Getting Down To Business: A Lesbian RomCom Novel

By Nicolette Dane

A quirky young woman navigates the business world and searches for love in this hilarious and touching romantic comedy!

 

From the outside, Amy Barnes has it all. She's a rising star at her Chicago tech start up. She's well liked, she's funny, she's smart, she's pretty. But despite all this, for some strange reason, Amy's had an absolutely awful love life. It couldn't possibly be Amy's fault… right?

 

Enter Josephine Taft, rich and successful tech investor, swooping in to save Amy's company from financial ruin. In addition to being wealthy and accomplished, Josephine is also a total fox and Amy can't help but swoon over her. No pressure here.

 

As our quirky heroine maneuvers through this stylized romantic comedy, often butting heads with a whimsical cast of characters, she'll have to look within to both save her company and get the girl. Will Amy be able to rein in her eccentricities and prove to Josephine that she's worth the investment?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nicolette Dane
• Release date: Jun 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393942252

Book preview

GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS

A LESBIAN ROMCOM NOVEL

NICOLETTE DANE

GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS

From the outside, Amy Barnes has it all. She’s a rising star at her Chicago tech start up. She’s well liked, she’s funny, she’s smart, she’s pretty. But despite all this, for some strange reason, Amy’s had an absolutely awful love life. It couldn’t possibly be Amy’s fault… right?

Enter Josephine Taft, rich and successful tech investor, swooping in to save Amy’s company from financial ruin. In addition to being wealthy and accomplished, Josephine is also a total fox and Amy can’t help but swoon over her. No pressure here.

As our quirky heroine maneuvers through this stylized romantic comedy, often butting heads with a whimsical cast of characters, she’ll have to look within to both save her company and get the girl. Will Amy be able to rein in her eccentricities and prove to Josephine that she’s worth the investment?

CONTENTS

Copyright

About The Author

Sign Up For Nico’s Mailing List!

One

Two

Three

Get 3 Free Books!

Snowed Under

All Good Stuff

Farm To Table

An Excerpt: Snowed Under

An Excerpt: All Good Stuff

Thank You

Copyright © 2017 Nicolette Dane

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nicolette Dane landed in Chicago after studying writing in New York City. Flitting in and out of various jobs without finding her place, Nico decided to choose herself and commit to writing full-time. Her stories are contemporary scenarios of blossoming lesbian romance and voyeuristic tales meant to give you a peep show into the lives of sensual and complicated women. If you're a fan of uplifting and steamy lesbian passion, you've found your new favorite author.

www.nicolettedane.com

SIGN UP FOR NICO’S MAILING LIST!

If you’d like to be notified of all new releases from Nicolette Dane and receive FREE books, head over to Nico’s website and sign up for her mailing list right now!

www.nicolettedane.com

ONE

So I’m not perfect. Whatever. I mean, who is? What I’ve come to realize in life, as I stumble through my 30th year, is that perfection is the enemy of good enough. And I’m most certainly good enough. I do my best, I work hard, I smile. People like me. I’m funny, I’m pretty, and I’m a rising star at my company. What more could a girl ask for?

Gah! Who am I kidding? I want to be perfect. I want so desperately to be perfect!

Love me, friends! Love me, family! Love me, coworkers!

Love me… some woman, any woman. Are you out there, Miss Good Enough, who can give this girl a bit of love? Hello?

Something happens when you hit 30 years old and you still haven’t found that special someone who makes your heart flutter. And that something is a nagging mother, a body that thinks you betrayed it, and a bunch of lesbian friends who wonder if maybe, just maybe, you’re actually straight.

We don’t care if you’re straight, Amy, they say. You can tell us.

Maybe being straight is easier than all this. A bigger pool to choose from, I guess. You don’t have to have the talk that, no, not all lesbians are the cliches you see on screen. Just because I’m a bit girly, that doesn’t mean I can’t be a lesbian.

But then I see some pretty lady in line at the coffee shop, swoon a little bit, feel the courage building inside of me to maybe, I don’t know, talk to her. Of course I look down and see, fastened securely to her finger, a large clunky diamond. Instead of talking to her I just order one of those 1000 calorie blended drinks with whipped cream and chocolate syrup on top and I head into the office, like I always do, to try to make sense of my life, how I got here, and where the hell I could possibly go from this point.

My name is Amy Barnes and I am totally fed up with being single.

