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

  “Sam…err…Samantha, thanks so much for agreeing to this meeting.”

  Sam froze when she heard the male voice from behind her, the hair on the back of her neck standing up. She felt dizzy for a minute and then took a deep breath and started to slide out of the booth so that she could shake his hand. Thank God the seat was slippery so that she could just effortlessly move out instead of having to scooch over like an inchworm.

  “No need to thank me. I wouldn’t have missed this meeting for the world, Lance.”

  They shook hands, and both hesitated awkwardly in silence for what seemed like forever before sitting down.

  Her head was reeling from seeing him as she sat back down in the booth. Lance hadn’t changed much. His jet-black hair had some grey in it now, but it actually looked good on him. His skin was its usual tan hue, making his perfect teeth look even whiter than they already were. He had grown a goatee. Sam had seen it in one of the magazine articles about him a few months ago. It looked much better in person. Damn him.

  “So, this is…errr…uh….”

  “Business,” Sam stated, taking a sip of her drink as she stared at him. The icy blue eyes staring back at her made her want to get up and run away. Could he tell that her knees were shaking? Hopefully not. She wanted to come across to him as cool as a cucumber even though she was the total opposite.

  “Yes, business, but also, it’s good seeing you, Sam. It’s been what, almost three years?”

  “Something like that,” Sam said casually, reaching for a piece of bread. It had been two years and seven months, to be exact, but who was counting?

  “Right. Well, I’ll get to the point. I’d like Rossi and Horizon to partner.” He reached into the briefcase he had placed on the floor and took out a stack of papers, pushing them toward Sam. “These outline everything.”

  Sam reached for the papers and glanced at them quickly.

  “So, a few years ago, I wasn’t good enough to even be considered an agent at your firm, but now you want my company to merge with yours? Really, Lance?”

  Sam knew she had totally just blown her ability to remain cool and businesslike. She had told herself repeatedly not to say what she had just said, but there it was, leaving her mouth. She knew that she sounded a bit childish by bringing up the past, but it was something she had never come to terms with. The way she had left Rossi hadn’t exactly been professional on either end as far as she was concerned.

  He shifted in his seat uncomfortably, and Sam refused to feel any pity for him. She had felt that same discomfort so many times when she had worked for him that it was almost satisfying to see him squirm.

  “Why me, anyway? Horizon is still fairly small. There are other larger, more established firms that you could merge with.”

  “Easy. Because you’re dominating the industry with female clients. You’ve become the top talent agent for women in sports. Look at what you did with Razz, Sam. It’s huge. You’re huge. I want Rossi to be with the best. That’s you.”

  Sam nodded as he spoke, knowing that he was right. Her success with her first client, Tatiana, had just been the tip of the iceberg. She had signed on Jasmine Rasputly, or Razz as she was known, and taken her from a small-time skateboarder to an X-Games all-star. Horizon had gotten millions of dollars in endorsement deals for Razz. Lance’s firm had lost its bid for her. They had a reputation for being male dominant, and that pushed women away.

  “Why should I consider doing this? I’m doing amazing. Business is great. I don’t need you.” Sam was bluffing and immediately regretted saying it. She knew that he had seen the financials, and he would know that she was lying.

  The waitress interrupted them when she came over with a new loaf of bread, horrifying Sam as she realized that she had eaten the first one all by herself. She smiled politely at the waitress and then pushed the bread away as soon as she had left.

  “According to your financials, you do need me. Well, my money anyway. Your business can’t grow unless you have funding, which means looking at venture capitalists. And that means losing control of your company. I can offer you money for just a small stake in the company. And along with that, you have access to all my resources. It’s a win-win situation for both of us, Sam.”

  He was up to something. This sounded too good to be true. Lance Rossi didn’t like to be nice; there was always a catch. Always something in it for him.

  “What’s the deal, Lance? I mean, come on. I know your company hasn’t done very well.”

  “So you’ve been keeping tabs on me?” he asked, smiling and then taking a sip of his red wine.

  “No more than you’ve been keeping tabs on me. You seem to know a lot about how I’ve done. I’d say we both just keep up with the competition. It’s the smart thing to do.”

  “Touché.”

  The waitress reappeared, asking if they wanted any food, and the two of them said no at the same time. Sam felt awkward and wanted to run away. She told herself to grow up and do what she had come there to do: save her business.

  “So, how would this work? The merger, or whatever we are calling it. Why would I give you any clients? And how are you helping us? We don’t really need any help. We have too many clients as it is.”

  Sam suddenly wished she hadn’t pushed the bread away as far as she had. She wanted another piece but knew she couldn’t reach it unless she leaned halfway over the table. Her stomach was growling, and she was on her third drink. She pushed her drink away and pulled her water glass close.

  “That’s just it. You should never be in a position where you say you have too many clients. You can never have too many. I can help with that. Cash means being able to hire more agents to handle more clients. So that solves your problem. For me, well, I need you to help close the deal with potential clients. Females. Off the top of my head, we have lost the last eight that we had prospected.”

  “Nine, actually,” Sam said, smiling slightly.

