Backup Plan (What's The Plan? Series Book 2)

by Lisa Fenwick

  “I had a great time last night. Let’s do it. Again.”

  Sam frowned as she read the last few words. Let’s do it? Again? It sounded as if they had had sex, and they hadn’t. Not even close! She started to laugh, realizing that the florist must have made a mistake with punctuation. She tossed the card down, and Holly eagerly snatched it up.

  “OH MY GOD. YOU DID IT?”

  Sam laughed harder and louder, tears starting to roll down her cheeks. She couldn’t even get any words out she was laughing so hard.

  “Wow, you must be good then, for a guy to send you flowers thanking you for it.” Addi giggled.

  The three of them were all laughing when Mo came in, looking puzzled.

  “What’s so funny? What did you do?” he asked Sam. This only caused the three of them to laugh even more.

  “Okay, okay, back to work. Sorry Mo. Bad joke,” Sam said, taking the card and putting it in her desk drawer.

  Mo sat down in one of the chairs across from Sam’s desk, a sign for the other two to leave. He waited for them to leave before he spoke.

  “Sam, this money situation is pretty serious. I know you think I’m overly cautious, but with the new hires Holly is bringing on, we are adding more than six figures a month to payroll alone. It’s imperative we work alongside Rossi as a team.”

  Sam scrunched her face up, slightly confused. Did he think that she didn’t take the merger seriously? Or was he trying to tell her not to see Jez in some roundabout type of way?

  “Yes, I know it’s serious, Mo. Why do you think I wouldn’t be taking it seriously? I dressed up like Big Bird, for crying out loud.”

  She watched as Mo fiddled with his navy-blue bow tie.

  “Well, Sam, it’s the whole Jez thing.”

  Sam threw her hands up in the air.

  “Come on! We went out for dinner, for crying out loud! I’m not trying to woo him over to us, if that’s what you think. It’s not business related at all.”

  Sam was irritated that Mo would even mention this. He should know her better. And she hadn’t had any social life since she had started this business, and it really annoyed her that the one time she went out on an actual date, it got all blown out of proportion.

  “Well, it made the “What’s Happening” section of the local news, and while I know you aren’t up to anything, I can’t be so sure that Lance and the management team at Rossi feel the same way I do.”

  Sam’s eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open.

  “What?” She asked as Mo fiddled on his iPhone and then turned it around so she could see it.

  She flew across her desk and grabbed the phone, squinting at the picture. Yup. There she was, sitting in the booth with Jez. It was dim, but the candlelight shone on both of their faces. It was actually a good picture of them, and due to the lighting, it did seem to be a romantic type of dinner.

  “Who would take a picture of us? Why?” she asked, starting to get paranoid.

  “Sam, he’s pretty famous in the hockey world. People see him out and take a pic, and now it’s ‘who is Jez with?’…’mystery woman’…you know how the gossip trades work.”

  Sam settled back in her seat and stared at the picture again. Was Mo right, that a random person had taken the picture? Or was someone trying to cause trouble?

  Just then, Sam’s door burst open and Lance came storming inside.

  “Have you seen this?!” he demanded, holding his phone out so she could see the exact same picture Mo had just shown her.

  “Y-yes,” she stammered, taken aback by his anger.

  “This makes me look like an idiot! Do you understand that? Jez is my client, and now he’s seen out eating dinner with you, the top talent agent in the area. Do you get why I didn’t want this…this…whatever it is you have with him to go on? Can’t you just get Domino’s or something?!”

  With that, Lance turned and left the office, almost knocking over Addi and Holly, who were standing just outside her door.

  “What the hell is going on with everyone around here?” Sam asked, motioning for Holly and Addi to come into her office.

  “Well, he’s right,” Addi said, ignoring the stares from Holly and Mo that meant for her to keep her mouth shut.

  “How so?” Sam asked.

  “Everyone is talking about you and Jez. On my ride in on the train, people were saying he must not have gotten a good deal through Rossi, so now he’s trying to get a better one through you. I mean, you are known for getting top dollar for your clients.”

