Supporting the Girls

By Bethany Maines

Carrie Mae is an international cosmetics company and Nikki Lanier is their top agent, only Nikki doesn’t sell cosmetics. She and her covert team of Carrie Mae Ladies travel the world on top secret adventures helping women everywhere, but what happens when they’re needed closer to home?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bethany Maines
• Release date: Nov 6, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370758951

Bethany Maines

Bethany Maines the award-winning author of romantic action-adventure and fantasy novels that focus on women who know when to apply lipstick and when to apply a foot to someone’s hind-end. She is both an indie and traditionally published novelist with many short story credits. When she's not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some serious butt with her black belt in karate, she can be found chasing her daughter or glued to the computer working on her next novel.

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by

Bethany Maines

The Home Office

The taxi jerked to a stop, throwing Melissa forward against her seat belt. She fumbled with cash for the driver as she stared up at the shiny modern building on the corner. Climbing out carefully, she adjusted her skirt, closed her purse, and then took a deep breath and squared her shoulders.

I can do this, she muttered to herself. I do not need an appointment.

You tell ’em, sister, said the taxi driver, cheerfully.

Oh . . . Thanks, she said, trying not to show her embarrassment at having her inner monologue become outer. Crossing the street, Melissa headed for the Carrie Mae building. I have a master’s degree in social work. I have employees to think about. I need more corporate support than a paycheck if they expect this program to work. She’d rehearsed her talking points on the plane and in the hotel and in the taxi, but she still felt her pulse accelerate as she approached the imposing glass doors.

It had only been six months ago that she’d walked out of them exhilarated at having absolutely fricking nailed the job interview. True, when she’d told her then-boyfriend about the interview later, she hadn’t been able to exactly describe what the job entailed.

Well, I don’t know specifically what I’ll be doing, but I’ll be building a program from the ground up! I’ll be working with inner-city youth! If it goes well in Detroit, they’ll be expanding the program nationwide. It’s an unbelievable opportunity—especially coming right out of grad school! And best of all, it’s a company that really believes in a mission of helping people!

Melissa snorted at the memory. Six months had been long enough to convince her that the Carrie Mae Foundation, the charitable branch of the Carrie Mae Cosmetics Company, did not give a crap whether her innovative program for helping young women in low-income neighborhoods succeeded or not. Six months had also been enough time for her boyfriend to decide that she was more passionate about her program than she was about him and that a long distance relationship just wasn’t going to work. She’d attempted to point out that if he weren’t being such a dickhead and demanding that she find a social-work job back in New York—aka closer to the kitchen where she could cook him dinner at night—it might work out just fine, but that hadn’t gone well. Six months . . . she’d put so much of herself into this program, given up so much. She’d moved to Detroit, for Christ’s sake! And for reasons she couldn’t quite fathom, it was going to fail. She was going to fail.

I need help, she said to her reflection in