Being single is a lot of fun when you’re 20. You’re going to parties, you’re meeting random girls — some tourists, mind you — making out in back alleys after rock concerts, heading back to her place after the bar. You see that cute chick in your college math class and it’s easy to go up and talk to her, to flirt, to get attention. But come to me when you hit 30. It seems by the time you hit upon 30, all the single lesbians are way out there somehow. Maybe they’re a starving artist who in all honesty just isn’t very good at their art, or they’re some pothead who never left the party. Sometimes they’ve been divorced already, for good reason, and never learned from their mistakes. One woman I dated let slip that she still saw her ex-wife on occasion. You know… saw her. Let me tell you, I’ve never climbed out of a bathroom window so fast.

C’mon, I know I’m a catch. I’ve got my foibles though, sure. Sometimes I wear the underwear with the holes in them when I’m feeling particularly uninspired. And okay, I’m a little bit bigger in the midsection than I was just a couple years ago. And I get raccoon eyes sometimes at work when I cry about how I’m just never going to find someone to love me. Note to my editor: take that part out, it’s too embarrassing. But look, I’m a good person and any woman would be lucky to have me. Why can’t they just see that? I mean, why can’t a woman who isn’t a druggie, totally broke, or banging her ex after a date with me see that?

Am I asking for too much? Am I being snotty? Is it me?

My standards in who I could find acceptable as a mate have definitely dwindled in the past couple years, but it hasn’t gone so far as to coax me to date any of my coworkers. Besides the whole don’t shit where you eat nugget of wisdom, I work for a tech start up that employs a bevy of over-caffeinated, Adderall-popping, Asperger’s-having computer programmers. Mostly dudes. Nice bunch of guys (and one gal, not a lesbian) and I certainly don’t discriminate against those of the nerdy persuasion. I just prefer a gal who can talk to me without her eyes buried into a screen, a girl who doesn’t spend her off-hours leveling-up her Paladin in some virtual world of dragon slayers. You know, someone a bit more… normal.

Don’t be a hypocrite, Amy, I can hear you saying. With your hole-y panties and your oversized latte.

Well, I am a hypocrite so you’re just going to have to deal with it. I’ve certainly popped some Adderall on a deadline (after work that night I cleaned my apartment until 4AM) and I’ve spent my off-hours binge watching fantasy television shows. I could slay a dragon if I had to. But I only do this stuff because I don’t feel complete. I do it because I have nothing better to do sometimes. Instead of cooking a wonderful dinner together with the love of my life, I’m ordering Thai food for the third night in a row and moving on to Season 4 of another medieval blood-fest incestuous soap opera for people who refuse to admit they’re watching a soap opera.

I know you’re with me in all this. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to fall in love. Having a partner can make you a better person, a more self-actualized person. They can inspire you to be the best you possible, not some clumsy ball of anxiety who feels destined to have one cat for every 10 square feet of apartment space. I only have one cat and I only want one woman.

Walking into my office on a Monday morning, feeling kind of bulgy bloated in my herringbone skirt and blouse, I set my quad venti caramel upside-down iced latte with a drizzle of chocolate syrup atop whipped cream on my desk and tossed my bag against my chair. My bag immediately tumbled over and some of its contents spilled out. My makeup kit, my brush, my (tastefully sleek) stainless steel vibrator. Don’t play dumb. I bet you take your vibrator to work on a Monday morning too. As I started to clean up my purse mess, squatting down on the floor next to my desk chair, Margot walked into my office with a file folder in her hands.

What are you doing? said Margot, looking down at me as I scooped the contents back into my purse.

Exercising, I said as I turned toward her, absentmindedly wagging my vibrator.

You’re going to put my eye out with that thing, she said.

Huh? I said, suddenly noticing the vibrator. Oh shit, I said, quickly stuffing it back into my purse. I don’t use that in the office.

Sure you don’t, she said. Are you doing all right, Amy?

Yes, I said, now standing up and ambling toward her. Margot Dufrene was one of my good friends at work, an assistant on my team. We handled investor relations for our tech start up and our job had grown in importance recently as the company was pivoting and in need of a much larger cash injection.

You look a little pale, she said, tilting her head thoughtfully. What did you have for breakfast this morning?

A couple chocolate chip cookies and now this latte, I said, motioning toward my monstrous coffee-flavored drink.

Well, Amy, you know we have a pretty important meeting later this morning, she said. You didn’t think to get some rest, wake up early, eat something healthy? Maybe go for a run to get your blood pumping?