  “Nine,” Lance said, correcting himself. “If we have you in the negotiation process with us, I think our odds will increase tenfold on getting these clients.”

  “Maybe, but then I’ll be losing them. Won’t I?” Sam asked. This wasn’t making much sense to her. Her stomach didn’t like it either. It let out a loud rumble, and she coughed, hoping to somehow mask the noise.

  Lance heard it anyway and pushed the bread toward her as he spoke.

  “These clients want the security of a large firm with the feel of a small one. They want to be treated differently, and to be honest, I can’t even teach my agents how to do it because I’m not good at it. Women these days demand respect and want to be treated equally, but…well…I don’t know, Sam. There’s mood swings and all that. My team could learn from you, and we will pay you a percentage of the clients’ commissions. A large one.”

  “What if the client wants to join my company though? How can I help recruit people for your company without pushing them away from mine?” Sam grabbed another piece of bread and slathered some butter on it.

  “Neither one of us can sign existing clients who come up for renewal, and we have a list of clients a mile long that we have targeted to bring aboard. Anyone that you have already started to recruit that’s on the list, we will discuss. It’s that simple. If you can help seal the deal with even half a dozen of the names on the list, it will bring me in well over twenty million a year. It’s a win-win situation, Sam. I’m not trying to screw you over in any way, I promise.”

  Sam sat back and looked out the window, her mind racing.

  “Well, we would have to say that we have a partnership. That’s the only way anyone on your list will not wonder why I am in your firm recruiting them for you instead of for my own company. And I’ll have to have my attorneys work on some type of agreement that I get the final say on who is included in the team that recruits for you. Also, we need an escape clause.” Sam wasn’t even sure what that meant, but it sounded good, and she wanted to make sure that if she was miserable, she could break
the agreement. She had thought about it nonstop. If something went bad, she wanted to be able to end the agreement.

  “Escape clause. Such as?” Lance asked, shifting in his seat.

  “I don’t know. Something where either one of us can leave the agreement based on certain criteria. I’ll have my lawyers look over what you have here, and we can go from there,” Sam said. She was proud of herself. She sounded confident and matter-of-fact.

  “Fair enough. I’ll follow up with you in a few days?” Lance asked her, seeming almost afraid. Sam wanted to laugh. My, how times had changed. He was far less aggressive then she had assumed he would be.

  “Sounds good,” Sam replied.

  Lance slid out of the booth, and for a minute, Sam felt disappointed. Part of her had wanted to have dinner with him, to talk about life and what each of them had been through since they had last seen each other, but she knew that was just asking for trouble. They had said what needed to be said. For now, anyway.

  He walked away, and Sam stared out the window, her racing heart starting to slow down as his cologne still lingered in the air. The waitress appeared, telling her that the gentleman that she had been with had paid and left the tab open for her to order whatever she wanted. She asked for another water and looked at the paperwork lying in front of her.

  She did need to grow the company, and Lance had been right: VCs would want control of the company if she obtained the funding from them. If she waited much longer, she would start losing potential new clients because she didn’t have the money to hire the agents on to manage them.

  Merging with Rossi could solve that problem. Or would it just create a bunch of new ones?

  ********

  Lance sat in his car in the parking garage, staring at the grey concrete wall. The meeting hadn’t exactly gone as he’d assumed it would. Sam had been cold and hadn’t seemed too thrilled with his proposal. He had seen her company’s financials and knew that she needed an influx of cash to grow the business. The past few years hadn’t been good at Rossi, and after months of research and careful consideration, he had decided that Horizon would be the best agency to merge with. Despite their past, he knew that the right decision for both businesses was to merge. Would Sam be able to see that it was the right decision, or was she going to let their past affect the future?

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Well?” Holly asked as she barged through Sam’s front door into the living room.

  The two of them still leased townhouses in the same building, mostly because neither one of them had the time to even think about moving. They both spent more time at the office then they did at home anyway. Sam loved her townhouse; it was full of light and cozy, and it was the perfect size for her. The only other tenant in the building was Holly. It was an old house that had been made into two apartments, technically now called townhouses. They each had keys to each other’s places, and because there was one main door to enter the building with a common hallway, Sam’s door was usually left unlocked for Holly anyway. For some reason, Holly loved Sam’s living room and preferred to spend her rare free time there. Sam didn’t mind it at all.

  “Well what?” Sam replied nonchalantly, starting to laugh.

  Holly picked up a grey throw pillow from the chair and threw it at Sam’s head. It narrowly missed and fell on the polished hardwood floor instead.

  “Okay, okay. It went good, I guess,” Sam said as she settled into her oversized couch, balancing a cup of warm tea in her hands.

  “That’s it? ‘It went good’? That’s all you have to say about it? How did he look? Hideous, I hope. Tell me he looked horrible.”

  Sam laughed, knowing that Holly knew damn well Lance looked gorgeous. Looks like his didn’t fade. In fact, on men, they always somehow got better with age. Sam wished that she had more to say, but the meeting had been pretty uneventful. Not that something should have happened. What could have happened, anyway? She and Lance would apologize for acting like kids before? Hell would freeze over before that happened. The two of them were way too stubborn for apologies.

