by Amy DeMeritt
Book One
Brooke and Hannah…
Upon a Wishing Flower
A Lesbian Romance Series
By: Amy DeMeritt
Upon a Wishing Flower
Book One – The Brooke and Hannah Series
Copyright © 2017 Amy DeMeritt
All Rights Reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1981814985
ISBN-10: 1981814981
This book may not be reproduced in any form, in whole or in part, without written permission from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.
Cover photography by Kristin Segner and designed by Amy DeMeritt
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Coming Soon…
Connect with the author:
Other works by Amy DeMeritt
Chapter One
I absolutely hate being late for something, especially to see a client, and even more especially, when meeting a client for the first time. Apparently, we had a bad thunderstorm through the night that knocked out power to my entire sub-division so my alarm clock didn’t go off. I can’t witness to the storm because I was sleeping like a rock, as I typically do during storms.
Most people toss and turn fitfully like a spooked house cat left out in the storm, while I become hypnotized and lulled into a deep hibernation while nature rages on. When I’m having a difficult time falling asleep, I turn on a storm recording I downloaded on my phone and I soon find myself in an undead like slumber.
If it wasn’t for a bird’s loud shriek cutting through the heavy blanket on my mind and startling me awake, thirty minutes after I should have woken up, I’d probably still be sleeping.
If I was just going to be sitting in the office all day, I could have skipped a shower and just tossed on any business casual clothes. But since I have a meeting with a brand new client this morning, I have to take the time to properly cleanse, groom, and dress in my professional business attire. I opt for my favorite gray with white pinstripe business pants with a matching blazer over a white blouse. In my frantic rush to get ready, I nearly forget to blow dry my hair – the ever-increasing cool dampness seeping through my blazer alerts me to my nearly forgotten grooming task. I then have to blow dry the blazer as well – another task I don’t have time for.
I unfortunately have to turn into a stereotype at every red light – I’m having to apply my makeup in my visor mirror as I rush to make it on time for my meeting. As I apply my concealer, I smile when I behold my reflection in the mirror and see the four little liquid dabs rimming my bottom eyelid. I love how concealer makes me look like an Amazonian warrior for thirty seconds every morning. I’m half tempted every morning just to leave it. I’m not brave enough to attempt to be a trend setter though. Especially, one so “out there”. Tribal makeup might look cool in its intended settings, but I don’t see it becoming a fad for everyday use any time soon. As the light turns, I wistfully smear the little dots around my eyes to lighten and brighten them. Three lights later, I have my makeup lightly applied and I quickly use a makeup remover wipe to clean my fingers.
When I pull into the parking lot, I miraculously have ten minutes before my meeting. So, I pull a notebook from my laptop bag and quickly jot down the neighboring businesses of my new client – The Bamboo Spa.
I work for the largest advertising agency in the area, and I happen to currently be the top agent for the company because of my unique approach to promoting my clients. Every business has priority target audience groups that they know will want and benefit from the company and their services. But the groups most people forget about, are the ones visiting the business’s neighbors. Most agents have the assumption that just because the patrons see a storefront when they visit the neighboring businesses that’s enough to get them to walk through the door. It’s not.
In addition to a great marketing campaign to target my clients desired audiences, I partner that with a simple, yet effective, campaign to target the patrons that frequent the area already. This dual targeting approach always yields fantastic results for my clients.
My sales assistant had a thorough phone meeting with the owner to get an idea of what their current clientele is and what new clientele they want to target as well as what services they offer. This helped me to be able to develop a campaign to propose today. When I get back to the office, I’ll research what channels their neighbors are using to advertise and then propose an add-on campaign at my next meeting with them.
I walk in the door just a few minutes before my meeting. I walk into a small, but welcoming and cozy reception area with several chairs and a desk for the receptionist. There are a couple people waiting in the reception area reading magazines or nose deep in their cellphones. Standing next to the receptionist, engrossed in what appears to be an entertaining conversation, is a jaw dropping, heart stopping, and breath taking beautiful woman in royal blue scrubs.
How the hell are her curves revealed so well in those shapeless scrubs? She has long golden blonde hair pulled up into a ponytail that reaches nearly halfway down her back, a thin neck, small cute ears, and her smile is mesmerizing.
Just as I’m starting to realize that I have just been standing here staring at her for more than too many moments, she and the receptionist notice my presence and they turn to look at me with small welcoming smiles on their faces.
Heat creeps up my neck and over my cheeks and I silently curse myself in my head for not being able to control the blush. I notice the golden blonde beauty’s smile quirk slightly in a knowing way. God damn it. Why was I cursed with this revealing blushing effect?
I clear my throat and take a step forward, trying to exude an air of control and professionalism in an attempt to conceal my evident attraction to this woman.
“Hello, my name is Brooke Dunning. I have a meeting with Mr. Shiro.”