If I went for a run this morning it would be the EMS getting my blood pumping, I said. And yes, I know we have an important meeting, and yes I am prepared.

I brought you this file to go over, said Margot, plopping her folder down on my desk. Just in case you feel like you need to know a little more information about Josephine Taft.

Josephine Taft? I said, mockingly putting my finger to my lips. Josephine Taft, Josephine Taft. It doesn’t ring a bell.

Amy, she said, rolling her eyes at me.

Josephine Taft, I repeated once more. Oh, I know. Taffy heiress, sturdy broad, she’s got a candy factory out in the West Suburbs.

You’re a crazy person, said Margot. Walt and Billy will tear you to shreds if you don’t impress Miss Taft. This entire company’s future rests on her investment.

Walt’s too busy buying unnecessarily fancy stereo equipment for his high-rise condo, I said. Tweaking the levels, I went on, making air quotes with my fingers. And Billy, what’s his latest hobby? BASE jumping?

We’ve got to take this seriously, Amy, she said. I don’t want to be out of a job and I don’t think you do either.

I am taking this seriously, I said, picking up Margot’s folder and beginning to thumb through it. I knew enough about Miss Josephine Taft to know she was a billionaire tech investor who made her money in secure health care data sharing. I knew she had taken her company public, dropped out of the day-to-day, and spent her time investing in tech start ups like ours to grow her wealth. But I didn’t know she was such a fox, I said aloud, looking at a picture of Miss Taft paper-clipped to Margot’s notes.

Amy, warned Margot, shaking her head. We can’t screw this up and you can’t get all starry-eyed over this investor and lose sight of our goal.

I’m not going to lose sight of our goal, I said, still gazing into Josephine Taft’s picture. She was a babe. Shiny brown hair going just past her shoulders, curled in ringlets, a pale face with slight features, little button nose. She looked like she came from money. She couldn’t have been more than 40 years old. Looked really good in a blazer and skirt, too.

Hello? said Margot, waving her hand between me and the picture. Amy, are you there?

I’ll be there in a minute, I said, locked in a staring match with the picture.

If I get fired, said Margot. I will forever rest the blame on your shoulders.

Stop it, I said, closing the folder and tossing it back down to the desk. I’ve got this, Margot. Amy Barnes is always on point.

So I’m not always on point. There was that time I slept through Margot’s year evaluation. And I also did say something vaguely racist to a Chinese investor, losing us the account and making everyone on my team think I had some weird sexual thing with Asian people. Oh, and I did coordinate a birthday party at a bar for our company controller just a few weeks after he had gotten sober. But apart from all that, Amy Barnes is usually on point and able to get the job done well and the job done right.

Just don’t sleep through the meeting, said Margot, turning to leave. It’s at 11AM.

Yes ma’am, I said, standing up straight and saluting her.

I’m going to go update my resume, she said, strutting out of my office and turning down the hall.

Waltzing over to my chair, I picked up my purse and let it fall down on the floor below me. I plopped down in the chair and picked up the folder, opening it up and once again seeing Josephine Taft’s picture. She was dreamy. She had the skin of a billionaire, if that makes any sense. I guess a billionaire could have gross skin. But Miss Taft didn’t. Her skin glowed, radiating out from the picture and warming my heart. High cheekbones on this one, with a small but defined chin. She had to have been prom queen. There was just something about her… like, perfection.

Amy Barnes-Taft, I murmured as I looked further into her deep brown eyes, thinking that, yeah, I’d definitely take her name. The woman’s picture made me feel like marriage, so what?

Knock knock, came a voice at my door accompanied by a light knocking on the metal frame. Looking up from the picture, I saw Walt Kelly, my aging yet surprisingly active boss, 50-something, and one of the cofounders of our company. He was bald on top with a bird’s nest of hair wrapped around his head, a long face, always in a white button-down shirt, dark pleated khakis, and mid-calf hiking-style shoes. He gave me a sort of fake smile, squeezing his face, tilting his head from side to side, and waving a hand at me. Nice guy, but just a little off. He had a tendency to give uninvited shoulder massages to both girls and guys half his age, make judgey remarks in a humble-brag sort of way, and pop into other peoples’ conversations at inappropriate times. But, well, he was the boss, he had the MBA. So there you have it.

Hi Walt, I said, quickly closing the Taft folder. What can I do for you?