  “Well…yeah. I mean, okay, I was obviously nervous, but he was the same old Lance. It was strictly business. And yes, he looked hideous, if tall, tan, a chiseled jawline, and striking blue eyes are your kind of hideous.”

  Holly cocked her head and continued to stare, as if waiting for Sam to spill the real story.

  “Seriously, Holly, it was uneventful. All business. I would tell you if it was more, but it wasn’t. We stuck to business, and that’s it. There was no small talk at all.”

  “Okay, if you say so. So what did he have to say about the merger?”

  “Pretty much what Mo had told us: he wants to join forces with the agency that is the leader with female clients. Which is us. The plan is that he gives us a percentage of the total contract price for every client that we bring him so we can grow, and he pays us up front within five days from the client signing. But I’m not convinced that it’s a good idea. It worries me.”

  “Well, I need new agents. Bad. We are maxed out with clients until we get new agents to support them. I know I sound like a broken record, but you know the business model you created works, and we are slipping. Our agents each only handle a maximum of fifteen clients,” Holly said as she grabbed a box of crackers from the kitchen and then plopped herself down on the living room chair.

  “Doesn’t it seem strange to you though? That Lance would seek out this deal?” Sam asked Holly as she motioned for her to toss her the box of crackers.

  “Yes and no. I mean, he’s an egotistical maniac. That we both know from working for him. But he’s also very smart. He knows what he needs to get his business back up to where it was. So in that sense, it isn’t strange. I mean, if you guys didn’t have a history, it wouldn’t be strange at all. If anything, I think it probably killed him to ask you to do this. Did he make it sound like he was helping you? Because that’s how I picture him trying to sell this to you. He’s saving you. God forbid Lance Rossi ever admits that he needs help.”

  Sam munched on a cracker while she nodded. Lance had kind of made it sound as if he was helping her.

  “Of course he did. He pointed out that he was helping me, how great a deal this is for Horizon. I’m not a fool. I know that he must feel it’s a better deal for Rossi. He would never want to be equal or less. He always has to be better.”

  “Well, the reality is that we need an investor, and Rossi seems like the best fit. The only other option was venture capitalists, right?” Holly said, her voice drifting off as she noticed Sam was deep in thought.

  Sam sighed heavily as she nodded. She knew they needed the money and that they needed it fast. There was only a very small window of time in which clients could change agents. No one wanted to be without an agent, as it could mean missing a huge sponsorship opportunity. She had to move fast. She just wasn’t sure if making this deal with Lance was a good move or if it was making a deal with the devil.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “This is so awkward,” Sam whispered to Holly as they entered the Rossi building through the glass doors.

  The lobby was as immaculate as always, the black marble floor gleaming as beams of sunlight shone on it through the windows. The reception desk that Sam had sat at for years stood before her, not quite as majestic as she had remembered it being when she had worked behind it. She took a deep breath. It was strange being back in the building when she had never in a million years thought that she would enter it again.

  Mo announced them to the receptionist, who was a handsome young man who looked like an American Eagle model. His cheekbones were so high that Sam couldn’t help but wonder if they were fake. He asked them to take a seat as he picked up the phone and spoke to whomever Lance’s executive assistant was.

  He had barely hung the phone up when the elevator doors swooshed open and a tall, thin, but well-endowed woman stepped out. She had legs as long as Sam’s entire body, and her face looked as if it belonged on the cover of Vogue, her
flawless skin looking as though it was airbrushed.

  “Hello, I’m Randee with two Es. If you’ll follow me, I will take you up to the meeting.”

  Sam and Holly both exchanged glances as they started to walk behind Randee with two Es, with Mo and Mike following shortly behind them. Sam looked at the back of Randee’s perfectly slicked-back hair. It was grey, the pretty grey that was popular at the hair salons. Few people could pull it off, but Randee certainly did. Her hair was stick straight and didn’t have a split end in sight. Sam made a mental note to ask Holly later if she thought it was a wig. It was too perfect.

  They entered the elevator, and Sam’s heart began to race. Tiny beads of sweat began to form on her upper lip. Sweat ‘stache. Ugh. She had been to hundreds of meetings over the past three years. She had no reason to freak out over this one.

  The elevator doors slid open, and the familiar smell of donuts filled the air. Sam hadn’t eaten a donut since she had quit working at Rossi. She wrinkled her nose as she walked off the elevator and stopped short. The space had been redecorated, the black and white and turquoise furniture replaced with cherry-red leather. It was hideous. And flashy. Lance had always had good taste with decorating, but this was absolutely loud and in-your-face horrible. She assumed Randee with two Es had something to do with the color choice, as she noticed that there was a bright-red purse hanging from her bright-red leather chair that matched her bright-red shoes.

  They entered Lance’s large office, the hair on the back of Sam’s neck rising as memories started to flood her mind of having to take notes at the meetings held here, sitting in the corner like she was invisible. She pulled out a chair and sat down at the long table across from his employees, noting that she didn’t know any of the Rossi executives who were at the table. Had Lance fired his entire previous management team?