Change Of Plans (New Adult BBW Romance) Read Free

I freaking love it.”
    “You read the whole thing? In one night?”
Lucinda’s mouth dropped, her eyes sparkling. “Wow. Must have been a real
page-turner. I’ll have to read it myself!”
    “You’ll have to wait until it’s been
released,” Callie teased with a wink.
    “Have you offered him representation
yet?”
    “No.” Callie pulled up B. Strong’s
contact details, then shot an email to Lucinda. “He’s local, so I’d like to
meet with him personally. I already know he wants me as his agent so it’s a
simple matter of signing him. Can you please give him a call and arrange for
him to come down here for a meeting? I just sent you an email about it.”
    “Sure thing.”
    Humming a light tune, Callie started
tackling her emails, replying to editors and authors, reading and responding to
query letters, and noting down reminders of upcoming events that popped up into
her inbox. She’d only been at it for a few minutes when her desk phone beeped.
    “Callie?” Lucinda’s voice crackled
through the speaker. “I’ve got B. Strong on the other line. He says he has some
meetings in Midtown, and was wondering if you’d be willing to meet at the
Daniel for lunch instead.”
    Callie’s jaw dropped. “The Daniel?” It
was only one of the most expensive French restaurants in New York City. One of
her girlfriends, Missy, had been taken there by her husband, who was a hotshot
Wall Street broker, a couple of years ago, and she’d said the meals there ran
somewhere around $150 per person. She couldn’t imagine going to such a fancy,
exclusive place just to get a contract signed.
    “Yeah. And he says not to worry; the
meal’s on him.”
    Okay. Well, that made things a little
easier. Clearly this guy had money, whoever he was, and was used to dining at
expensive places. For him, this was probably the same as meeting at Denny’s.
And if he was fitting the bill, who was she to complain? It wasn’t every day
that a woman got taken to a place like the Daniel, even if it was just for
business.
    “Tell him I said that’s fine, and get the
time. And also, please forward him a copy of the contract so he can look it
over beforehand.”
    “Will do.” There was a long pause, and
then Lucinda added. “Girl, I think you really did catch a big one this time.
And I’m not talking about the novel either.”
    She hung up the phone, and Callie stared
at it for several minutes before turning back to her emails.
     
    * * *
     
    The next day, at 11:58am, Callie was
standing outside the Daniel, shivering in the chilly morning breeze as she
stared at the elegant double glass doors framed by neoclassical moldings and
potted plants and trees. Her black coat covered the elegant black dress that
she’d felt a little silly wearing to work today, but she knew from Missy that
the Daniel was the kind of restaurant where dinner jackets were required, so
she couldn’t exactly come in looking business casual. Lucinda had teased her
mercilessly, and Callie admitted that if it weren’t for the black leather
portfolio clutched in her hand, she would look like she was here for a date.
    Business , she reminded herself. This is
totally business . She was coming here to get a contract signed so she could
get one of the best erotic romances she’d read in a long time in the hot little
hands of a St. Martin’s Press editor she knew would be dying for it. She wasn’t
curious about the man behind the sexy prose, who had made her heart beat faster
and her panties dampen with a single email. She wasn’t.
    Oh, who are you kidding? She told herself as she
finally got up the courage to push herself through the doors. You’re dying
to find out who this guy looks like, and who cares? It’s not like it’s illegal
for an agent to be attracted to one of her authors.
    Maybe so, but she did make it a point to
date outside her work circle. It kept things simpler. Of course, she’d never
really had to deal with this since most of her authors were