She stopped talking and turned her attention to Cady, her two-year-old baby seated in the high chair next to her. Sherise tried to take her fork to feed her some of her scrambled eggs, but Cady was stubborn and squeezed tight. She was determined to feed herself, even though 90 percent of her food ended anywhere except for her mouth.
“Let Mommy help you,” Sherise pleaded, “if you actually want to eat something.”
“No,” Cady said, stubbornly clutching her tiny little fork to her chest.
“What’s going on?” Justin asked.
Sherise laughed. “She’ll die from starvation if I leave it up to her.”
“I’m not talking about Cady,” Justin said in a stern voice.
Sherise turned to him and could tell from the look on his face that he wasn’t interested in any games. The smooth, dark brown skin of his sturdy, handsome face highlighted the lightness of his brown eyes as he stared at her. He’d given up the glasses he’d worn since he was twelve and was now wearing contacts. In his thirties now, he’d also recently lost those last ten extra pounds he’d been holding on to his entire adulthood.
Sherise loved the new Justin. He was already a good-looking man, but the changes to his six-foot-tall frame made him even more handsome and distinguished.
“So do you want to go?” Sherise asked. “To the new place? I could probably get reservations even at this late date.”
Justin placed his fork down and leaned back in his chair. This impatience with her was just another sign of how things had changed. Sherise used to be able to string Justin along all she wanted, at least until she could distract him from what he wanted to know.
Sherise sighed, knowing that she had to come out with it. With Vice President Ben Shaplin hospitalized for a heart attack, the last two days had been crazy for both of them. Sherise had used that as an excuse not to tell him about her job offer. But how bad could it be? It wasn’t as if it wasn’t expected.
“We agreed, no more surprises,” Justin said. “We don’t do well with surprises.”
“Depends on the type of surprise,” Sherise added. Was she really joking about this? That was progress, wasn’t it? “Okay,” she conceded. “I wanted to tell you, but with Northman’s formal announcement and Shaplin in the hospital, things have been crazy.”
“I know,” Justin agreed. “I’m sure things will be okay.”
“They could be better than okay,” Sherise said.
Justin frowned. “You aren’t actually suggesting this is a good thing for you? The man almost died, Sherise.”
“No, of course not.” She was angry he’d think she’d be that cold. Yes, she was willing to win at any cost, but even she had lines she didn’t cross. “This isn’t so much related to Shaplin.”
“What is it then?”
“Northman has offered me the chief communications job.”
There, she’d said it. It sounded so wonderful! How could anything bad come from this? Of course the look on Justin’s face told her how.
“Formally,” she added. “No more consulting from my home office and sending them a bill. It’s a formal title, a real job. He’s going to the White House and he wants me to be his voice.”
Justin managed a half smile as he nodded, as if he just now understood. He swallowed hard and looked down at the bagel on his plate.
“This isn’t a surprise,” Sherise said. “I’m excellent at what I do. There was no way he’d want someone else.”
“You are great.” He looked up at her and smiled proudly. “But it’s not true that it isn’t a surprise. This was a consulting gig, and it had been from the beginning. You’re already spending almost thirty hours a week on him.”
“And now it’s going to be much more than that,” Sherise said. “I’ll be working full-time again and traveling.”
Justin sighed. “Since you said, ‘it’s going to be,’ I take it you aren’t interested in my opinion.”
“Of course I am,” she answered. “I told him I would talk to you first. But, Justin, you can’t expect me to turn this down. It’s the White House.”
“You seem more confident than the polling.”
It was true that in a poll of possible contenders, Northman was trailing well behind incumbent president, Mark Matthews, but Shaplin’s heart attack was going to change everything.
“At least more confident than you are in me,” Sherise said. “Justin, we’ve discussed this in therapy. Part of the reason our marriage fell apart, and you ended up in Jennifer’s bed, was because the spark had gone out. I’m not happy as a housewife, and you aren’t happy if I’m not.”
Justin sat up sharply, his face contorting in anger. “Is that your plan? You bring up Jennifer so I feel guilty and agree to whatever you want?”
Sherise was shocked. “What? No, I just . . . I’m just trying to explain how—”
“That is so you, Sherise.” Justin shook his head. “I might not give you permission to do something, so you try to guilt me.”
“ ‘Permission,’ ” Sherise responded loudly. “I wasn’t asking permission. I’m not your daughter. I have just as much a right to a career as you do.”
“What about Cady?” he asked. “What does she have a right to?”
Sherise looked down at her daughter, who was trying to eat some scrambled eggs she had gathered in her tiny palm.
“She has a right to a happy mother,” she answered angrily. “She’ll have to go back to day care full-time. It’s not ideal, but she’ll be fine. And thank you for making me feel like a bad mother.”
Justin’s eyes blinked, showing a hint of guilt before looking away. “I don’t think you’re a bad mother.”
“Yes, you do,” she said quickly.
Sherise watched him as she wondered what was going on in his mind. She used to be able to read him so well, predict his every move.
