Free BWWM Interracial Romance 1: Professional Relations by Elena Brown

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