Golden Beauty steps forward with her hand extended for me to shake. “Hi, I’m Hannah Braxton. Mr. Shiro had something personal come up and asked me to meet with you today.”
When she takes my hand, I feel my blush slightly deepen and I nearly curse myself out loud. Hannah’s mouth curls into an amazing brilliant white smile as her hand gently squeezes mine.
“It’s nice to meet you, Hannah. I hope everything with Mr. Shiro is ok.”
She slowly allows her hand to drop and her fingers slide out of my hand, teasingly brushing my fingertips in an electrifying way.
“Oh, he’s fine. He had family drop in town unexpectedly.” She turns to the receptionist for a moment. “Tamika, we’re going to be in Mr. Shiro’s office if you need me.” She turns back to look at me, and waves me forward, saying, “Ok, this way.”
I follow her down a dimly lit hallway with closed or slightly ajar doors lining either side of the hall. When we get to the end of the hall, she pushes open a door and flicks the lights on. Instead of taking a seat behind the desk, she pulls both chairs in front of the desk
out slightly to face towards each other. She sits down in one and motions for me to sit across from her.
As I take the offered seat, my heart skips a beat at seeing the smile staring back at me. Her closed lip smile shows interest and amusement, but mostly friendliness. I clear my throat and try to put my “down to business” attitude on and push back the overwhelming desire I have to say, “To hell with this meeting. Tell me everything about you”.
“Mr. Shiro let my assistant know that he was looking to target a younger audience, as your current clientele is mostly forty and above. Do you know what marketing and advertising Mr. Shiro has done thus far, if any, to reach his new target audience?”
“None, as far as I know. That’s why he called you.” She smirks, staring in my eyes unblinking, making me blush again. Damn it. Hannah’s smile widens for a moment before she tugs it down and looks down at her lap. While picking a piece of invisible lint off her knee, she adds, “Mr. Shiro currently advertises in the Sunbelt News and a weekly mailer. I’ve just started to get him familiar with social media, but he hasn’t tried any campaigns on any of those platforms yet.”
“He may want to consider changing from Sunbelt News to Greenwich Gazette. Greenwich is similar in size – maximum twenty-page spread, but has a much larger readership in this county, especially in this area. Their ad rates are pretty much the same as well. Keeping with the local newspaper and the weekly mailer will help maintain your current client base, so I wouldn’t stop either of those approaches. In terms of his goals to reach a younger audience, I’ve worked up a campaign that should yield immediate results. It is aggressive, but it will get new clients in that door very quickly.”
I spend the next twenty minutes going over the campaign I designed for them, showing her print copy examples of products, as well as showing her the digital components to the campaign on my tablet. While I’m scrolling through the tablet, Hannah sits perched on the edge of her seat and is leaning on the armrest of my chair .
When I get to the end of the presentation, I look up from the screen, and realize for the first time that her face is only inches from mine. She hasn’t looked up yet from my tablet screen, and I’m grateful because I know my face is blushing again with the close proximity to this beautiful woman. Hannah is slowly swiping through the screen with her other hand to look at the different components again.
“Would you like to hold it so you can look at it more easily?” Hannah doesn’t even look up, but shakes her head. “No, I can see just fine, thanks.”
I almost exhale in frustration and almost blurt out, “Please take it because I can’t handle being this close to you. You smell amazing and you are just so damn beautiful!”, instead, I bite my tongue, shut up, and wait.
When she finally looks up, she’s still within inches of my face, but doesn’t seem fazed by the closeness at all. Even if I wasn’t attracted to her, the lack of space between us would still unnerve me. That virtual bubble around your body that some people joke about when someone is too close – yeah, I have one, and it makes my spine crawl and my skin prickle when someone is inside my bubble. My spine has been crawling like a person in boot camp since I walked into this office and my skin feels like I’m starting to sprout cactus needles.
Hannah slowly sits up straighter and pushes back into her chair.
“I just have one question. Why the fitness mobile app advertising? Everyone uses a different app to track their calories and fitness goals and all. So, why pick just one, especially if it’s this cheap?”
“Not all apps allow advertising, first of all. Second, this particular app is intuitive to where a person is located. If a person is within ten miles of an advertiser’s location, they’ll receive a notification directly to their phone with your latest promotion. When they open the notification, the map within the app will show them where they are in relation to you. We know that there are over one thousand active users of this particular app within a thirty-mile radius of your spa – all under the age of thirty-five.”
“Does the app provide contact information to schedule an appointment or will this lead to a lot of walk-ins?”
“We can tailor the information up to five-hundred characters, so if you want to provide a ‘by appointment only’ disclaimer, we can do that. However, you still may have a few walk-ins from time to time because of the nature of the notifications.”
“What if someone lives nearby, will they become annoyed with us by getting pinged on their phone over and over again?” I smile and shake my head. “No. If a notification hits a phone, there’s a fifteen-day waiting period to be able to hit that phone again. An app user can also set up a five-mile radius home base that blocks notifications when they are home. You would still show on their map for them to review the offers you have, but they would not be alerted directly.”