“I was being a bad mother by making the horrible mistakes I made.”
“Don’t,” he ordered. “We agreed to stop bringing up the past.”
“We did,” she acknowledged, “but it manages to find its way into every argument we have.”
“I know you’re a good mother,” he said. “And no matter what has happened, you’ve never not loved Cady.”
“I’ve never not loved you,” Sherise said.
It was the truth. Despite Ryan and Jonah, Sherise never stopped loving Justin. She didn’t appreciate him, but she loved him. She loved him more now, since she’d almost lost him.
“Do you think I stopped loving you?” Justin asked. “I never have, Sherise. Even when I was angriest, I still loved you.”
Sherise felt the tug at her heart as she quickly rose from her seat and came across the table to him. He looked up at her as she sat in his lap and wrapped her arms around him.
“We almost lost everything,” she whispered to him.
“We did lose some things,” he answered back sadly.
“But we’re getting trust back,” she said. “We’ll be okay. You remember what Dr. Gray said. We can’t be happy together, if we aren’t happy on our own.”
“I know.” He was shaking his head as if he was already regretting what he was about to say. “You’re happiest when you’re trying to conquer the world.”
She ran her hand over his head lovingly. “And when I’m happy—”
“Everyone is happy.” He smiled, looking up at her.
She leaned down and kissed him. Her soft lips pressed against his. He kissed her back, and their lips molded together. She loved the familiarity of this, more now than ever.
When their mouths separated, he leaned away and shook his head. “How can I resist that?”
“You can’t,” she insisted. “And I can’t resist the chance to take Northman to the White House.”
“So, since that decision is made,” he said with a resigned tone, “let’s talk about what we’re doing this weekend. This new restaurant sounds—”
Just then, Sherise’s phone, which was on the table next to her
chair, began ringing the tone of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” a tone reserved for Jerry Northman. She was stunned at first. Northman rarely called her directly from his phone.
After a short hesitation, she jumped up from Justin’s lap and rushed to the phone. Justin’s expression changed from annoyance at being interrupted to curiosity as he saw the expression of extremes on Sherise’s face as she spoke to the governor. She said good-bye and slowly lowered the phone back to the table.
“I take it our weekend is canceled,” Justin said.
“Vice President Shaplin died two hours ago,” she said, still amazed to hear the words come out of her mouth. “The vice president is . . . dead.”
Billie hopped on the Metro train at the last minute, just as the doors closed behind her, almost crushing her. She had to chance it.
Having gotten caught up in the morning news reporting the vice president’s death, she was already running late for a court date. She was defending a young man accused of robbing a carton of milk from a local convenience store. Considering he was caught on tape, walking out of the store with the milk, she had her work cut out for her and wanted to present the best defense she could. That would be hard if she showed up late. The last thing this eighteen-year-old defendant needed was to believe his lawyer didn’t bother to get up early enough in the morning for him.
“Careful there.”
She looked up to see the words had come from a man standing near the door, less than two feet away from her. She noticed right away that he was very attractive. He was around six feet tall, with smooth cocoa- or cinnamon-colored skin and deep black eyes. He had thick eyebrows and full, dark lips. He was wearing an expensive black suit, tailored perfectly enough to let you know that he was very fit.
She smiled nervously and giggled a little bit, feeling like an idiot for doing so. He smiled back.
He looked around the very packed train car they were in before turning back to Billie. “Sorry that none of these guys is offering you a seat. If I was sitting down, I’d offer mine.”
She detected a slight Southern twang, making him even more attractive.
“That’s okay,” she offered. “I don’t really expect that kind of thing anymore.”
He frowned. “You should.”
Before she could brace herself, the train came to a quick stop in the middle of the tunnel. Billie was holding on to the rail, but the force of the stop forced her tiny body to fall forward . . . right into the Southern gentleman.
He grabbed her with his hands to stop her from falling. His grip was firm and tight, but not too rough. Her arms were bare and she immediately felt the heat from his hands against her skin. Her free hand went to his chest, over his shirt, to help her stay upright, but she quickly removed it when she felt his muscles underneath.
The train started again immediately.
“I’m so . . . I’m sorry.” She was so embarrassed as she leaned away from him.
“It’s okay.” He laughed, seeming not at all bothered. “I’ve learned that these trains stop whenever they want.”
“Thank you.” She smiled.
His smile was pretty addictive and hard to look away from, but she already felt like a clumsy idiot after coming across like a giggling schoolgirl. The last thing she needed was to creep out some guy on the Metro, so she looked away.
Although she basically had turned her back to him, she felt like he was still looking at her. It made her uncomfortable. Considering her recent track record, she had no luck with men and wasn’t really interested in another disaster at this point in her life. But she couldn’t ignore how attractive he was and that she was sure she felt a little something when his hand took hold of her arm.
The train came to a more reasonable stop this time at the next station, her station, and although Billie had never been reluctant to get off the train during morning rush hour before, she was today.
