Sweet Heat by Elena Brown

her hands. Her shoulders slumped, but she was smiling. “Well, see? I mean, I get you don’t want to disappoint your parents but they love you. If you make it clear this guy makes you happy, I’m sure they’ll get on board.”
    She reached across the desk and patted Suzanne’s hand. Christine’s words sounded like something her grandmother would have said, and for a moment, Suzanne felt such a pang. She wished intensely for the older woman’s warmth and wisdom just then. Suzanne would have been able to pour everything out to her Grandmother Eleanor and get some perspective.
    Her grandmother knew her mother, knew how to deal with her.
    “Yeah, maybe,” she said now. “But, it’s not that serious yet. Like you said, it’s only a date and a half. When… if … it becomes necessary, I’ll tell them then.” She was evading the issue, just like she’d been avoiding talking to her mother for any length of time this last week. Suzanne knew it, and based on Christine’s arched eyebrows, her friend knew it too.
    “So, what are you going to do until it gets serious?” Christine made air quotes with her fingers when she said ‘serious’, letting Suzanne know just how ridiculous she thought her justifications were. Clearly, she thought Suzanne should talk to her parents about Brandon now.
    Even the thought made her throat feel like it was closing up. “Ignoring them seems like a valid option to me.”
    Christine snorted and pushed herself up from her chair. She shook her head. “Good luck with that.”
    Suzanne was about to argue further, to point out that she only saw her parents every couple of weeks and only spoke to them maybe once a week… surely it would be easy to dodge their matchmaking for a few weeks, or months, even… just while she figured out what was going on with her and Brandon... but her phone rang. She picked it up, waving her friend off with a slightly aggravated huff.
    “Hello?”
    “Hey, pumpkin. I know you’re at work, but do you have a minute to talk?”
    All that denial settled over her shoulders like a wool coat at the sound of the voice on the other end of the line. Suzanne sighed and sagged in her chair.
    “Hi, Daddy. Sure, I can talk for a bit.”
    “Great!”
    She heard him clap his hands together, and realized he had her on speaker. Which meant he was probably in his office. But which one? She couldn’t remember whether her mother had mentioned them going up to the house in Greenwich this week or not.
    “Your mother and I will be in the city tonight,” her father said a moment later, answering her unasked question. “She’s got some designer she’s meeting with in the afternoon, and then we thought we’d have dinner at Le Cirque around seven. Will you be able to join us?”
    Suzanne’s tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. A voice that sounded suspiciously like Christine’s was screaming ‘Tell him! Tell him!’ in her head.
    Her dad was, somewhat surprisingly, much less intimidating than her mother. Monique had been the one who’d pressed the issue when Suzanne had finally gotten up the courage to tell her parents she didn’t want to go to law school. Henry Headley had listened to her arguments silently, his lean face a study in stern contemplation, lips pursed and dark brows lowered.
    When her mother continued to argue, he’d put his hand on her shoulder and given it a squeeze. “She’s obviously thought this through, and her arguments are sound. I suppose it can’t hurt to let her try it out.”
    Not exactly a ringing endorsement of her career choice, but much more supportive than her mother’s scowl at least.
    Generally speaking, if she grounded her choices in fact and could back them up with statistics and rational thought (or at least present them to him that way) her father could be swayed.
    Of course, there was nothing rational or logically about the way she was feeling about Brandon. So, she ignored the chirpy voice in her head and tried to imbue her