  Sam couldn’t argue with that. She was like a pit bull when it came to getting top dollar for her clients. It meant top dollar for her, too.

  “Okay, but did Lance have to be such an ass just now about it? I mean, we need to be able to talk like adults about this stuff. I told him that Jez and I weren’t talking about business, and we weren’t. “

  “I agree with you, Sam, Lance was a bit out of line,” Mo said. “But I do think maybe you should go apologize to him and smooth things out.”

  Sam threw her arms up in the air in frustration. She looked at the flowers sitting on her desk and shook her head. Every time something good happened to her, it always seemed to be followed by some type of drama.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll go talk to him.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Sam mumbled to herself as she pressed the round silver button for the elevator. This whole situation was absurd. She sighed heavily as the elevator doors slid open. Stepping inside, she turned around and pressed the button for Lance’s floor quickly, as if the button would shock her if she kept her finger on it for too long. She really didn’t want to apologize to him, but Mo was right. People could get the wrong idea about her being with Jez, and it wasn’t good for either of them. She thought Lance had overreacted, but maybe she would have had the same reaction if the situation were reversed. The fact that she was in the social pages didn’t help, either.

  As the elevator stopped at Lance’s floor, she caught herself smoothing out her long skirt and tugging on her blazer to make sure it wasn’t riding up. This wasn’t a fashion show, she told herself. She approached Randee’s desk and was relieved to see that she wasn’t there. She knew that if she had been, she would have asked a million questions about why Sam needed to see Lance, more to aggravate Sam than to accommodate Lance.

  She’d started to walk toward Lance’s office when his door swung open, causing Sam to stop in her tracks. Her very first client, who also happened to be Lance’s ex-girlfriend, Tatiana Giardano, came walking out with Lance right behind her. The two of them were laughing.

  “Oh, Sam! Err…Hi!” Tatiana stretched her arms out and gave Sam a hug. “I was just thinking about dropping by the new space.”

  Sam hoped that her face didn’t reflect the shock that she felt in seeing Tatiana here. The last she knew, Lance and Tatiana hadn’t spoken in years. Why would she be here with him?

  Sam looked at Lance, who seemed to be avoiding making eye contact with her. He was looking at his watch instead.

  “Lance, can we talk?” Sam asked after what seemed like too much of an awkward silence. Why did it feel so strange? She knew Tatiana well. She had been her client for years now, and they spoke often. Which made it even more odd that she wouldn’t know that she and Lance were friendly again.

  “Oh, of course. Sure,” Lance said, saying good-bye to Tatiana.

  They walked into his office, and Sam immediately spun around to look at him.

  “Seriously, Lance?” she asked loudly, her hands on her hips.

  “Huh? What?” Lance asked, sitting down behind his desk.

  “Oh, please. Do not play this game. You get all upset with me about Jez, and here you are with Tatiana! It is the same exact thing! Talk about a double standard!” Sam was mad, pointing her finger and shaking it at Lance.

  “Uhh, it is most certainly not the same thing. Tatiana is an old friend who happened to drop by and say hi. And also, I’m pretty sure there won’t be pictures of us splattered
all over social media either.”

  Sam watched as Lance opened an envelope and pulled a piece of paper out, unfolding it and reading it while ignoring her.

  “So that’s all you’re going to say about this?” she demanded, hands on her hips.

  Lance looked up at her and nodded. “Sam, you are really overthinking this. It’s not a big deal. What did you come up here for anyway?”

  “I came up here to apologize about being out with Jez, but it seems there’s a double standard when it comes to that. Everyone knows I was responsible for Tatiana’s comeback, and yet here she is, with you. How am I supposed to know if it’s business or pleasure that she’s here for? People will talk regardless of if it’s the media or the employees here who saw her come and go. You know that, Lance. I’ll see myself out.”

