Page 25 of Strictly Business : A Lesbian Romance
she was starving, she’d missed her lunch break.
Unfortunately, it would be terribly unprofessional to eat in front of
her next prospective client. She might slip in a cup of coffee, since there
was a set up in the board room. She didn’t often drink anything either, since
she was usually busy writing, listening, and trying to think ahead of the
proposal to the actual possibilities it might hold. As far as the day was
going though, there would probably be time for coffee. Her mouth was bone
dry and her patience was just about all used up.
Her arms full, Christina motored down the hallway to the reception
area. She knew she was running behind, and while she hated that because
being on time was one of the core values that she never deviated from, it
couldn’t be helped. She’d done everything she could to try and wrap up her
meetings on time. She would have to be more careful in the future and
space them out with buffer time in between. She kept having to remind
herself that this wasn’t New York, where just about everything was done
with a sense of urgency and purpose. People did business differently here in
Austin. While that wasn’t necessarily bad, it was something that she was
going to have to get used to.
Christina approached the reception area. The building itself wasn’t new.
Closer to downtown Austin, real estate might not have been comparable to
New York again, but it was still pricey for a new branch. The company had
done a decent job finding a brick structure that was nice enough, though it
did have an eighties vibe from the exterior. Inside, they’d renovated
everything, installing new black and grey industrial carpet and white tile
with stone accents in the reception area. All the offices still had the existing
walls, and most of them sported old walls and old ceiling tile, but the board
rooms and any spaces that clients saw were all redone.
She passed by the reception desk and gave Glenda an apologetic smile.
“Sorry I’m running so far behind. I couldn’t dash out to let you know either.
I wanted to, but I couldn’t get a break.”
