of the desks in the open, where Bradley wouldn’t be tempted to make a pass at her. She knew that he was interested in another go—Regina was put in the position more than once of having to come up with a hasty excuse for why she couldn’t work in the conference room alone with him after the end of the day.
    It would have been easier, Regina thought over the weeks that passed, if Bradley hadn’t been such a good partner. Regina reminded herself that even if he had been a great lay, he was annoying and arrogant and demanding. She had stood up to him, and while he didn’t seem as prone to trying to outshine her as before, she wondered how much of that was due to the fact that they’d had sex and how much of it was that she kept her time around him to a minimum, even when it came to their joint responsibilities.
    At first, Regina’s heart pounded every time she heard someone in the office talking and laughing over gossip; she blushed whenever someone mentioned her name. Regina had a deadly certainty that there was absolutely no way her tryst with Bradley could possibly remain a secret. She knew that office gossip spread like wildfire—Bradley had only to tell one person what they had done and the entire office would know about it before lunch was over. Regina waited with dread to hear the knock at her office door, to see Talitha’s solemn face saying that they needed to have a conversation.
    After a month had passed and Regina hadn’t been fired for her indiscretion, she began to relax. While she still didn’t question that her fling with Bradley had been a horrible idea, she had to conclude that he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, either. She began to relax into the demands of ongoing projects, even managing to go into meetings with Bradley without feeling constantly on edge. Regina thought that he had accepted her lack of interest in continuing the relationship beyond a one-time fling gracefully, and respected the fact that after a few attempts to get her alone, he gave up on the idea.
    Regina wished that she could as easily put the tryst out of her mind. While she was certain that she didn’t want to pursue anything with her coworker—or with anyone else, for that matter—she also became uncomfortably aware that Bradley’s prowess had reawakened her sexual appetite. When she had been going through the divorce and dealing with the abuse that her ex-husband dealt out, it was easy for Regina to forget that she had ever truly enjoyed sex; after all, Richard had constantly berated her about her flirtatiousness, and when they had been in bed together everything had been about him. Regina had gradually gone from a woman who loved