Just checking in, he said, wandering into my office and putting his hands in his pockets. Sidling up next to my desk, he sat down on it, causing his pleated pants to scrunch up at his midsection. Everything ready for this meeting today?

Yes, I said quickly. I mean, of course it is. We’re going to nail her, I said, suddenly realizing what I had said. "Nail it. Nail the meeting with Miss Taft."

A lot’s at stake here, Amy, said Walt, kicking a leg out and bouncing it absentmindedly. We really need Miss Taft as an investor.

Sure, I said. I’m aware of how important it is.

What did you have for breakfast this morning? said Walt, eying me suspiciously.

Why does everybody want to know what I ate for breakfast? I asked incredulously.

You look a little peaked, he said.

Chocolate chip cookies, I said. What did you have?

Poached eggs over quinoa and broccoli, said Walt. But that was after my 30 mile bike ride up to Evanston and back.

You win, I said, slinking back in my chair.

I’ve eliminated all yeast from my diet, said Walt. I recently read a book that says yeast isn’t good for the natural flora in your gut. It can make you feel gassy and distended.

Maybe yeast is my problem then, I said. And all this time I thought I was just crazy.

It could be, said Walt. I can order you a copy of the book.

I’m not going to read that book, Walt, I said. You can just give me the summary.

Okay, well, he said, looking upwards in thought. See the initial problem with yeast is that—

No, I interrupted. Not right now. But later sometime.

I’ll just order a copy for you, he said with a squinty, smarmy smile.

Fine, I said.

So you’re ready for Miss Taft? he asked with a sigh, jiggling his hands lightly in his pockets.

Yes sir, I said. Margot dropped this folder off with me just before you came in, I’m reviewing it, and we’ll be ready to go at 11.

You’ve got smudges all over your glasses, said Walt, looking at me in a half-cocked stare.

I do? I said, swiftly pulling my rounded black frames from my face and cleaning off the lenses with a loose part of my blouse.

Just as long as you’re ready, said Walt, standing up now and moseying back toward the door. He then turned to me just as I was replacing my glasses on my nose. Did I tell you about this new stereo amplifier I picked up for my home audio system?

No Walt, I said. You didn’t.

It’s this brand from England, very high quality, he said. Each channel is separated on the board to help maintain a clarity of sound whether you’re playing from a CD, a digital file, or vinyl.

Oh, I said, nodding at him with a bored look on my face.

Do you have an amplifier at home? he said, raising his eyebrows.

I play music through my laptop speakers, I said.

That can’t sound very good, he said in a confused tone.

Walt, I should really get back to studying this file. I picked up the folder and waved it at him. I’ll see you right before the meeting, okay?

Okie dokie, he said, giving me a toothy smile and meandering out of my office.

Oh God, I sighed, feeling like I could just slide right off my chair and onto the floor. The longer I stayed at this company, the more doomed the whole thing felt. I was wasting my youth in an office job, responsible for a stupid unnecessary product that nobody really needed. But it was techie and edgy and Web 2.0 or whatever. Our original product, which I’ll get to just a bit later, sold well at first. But once other companies began to copy what we were doing sales leveled off and we needed to figure out what was next. It was our customers who showed us the way, using our product in a manner we hadn’t imagined and we jumped off that to develop the next iteration of software. The new system was beginning to catch on, albeit in a simple sort of way, but if we didn’t get a large sum of money soon and get the real software out the whole thing would come collapsing down on us.

So interesting, right? All the free gourmet lunches, dry cleaning pickups, pool tables, and childcare for children I didn’t have couldn’t make me feel any better about spending my life doing this. Investor relations at a tech start up, flipping a product that had really no importance to the grander scheme of life, putting up with all these miscreants and self-important geeks who thought our product was giving something wonderful to humanity. I could pull my hair out. But my blonde dye job had cost too much money and my hair was one of my most favorite attributes about myself, so that certainly wasn’t an option. Instead, I had to just keep putting up with this place, continue letting the loonies run the nuthouse. I should have been a gardener or a bus driver or something.

I had come to Chicago originally with some bigger ideas for myself. While I’d studied Finance as my major at a large public university in my home state of Michigan, my minor was in theatre. After graduation I moved to Chicago with dreams of being an actress. I hit the scene pretty hard for a while but after a few successes and a whole lot of failures, I realized that the Chicago theatre scene was a place you went when you simply loved doing theatre. Not a place you went to make any money. Many of my actor friends ended up taking the leap to LA, a compromise some of them found distasteful but ultimately necessary