“You really know your stuff.”
Hannah smiles at me in an approving way and lifts a leg to cross over her other. Doing so causes her leg to brush against mine. Again, she doesn’t seem to be concerned with the closeness, and again, I feel like the hairs on the back of my neck are sticking straight up.
“Thank you.”
“Well, if I could, I’d give you a signature today, but since I’m not the owner, we’ll have to wait for Mr. Shiro to give you that.”
“Do you know a time I can drop in to meet with him so we can start working on the ad art and contracts with the different advertising channels?”
“Tomorrow should be good, but I can call you later with a time after I speak with him. ”
“Great. Now, do you have any pictures?” Hannah smirks and giggles a little. “Pictures? What, of me?” I blush red and let out a nervous, embarrassed laugh. “Sorry, I meant of the spa. You could be in them giving a massage or something. Do you do the massages? I’m sorry. I didn’t even ask you what you do here.”
Hannah laughs in an amused affectionate way and gently places her hand on my knee for a moment.
“Relax, Brooke. I was only messing with you. And yes, I’m a massage therapist. I also do body wraps sometimes.”
I feel my face blush again and look away for a moment, unable to look in her piercing beautiful blue eyes. When I look back at Hannah, she’s looking at me like she’s trying hard not to laugh.
“Does the idea of a body wrap scare you?” I laugh and nod vigorously. “Yes, it sounds absolutely terrifying.” Hannah grins and tilts her head to appraise me, looking my body up and down before asking, “Why? Is it the stuff I would put on you, or is it the idea of me seeing you naked?”
I feel my face blush a fiery red as embarrassed heat plants its flag firmly on the surface of my face and neck. “I, uh, yeah, probably both.”
Hannah giggles, but doesn’t say anything. She just sits across from me, with her leg resting against mine, and an adorable grin on her face. I clear my throat again and nervously run my fingers through my brown hair. My dark hair next to her sun gold hair would look amazing on a pillow together. Oh, my god! What is wrong with me?
Before I can say anything, Hannah says, “Don’t worry, we are very professional here. I may be grinning now, but if you made an appointment, I would be very respectful and professional. ”
“Thanks, but the idea of being wrapped up in some weird feeling substance kind of gives me an unclean feeling. I much prefer baths.”
“I agree, actually. I know I should be promoting the body wraps, but I personally would prefer a bath as well. I have some great natural bath products that I use to unwind with that are just heavenly. Anyway, I’m sorry I got us so sidetracked. You asked me about pictures before. We have two pictures that Mr. Shiro uses in the paper and mailer. Neither of them have people in them. They’re just pictures of the facility.”
Now that we’re back on topic, I feel my professional-cool calm my nervousness.
“I’d like to come take pictures then. We want to put your best face forward, so we’ll need to take some fresh shots of the facility and preferably some with the staff in a
ction.”
“Are you saying, this is not my best face?” She flashes me a broad cheeky grin, and despite my nerves, I actually laugh. “I’ll take the sudden rouge on your cheeks as affirmation that this,” she turns side to side, puckering her lips slightly, “is a great face.”
I laugh again and shake my head a couple times.
“This is going to be interesting.” She nods and licks her lips. “It is.” She checks the time on her watch, and her smile drops. “Ah, I’m sorry to have to rush this, but I have an appointment soon. Was there anything else I could try to get or answer for you?”
I shake my head, pull out a folder from my laptop bag, and hand it to her.
“This folder has everything we went over today with the rates and contract as well. I also included a CD with the digital aspects. After Mr. Shiro has had a chance to review everything, my card is in the folder so you can contact me directly. ”
“Ok, I’ll try to call you later today or tomorrow at the latest.”
We stand and I quickly pack my copy of the presentation and my tablet back in my bag. Just before we walk out the door, Hannah turns to me with a small sheepish smile.
“I’m sorry I made your job harder by being silly a couple times. Your presentation was amazing and I’m really impressed with you. I promise I have a better attention span than I demonstrated today.” I smile and shake my head. “No worries. This was a breeze compared to most meetings with clients. Oh, I probably shouldn’t have said that.”
Hannah laughs a little and places a hand on her hip to regard me in an amused way.
“Are you always so reserved and hesitant to be human?”
Her words feel like a punch in my gut. Crestfallen, I unnecessarily adjust the shoulder strap of my laptop bag and look towards the hallway, wanting to run out of here.
I take my job very seriously – sometimes, too seriously. Hannah is not the first person to accuse me of not being open to friendliness when presented with it on a business call. I have a very hard time allowing myself to get into idle chitchat, joke, or get personal with a client. It has never ended well when I’ve tried to mix business with pleasure. There are some clients that literally don’t give me a choice and I have to go along with their eccentrics, but for the most part, I’m able to keep most meetings fairly “down to business”.