Cutting Loose Read Online Free Page B

pretended she
didn’t feel a tingle in her spine all the way to her toes. She hadn’t felt such
a sensation since…
    As quick as she could, she walked to her
car as if she hadn’t heard a single word he said or took a mental snapshot of
his dazzling smile. If only that were true.
     
     
    Chapter Four:
    ‘Cause I’m a
B-O-S-S
     
    Good morning, Ms. Evans!” her perky
secretary Raquel greeted the moment she stepped off the elevator, wearing a big
smile on her face as usual. “Today is going to be brutal.”
    “Tell me about it.”
    “Well, you have a ton of messages on
your voicemail, I left some memos on your desk, um, Camille is calling a
meeting to discuss the cover of the next issue and I think that’s it.” She
handed her a folder and asked, “Would you like some coffee?”
    “Yes, thank you.”
    “No problem, Ms. Evans. I’ll be right
back.”
    She walked to her spacious office;
everything was so bright with the ceiling-to-floor windows and a gigantic view
of downtown Miami, the white furnishings like her chase and her wingback chair
stood out amongst the splash of red and black décor that was arranged around
the place.
     She sat behind her oval-shaped desk
cluttered with a pile of paperwork in her box labeled in/out, next to that was
her seventeen-inch flat panel LCD computer monitor, a keyboard and a phone. She
also had a couple of framed pictures scattered over the desk, which now had
some freed up space now since she tossed away ones that had pictures of her and
Carl together.
    She didn’t have a chance for him to
evade her memories when her phone starting ringing off the hook. “Sabrina
Evan’s office,” she answered in her most professional voice.
    “Hello, Sabrina. I assume you got the
memo about the eight-thirty meeting?” It was her co-worker/half-sister from
hell Camille, and she didn’t sound mad or angry as usual.
    She opened the folder her assistant
Raquel handed to her and found the memo staring her dead in the face.
“Actually, I was just getting around to it. I’m heading to the conference room
now.”
    “Great. Oh, and Sabrina, make sure you
bring your A-game. We really need this account. See you in a few.”
    She took a moment to collect her
thoughts. She had completely forgotten about the cosmetic company that was
doing and ad in their magazine and it was up to Sabrina to put together an
appealing pitch that would make them want to use their magazine at an
affordable and reasonable price and if not, they were going to take their
millions to some other magazine. And since Fabulous was amongst the
top-selling fashion magazines in the world, there was a lot riding on her
shoulders.
    But that was the price she paid as being
co-editor-in-chief ever since her mother retired and made her half-sister the
new editor-in-chief and bumped Sabrina up from creative director.
    The job wasn’t too bad except it consumed
the majority of her time and she always found herself going home with a big
headache at the end of the day. She honestly couldn’t believe how her mother
put up with twenty-three years of this madness; dealing with hundreds of
clients, some worth millions of dollars, some worth billions. Sabrina didn’t
dream of working for a billion-dollar magazine company when she was younger.
She always wanted to be a journalist or something close to it. And then there
was her love of fashion ever since she laid eyes on the way her mother used to
dress back in her younger days and how her stepfather even dressed like a
well-put together guy thanks to her mother.
    For twenty-three years Sabrina’s mother
broke barriers and stereotypes of all kinds. Everybody thought she was crazy
for wanting to publish a fashion magazine. But it wasn’t the idea of starting a
magazine in the mid-eighties; it was just the fact that she was a young, black
single mother raising a kid on her own while working two jobs to make ends
meet. While other women like her living in the projects were out selling