First Love: Jake & Sabrina (interracial romance) *completed story* {prequel}

Chapter One

Six months later...

Sabrina leaned back in her black swivel chair and groaned in frustration. It was her first day at her temp-to-perm job, and already it was off to a bad start.

"I'm not sure what happened," she muttered to the tall, lean man who'd suddenly stopped by her cubicle. She turned her gaze away from the black monitor and glanced up at him. "The screen just went blank."

"Hmm, I don't know what to tell you. I've never seen that happen before."

Sabrina stared blankly at...what was his name again? She scanned his dark face, trying to remember. It had only been a few seconds ago that he'd come up to her cubicle to welcome her to the company and introduced himself as the Senior Art Director on her team. Now, for the life of her, she couldn't even remember his name.

Was it Dan?

"Looks like you'll need to put in a work order with IT." He must have misread her blank expression as disbelief because his dark brown face broke into a tight smile. "Sorry. Dumb comment. Obviously, you won't be able to put in anything through the system. I'll put one in for you when I get to my desk." Sabrina thanked him profusely, and he laughed. "No problem. Just remember this moment when you're putting those timelines together and asking for one-day turnarounds."

Day...Dale! Right. Dale Connors.

She thanked him again, skating around making such a promise. He might not know it, but as the temporary Marketing Assistant on the team, she wouldn't have any control over timelines and such. What the executives wanted, the executives got.

When Dale left her cubicle, Sabrina re-read the note left on her desk that morning by her direct supervisor. It was friendly and courteous, but to the point:

Welcome to the team, Sabrina. Once you've settled in, please audit the server for all the current promotional materials published this year. We'll need a complete list by 3pm today for our meeting with management. -Toni

Sabrina groaned and stared at her dead monitor. Anxiety was starting to prickle up her spine at the thought of having to explain to her new supervisor that she hadn't been able to complete the task because of a dead computer. Despite it being her first day on the job, she highly doubted Toni would be sympathetic to her technological woes. Sabrina had been in enough internships and temp jobs to know how much corporate executives valued proactivity, and she couldn't afford for Toni not to see the value she had to offer.

The humiliating incident at her last job had unfortunately followed her. After her termination from McArthur, Murphy and Company, she had concentrated on finishing her master's in business administration. Yet, even with her degree and high honors, it had taken all summer for her to find a company willing to hire her outside of a receptionist position. Instead of an associate position, they had hired her on as an assistant and she was well aware that it was her past situation with MMC had influenced that decision.

Though being a Marketing Assistant with an MBA degree wasn't ideal, it certainly beat out all the other weak positions that had been offered to her. And if she wanted to turn her temporary position into a permanent one, she needed to start taking initiative.

There was no telling how long it would take IT to get to her, but Sabrina couldn't just sit around and do nothing. What if someone stopped by and saw her just sitting there? It was still pretty early, only a little after eight, and that left her with only a few hours to complete Toni's request before having to head over to her mandatory new hire orientation.

Sabrina sat back in her seat and continued staring at the blank monitor as she thought of what to do next. Jabbing at the power button had yielded nothing, but the loud humming coming from the computer tower hadn't gone away. Maybe the computer itself wasn't completely dead, and all she needed was a working monitor...