  She turned and left his office, walking quickly past Randee, who was applying lipstick at her desk. She pounded on the down button for the elevator and practically jumped inside when the doors slid open. Her heart was racing. There was no way she was apologizing to Lance when he had done the same thing that she had. He was the king of double standards, and she was so sick of it.

  She stormed off of the elevator, walking right by Addi and ignoring her question about a schedule change.

  “How did it go?” Mo called out from his office as she stormed down the hallway.

  “It went great!” Sam yelled from outside her office before she stepped inside and closed the door. She was in no mood for a lecture from Mo.

  Her mind on high alert about Tatiana, she immediately pulled up Tatiana’s contract on her computer and scrolled toward the termination clause, even though she already knew what it was. Sam had written it, after all. She stopped when she got to it and read it slowly.

  Either party may terminate this contract for any reason with thirty days’ written notice.

  Sam stared at the screen and read the sentence again. This was the only contract in her agency with a thirty-day termination clause; the others only had clauses for gross negligence or misconduct. Sam had written this thirty-day one just for Tatiana because at the time, Tatiana had been taking a big risk by signing with Sam, and Sam had been taking a big risk by signing Tatiana.

  She had always assumed that if anyone would be giving notice, it would be her. Now after seeing Tatiana with Lance, she wasn’t so sure.

  ********

  “Are you okay? Addi said you seemed like you were in a bad mood,” Holly asked Sam as she peeked her head inside Sam’s office door.

  Sam motioned for her to come in and sit down.

  “When I went upstairs to apologize to Lance, Tatiana was there. They were walking out of his office together. She totally avoided making eye contact with me.”

  “I thought they didn’t like each other, that they didn’t even talk anymore?” Holly asked, her eyes widening.

  “That’s what I thought too,” Sam said.

  “Did you ask them what was going on?”

  “Yes. I demanded they tell me why they were meeting,” Sam replied sarcastically. “You know that would have been out of line. I was hoping that she would tell me, but she didn’t. I mean, I assume that she would tell me if she was seeing him again, you know? But then again, it isn’t like she and I are best friends. But we were pretty close the first year that she signed on.”

  Sam saw Holly raise an eyebrow and knew what it meant.

  “No. This isn’t me being jealous or anything. It’s business, and call me paranoid, but it worries me. If she wants to date Lance that’s her call. I’m more worried about her joining Rossi. We can’t afford to lose her as a client. Maybe I’m crazy, but I just got a strange vibe.”

  “Well, she’s locked in with a contract with us, so even if she wanted to, she couldn’t leave,” Holly said.

  “She only has to give thirty days’ notice, remember?” Sam said.

  Holly’s eyes widened.

  “Oh jeez, that’s right. I forgot about that whole ‘first client’ thing. Well, I don’t see why she would leave Sam. You revived her career, and she owes you a LOT. There’s no way she would want to sign with Rossi. Maybe she was just saying hello, or maybe she and Lance are seeing each other, but either way, she definitely wasn’t there about business. She’d be an idiot to do that.”

  Sam nodded in agreement and looked out the window. Tatiana was a lot of things, but an idiot wasn’t one.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Dinner?”

  Sam stared at the text, unsure how to reply to Jez. She wanted to have dinner with him, and why shouldn’t she? He was fun, and they had had a great time when they had gone out before. But Mo had made it really clear that they needed Lance’s money, and she wasn’t so sure that meeting up with Jez immediately after Lance getting mad about it was the right call, regardless of how badly she wanted to or the fact that Tatiana might be involved with Lance.

  “Would love to but can’t tonight. Will talk to you later,” she replied, her fingers still on the phone after she hit the send key. Dammit, she really wanted to see him again.

  After staring at her phone, she stood up and grabbed her laptop and walked toward the conference room for the monthly meeting, bumping into Addi as she stepped into the hallway.

  “Max from Bordiana called. Again. You really need to call him back, Sam. I’m running out of excuses.”

  “I’ve been playing phone tag with him,” Sam said, lying. “I’ll call him back after the meeting.”

