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“Good.” Luke grabbed his phone and keys. “I’m gonna head out now.”
She frowned. “Aren’t you going to have breakfast?”
“You burnt the eggs.” He made a face. “So I’ll pass.”
“Hey!”
Luke laughed and sailed through the door, locking it softly behind him.
The moment he was gone, Ashanti leaned against the sink and put a hand to her heart. It was still beating normally. No palpitations. No palm-sweating. Not even a little twitch.
Maybe her dad was wrong. If she liked Luke, she would have been able to tell by now.
Relieved, Ashanti forced herself to eat her eggs and headed to work.
The Madalon Building was as much of a skyscraper as her little island nation could claim. It housed six businesses, one on every floor and her office was held in the third story, smack dab in the middle.
On some days, Ashanti challenged herself to jog up the stairs for exercise, but those days were rare. She mostly took the elevator.
“Morning, Ashanti,” Byron, the lobby receptionist, grinned at her.
“Hey, Byron.”
“You look fine today.”
She smiled at his harmless flirting. Byron was the type of man who threw his hook everywhere, hoping someone, somewhere took his bait.
She knew he had no real interest in her. Not unless she had a real interest in him. Then he’d give her a shot. There were rumors that he’d dated half the women in the building already.
“Thanks.” Ashanti nodded at him. “I do try.”
Byron laughed.
Ashanti sailed into the elevator and pressed the number for her floor. As the lift moved up, she caught her reflection in the mirror.
Her hair was smoothed back with enough gel to resist hurricane force winds. She’d paired a sleek black pants and a blue blouse with a grey jacket.
She looked completely different in her work attire than when she was at home or even writing at the café in the evenings. Luke called it a conspiracy. Ashanti called it the power of the pantyhose.
The elevator doors opened with a ding, ushering her into the Belize National Paper headquarters. The room smelled like an old library. Newspaper clippings clung to the wooden sides of their cubicles. A telephone rang in the distance.
A telephone was always ringing in her office.
There were five desks in the main room, but only two were filled. Ashanti nodded to Ruth, the older woman sitting in the first desk and stalked to her cubicle on the other side of the room.
Immediately, she heard heels pattering and glanced back to welcome Tara, her friend and co-worker, into her cubicle.
Ashanti grinned at the tiny woman. When Tara stood on the tips of her toes, she just barely made five feet. She had tan skin and shiny black hair thanks to her Mayan heritage. Her eyes were large and tilted slightly at the corners.
“Hey, girl.” Ashanti got up to give her friend a hug. “How was your vacation?”
“Vacation? Are you kidding me? I spent the last few weeks at my mother’s beck and call. I almost begged Chief to force me back to work so I could get away from her.”
“Is her back better now?”
Tara leaned down and whispered, “I have a feeling she just made a big fuss to get all her children in the same city again.”
“At least you got to meet your family.” Ashanti spun in her chair. “That must have been fun.”