She was tempted to look back and get one last look just before the door opened, but she thought better of it. This was just a random train encounter. One could have many over a lifetime of taking the train in D.C. It didn’t mean anything, so she did nothing, said nothing, as she stepped off the train and headed for the escalator.
“You’re late” were the first words that Erica heard the second she showed up in her department.
She was only a few feet from her desk, so she ignored the voice and kept walking. It didn’t matter. She knew whom the voice belonged to and that it wouldn’t go away.
Caroline Billings was the head administrator of the communications division within the U.S. Defense Department. She was Erica’s most recent boss at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and she was by far her worst.
Erica had been working at the Pentagon since she was eighteen years old. Unlike Sherise and Billie, she couldn’t afford to go to college. When Erica was a teenager, her mother died and Erica had to figure out how to provide for herself and her twelve-year-old brother, Nate. She had been in various administrative roles since.
After learning that Jonah was her father and that he’d slept with Sherise, and went on to threaten her and Terrell if they’d told his secret, Erica quit her job in his department. Jonah refused to accept her resignation and instead had her transferred to the communications department. Considering Terrell had moved out of their shared apartment after she ended their engagement and Nate was away at rehab, bills that were being shared three ways were now all on her. She couldn’t afford to be out of work, so she accepted the new job.
Everything was fine at first, but just one month into the job, her boss quit and moved to Alabama. In came Caroline Billings, a Pentagon veteran of almost thirty years. She immediately clashed with Erica. For the last several months, Caroline made Erica dread coming to a job that she used to like. If the job market hadn’t been as tight as it was at the moment, she would have quit already.
It wasn’t that Caroline was just a mean boss. She was way too nosy for her own good, in Erica’s opinion. She wanted to know everything about Erica and how she’d gotten such a plum position in the communications department and why her stint with Jonah’s office was so short.
Erica was evasive and nonresponsive in general. Caroline told her she would find out what the real deal was, whether Erica told her or not. This was a mistake. Erica wasn’t sure what happened, but she imagined that Caroline’s snooping reached Jonah’s office and she was shut down immediately.
For someone like Caroline, who thought she was more powerful than she actually was, this was frustrating and humiliating beyond words. So while she stopped inquiring about Erica’s past at the Pentagon, she decided she would get her revenge by making her miserable.
“Nice of you to join us,” Caroline said as she reached Erica’s desk.
Caroline’s appearance fit her personality. She looked gaunt and angry, with dark circles around her beady eyes and her salt-and-pepper hair in a severe bun. She wore clothes two sizes too big for her excessively thin frame and walked around with a constant frown on her face.
Erica sat down and placed her purse in the drawer. “I’m ten minutes late, Caroline. I couldn’t get in. There was some tour group or something blocking the entrance and—”
“Excuses, excuses,” Caroline said. “You’re going to have to stay fifteen minutes late to make it up.”
“I know” was all Erica said.
Caroline eyed her for a second as if she was begging for Erica to offer some sort of protest so she could exert her authority and just be an overall bitch. She seemed very disappointed when it was clear that Erica wasn’t going to play into it.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t tempted. Erica thought of saying something sarcastic, because she knew Caroline couldn’t do anything about it. So many times she’d wished that she could tell her who she was and who her father was and put her in her place. She wanted Caroline to try and fire her and see what happened when she couldn’t. She sensed that Caroline knew that she could only push her so far, but she sure made a practic
e of doing just that: pushing Erica as far as she could every day.
Erica wasn’t proud of this little fantasy she had, even though the woman clearly deserved it. She had promised herself that she would never take advantage of Jonah’s status as her father. There was just something about this woman that annoyed her so much that she was tempted to go back on that promise.
But wouldn’t that make her just like Jonah? He used his power to hurt others who crossed him and manipulate their lives to his pleasure. Was this who she would turn into if she let him be a part of her life?
Billie and Erica both thanked the waiter after he brought them their drinks. They had gotten a prime table in the bar area, just at the window, so they could watch the Capitol Hill crowd that gathered at the many restaurants in the area after work.
This area was the part of Southeast D.C. that people loved. It was just off the Eastern Market Metro stop, blocks from the Capitol, and was vibrant. The neighborhoods were nicer here, unlike only a few blocks away in Southeast, which no one liked to talk about. That was the part that Billie, Erica, and Sherise had come from.
Their neighborhood had been rough and full of blight. Nothing good was supposed to come from where they grew up, all three girls living on the same street. Despite the slight differences in their ages, they all made quick friends and formed a bond based on their mutual desire to be better than everyone expected them to be. Despite the challenges they faced—and there were many—they relied on each other to stay strong, stay focused, and make it in life. They had formed a bond stronger than sisters; and although they clashed often, some of them more than others, their love was unbreakable and always reliable.
“Where is this bitch at?” Erica leaned against the window, trying to look as far down the street as she could.
“Sherise is always late, lately.” Billie took a sip of her cherry martini. “I’m just glad it’s someone other than me. I used to always be the late one.”
Nothing to Lose Page 3