  They both entered the dark conference room. Sam switched on the lights and walked over to the window and pulled open the blinds. The sun instantly brightened up the room.

  The others streamed into the meeting room and sat down, Holly looking around.

  “Where’s the breakfast?” she asked.

  “No more breakfasts,” Addi said, looking at Sam.

  “Why are you looking at me?” Sam asked.

  “I’m looking at you because you said not to order breakfast anymore. Aside from that.” Addi pointed to the corner of the room.

  Everyone turned to look at the corner of the room, where some fruit had been set out – bananas, apples and grapefruit.

  Sam shrugged as they all grimaced at the site of the fruit.

  “Well, it won’t kill us all to eat healthy,” she said. She really didn’t remember telling Addi not to order food anymore, but she had been so busy that anything was possible.

  “Okay, can we get this meeting moving?” Mo asked, sounding annoyed.

  “Sure. I guess we will start with you,” Sam said. “But first, I want to note that Bordiana might be looking for some money back. Because of Syd not going to the show. I’ll try and find out today for you. They’ve been calling me, but we haven’t connected yet.”

  Mo sighed heavily and took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

  “Well, if they want money back, we don’t have it to give to them. In fact, along with not ordering breakfast anymore, we need to stop ordering everything. Supplies, ads, expenses, literally everything. I need to make payroll. That’s my priority.”

  Everyone sat in silence. Sam’s heart dropped into her stomach. She knew money had been tight but not this tight.

  “What’s going on? I thought that this deal with Lance freed up cash. I mean, we aren’t paying rent. Or for any office machines or furniture.” Sam knew the rent alone had been thirty thousand dollars a month at the last space.

  “And I’ve brought Rossi half a dozen clients. Aren’t we getting a monthly finder’s fee for that?” Holly chimed in, looking confused.

  “Well, yes and no. We do get a percentage of the total contract for each client you bring to Rossi, but it doesn’t happen until the client signs. Keep in mind that a handshake deal doesn’t count. After the handshake, the papers go to legal, and that can take weeks, and we don’t get paid until after all of that is finalized. So the half a dozen clients is really only two in terms of what we have been paid for so far. And as far as what we’ve saved with rent, that money has go
ne toward payroll for the new hires that you said we needed.”

  Sam felt her face get red. She should have known that. The truth was she hated the financial aspect of running a business. She really didn’t have a head for numbers at all. It was part of why they had ended up in this mess to begin with.

  “We do need them!” Holly defensively said.

  “Mo, I know what you’re trying to tell me. Things are extremely tight financially until we get the money in from Rossi. After that, we will be okay, right?”

  Mo nodded and adjusted his bow tie.

  “Well, next time maybe you can say that instead of making it sound like we are on the verge of bankruptcy,” Sam said in a harsh tone. She didn’t like to be harsh, but it was the truth. She respected Mo, but his delivery sucked. She would meet with him alone to talk about it; now wasn’t the time or place.

  “So, what does this mean? Do I need to stop my marketing campaigns until we get money in?” Michael asked.

  “Yes,” Mo said.

  “Great,” Michael said sarcastically.

  Sam felt awkward, even though she knew she shouldn’t. This was her company, and she needed to make them feel at ease. She could tell everyone was irritated. Even Addi had a scowl on her face. Addi loved buying all kinds of organizers and different decorations for the reception desk.

  “Guys, this is temporary. A few weeks more is all we need, and then we are over the hump. Money will start coming in. We can start up with ads again, hire more people, and order all the supplies on Earth. But until then, we just need to be careful on spending.”

  The frowns still remained on everyone’s faces, and Sam had an overwhelming sense of failure. She just wanted to end the meeting and hide in her office the rest of the day.

  “I think we’ve heard what we all need to,” she said abruptly, pulling out her chair and leaving the room. She didn’t need to look back to know that everyone’s mouths would be hanging open. This was totally out of character for her. Too bad. She was entitled to have a bad day.