The Elliotts: Mixing Business with Pleasure. Brenda Jackson

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      “What if you were given the opportunity to come back to Pulse with a promotion and salary increase over last time?” he asked.

      Erika was taken off guard again. The prospect of being inside the best newsmagazine in the world provided a potent lure. There was nothing laid-back about Pulse. Working for that magazine had demanded the best of her mental and creative energy. It had forced her to grow. She’d been surrounded by brilliant, ambitious people.

      And she’d gotten involved with a man who had ruined her for other relationships.

      She pushed her hair behind her ear and looked outside the window as she tried to form a response. “It’s tempting,” she admitted.

      “I want you back on the Pulse team,” Gannon said.

      “Tell me what it would take for you to make the move and I’ll make it happen.”

      Erika gaped at him in shock. When the faintest gossip had surfaced about her relationship with Gannon, he’d stopped everything between them cold and had begun to treat her as if she were just another team member. His behavior had knocked her sideways enough that she’d known she couldn’t work with him anymore. The position at HomeStyle had offered a haven from him, and she was slowly getting over him.

      “I need to think about this,” she finally managed.

      He blinked in surprise and she felt a sliver of satisfaction. Gannon was accustomed to hearing yes, not maybe. She saw his jaw clench and felt another dart of surprise. What was going on here?

      “That’s fair enough. I’ll drop by to talk with you tomorrow after work.”

      “Sorry. Can’t do,” Erika said. “I have an appointment out of the office at four-thirty. I’m not coming back in.”

      He gave a slow nod, as if she were trying his patience. “Okay, are you working this weekend?”

      “From home.” She glanced at her calendar. “Tuesday would be best.”

      “Monday, after work,” he said in a brusque voice that had frightened the life out of more than one intern.

      The tone unsettled her enough not to push further. “Monday after work,” she confirmed.

      “Good. See you then,” he said, holding her gaze for a couple of seconds too long. A couple of seconds that sucked the oxygen from her lungs before he turned around and left her office.

      Erika immediately sank into her chair and covered her face with her hands. “Damn him,” she whispered. He still knocked her sideways. She scowled. She didn’t like it. Didn’t like it at all.

      But part of her response was understandable, she told herself. Preparation was key with Gannon. She absolutely couldn’t fly by the seat of her pants with that man.

      Erika rubbed her knees and paused for a breath after ten games of one-on-one. She’d had her lunch handed to her during the last six games. Looking at the fourteen-year-old responsible for pounding the living daylights out of her via a basketball, Erika shook her head. “You could show a little pity for the elderly.”

      Tia Rogers, the pretty but lanky girl with chocolate-brown eyes who Erika was mentoring, shrugged as she walked to the side of the basketball court Erika had reserved for their use. Since she’d been promoted, she got dibs on the EPH gym.

      “You ain’t old. You just sit on your butt too much in that fancy high-rise office.”

      “Aren’t old,” Erika automatically corrected, though at the moment thirty-two seemed over the hill. “Getting paid to sit on your butt isn’t all that bad. And I don’t just sit on my butt,” Erika said. “By the way, how’s algebra?”

      Tia made a face. “I don’t like it.”

      “What’d you get on your last test?”

      “B minus,” Tia said.

      “It’s going up. That’s the right direction.” Erika patted the girl on the shoulder and scooped up both their coats from the bleachers. A group of men immediately took their place on the basketball court. Erika led the way to the elevator. Tia was quiet on the ride down.

      “I need an A,” Tia finally said in a glum voice. “I need all As if I’m going to get a scholarship to college.”

      “You’ll get a scholarship,” Erika said, waving at the security guard before the two of them stepped out into the cold night.

      Tia swore and spit as she stepped outside. “How do you know?”

      Erika swallowed a wince. She was supposed to inspire Tia and help polish her mentee’s rough edges. Tia, who lived with her aunt because her mother was in prison for repeated drug violations, had been chosen for the mentor program because she worked on the school newspaper. “Ditch the spitting and swearing.”

      “Everyone else swears and spits,” Tia said in a challenging voice.

      “Everyone else isn’t you. You’re different. You have talent, brains, common sense and, most importantly, you have drive.”

      Tia met her gaze with wide brown eyes filled with hope but tempered with skepticism. It was Erika’s job to help give the hope and drive she glimpsed in the young teen a bigger edge in the battle.

      “Is that what got you your fancy job in the office you showed me a couple weeks ago? I hear you always need a connection.”

      Erika exhaled and her breath created a visible vapor trail. “I’m working for a company where most of the executives are related and I’m not part of the family.”

      Tia smiled. “So you’ve had to kick some butt, too.”

      “Metaphorically speaking,” she said as an image of Gannon’s backside slithered across Erika’s brain. She’d had a tough time totally banishing him from her mind since his surprise visit yesterday. She still didn’t know what she was going to do about Pulse. She lifted her hand to hail a taxi.

      “My aunt keeps asking me why you don’t have no man.”

      “Why I don’t have a man,” Erika corrected.

      “S’what I said,” Tia said and climbed into the taxi that stopped by the curb.

      Erika climbed in beside her and gave the taxi Tia’s address. “I don’t have a man because—” She broke off. Why didn’t she have a man? Because Gannon had ruined her for other men. “Because I fell for someone and he dumped me.”

      “Wow,” Tia said. “Why’d he do that? You’re pretty for an older lady. You got it going on.”

      Erika groaned at the reference to age. “Thanks, I think. Why’d he dump me? I guess he didn’t think I was the right woman for him.”

      Tia swore again. “You should teach him a lesson. Go get you another man. A better man.”

      “Yeah,” Erika said, thinking she’d been trying to do that for a year now.

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