Another Man (The Office Surprise an Interracial Romance Book 2) *COMPLETE*

Janet's Last Chance

Janet sat at her cube thinking about the events of the day. She thought about her anger with Steve. She thought about the events of the past week. And she thought about the events of the many months previously. 

The good times of working with Steve entered her mind as she tried to work. She smiled at the way he made her laugh. 

Penny walked by on her way to the copy machine without even looking towards Janet. The two haven’t spoken in weeks. Seeing Penny reminded Janet of the no good dirty dog that Terry was. She sashayed by in her dress that was up too high at the bottom and down too low at the top. 

“What was I thinking even entertaining the notion of getting back with that fool?” Janet thought. But she couldn’t help but think of Steve. How helpful he was to her. She thought about the work that they did together. She smiled. 

“But he stood her up, we had been through too much to just stand me up.” Janet said to herself as she attempted to still be angry at Steve.

She nourished that anger when Ashley walked by.

“You look like you thinking about something important. Need to talk to someone?”

“Yeah girl, can we talk for few minutes.” Janet said.

“Come on, I have five minutes.”

They walked towards Ashley’s office. Janet drug her feet as her thoughts weighed on her. Both of the women walked into Ashley’s open door.

“What’s the matter?”

“This Steve thing.”

Ashley said, “Hold on.” While she shut the door.

“I just don’t know if I can get over this.” Janet said.

“What made you so angry with him?”

“He stood me up.”

“Um…He stood you up? Haven’t you stood him up before? I mean yall ain’t dating.”

“I had to do a lot of things that day, but I made it a special point to be at this date and he stood me up.”

“You my girl, but I have to ask, Didn’t you tell me that you were going to let Steve down at that date?”

“He didn’t know that, he thought so little of me and my time that he didn’t come, over there screwing some girl.” Janet said trying to win over Ashley.

“Sounds to me that you are jealous that Steve was with someone else.” 

“Naw it ain’t like that.” Janet said quickly.

“Then what is it like?” Ashley asked while looking in Janet’s eyes with compassion. 

Janet was hit straight between the face with the big question. A question that she never wanted to ask herself. 

“I mean you two weren’t dating, if you don’t care for him, wouldn’t you be happy that he had someone else, it would make it easy on you.” Ashley continued.

Janet felt like she had been hit in the face with a two by four. The realization came over her that she was masking her jealousy by attempting to be angry. She then immediately remembered that Steve said he did come and saw Terry there hugging her. 

“Janet, you all right?” Ashley asked.

“Yeah, you right, I’m happy for Steve, I just wish he had called me to let me know that he wasn’t gonna come.” Janet lied. 

“Oh…OK.” Ashley said.

Then there was a knock at the door. And Michael entered.

“What is this I hear about you still working with Steve on that Vanderholt project?” Michael said in an irritated tone.