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.”

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