Read A Reason To Stay for Free Online Page A

amount of rebound, but Elise wasn’t there yet.
    Despite the relationship issues she managed to conceal with her high heels and perfect hair, Elise looked like an ordinary catch. She turned, looking forward again. If that guy only knew what she was capable of. She could make any man’s life by tying it up in a pretty bow of good times, sweet lovemaking, and promises of nothing. And then crush him like a beetle on the wrong side of her shoe. She wondered if this problem could be solved by reading that self-help book in her bag.
    Elise got her two cups of coffee and headed toward the exit. The Adonis who waited in line with looks too good to be a local handed her a card as she walked past him. “I believe you dropped this,” he said, with undressing eyes and a sultry voice to match.
    She took it, seeing his name and number scrawled on it. “You better keep hold of this, honey. I’m nothing but trouble.” She laughed slightly and handed it back to him.
    ~*~

    “Janine, I got you a cup of coffee. I’m afraid you’re going to need it today.”
    Janine looked up from the floor where she was picking up a mess of dropped folders. Elise set the cup down and walked to her office, giving no time for her assistant’s reply. There was no time for idle talk. A swarm of personal issues had followed her into the office, compliments of her last evening. If only she had prioritized the breakup better, she wouldn’t have to lug around the extra baggage of commitment with Darren. Although her ring finger remained naked, the noose of guilt and uncertainty around her neck was becoming unbearably tight.
    She worked hard that day, trying to do some of the next week’s work in the span of the two days she had left. Janine was indispensable as always, fielding calls, bringing in lunch, and staying in step with her boss’s requests. Elise checked her phone several times, waiting to see something from Darren. But a blank screen always met her eyes. Maybe he knew nothing would change for them and he would slowly fade away. She tried not to dwell on it, though she would have had better luck stopping the sun from going down.
    Her last email was sent and she clicked the off button on her computer shortly after five o’clock. She wanted to get to the mall and purchase something for her niece and nephew back home. And of course her sister and mother. Gifts might take the edge off of being gone too long.
    The mall was buzzing with people that evening. She walked, slouched over from her tiredness, up and down the marble floors. Her feet were screaming for the ottoman in front of her favorite chair. The heavy bag she carried had dropped from her shoulder to the lazy fingers that now barely kept a grip on it. She stood in front of the mall directory, plastered behind the large glass, looking for a toy store. There was only one and it was on the lower level, on the other side of the fashion metropolis. She took in a heavy breath and pounded the floors until she got there.
    She didn’t know her sister’s children like she should. When they visited a year ago, they were three and five years old. Anything new fascinated them. She made it to the busy little toy shop and settled on a tiny remote control helicopter for Mason, and a stuffed puppy dressed like a baby for Faith. She stopped at Macy’s and grabbed a bottle of lotion for her mother and a new blouse for her sister. They didn’t share the same fashion sense, so it was going to be easy for Elise to part with the pale pink blouse that was stuffed in the bottom of the shopping bag.
    As she walked past the food court, the menagerie of smells beckoned her. She got a steak sub and fries to go and inhaled it on the way home. As she pulled in her driveway, memories of the night before replayed in her head. She felt bad about how it ended with Darren. Did it end? She still wasn’t sure. Meditating on the moment and the precise dialogue exchange was giving her a headache. She did say she needed time,