The Next Big Thing

By reading any further, you are stating that you are at least 18 years of age. If you are under the age of 18, it is necessary to exit this site.

An Excerpt From: THE NEXT BIG THING

Copyright © MADELLE MORGAN, 2010

All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.

Chapter One

Gerry Radcliffe knocked on the glass panel beside the open door. "Angela, do you have time to meet with a new client?"

Angela Easton, a junior loan officer at Frederick Financial Services and the only woman, peered at him over her new glasses and stifled a sigh. The other loan officers tended to snag the best prospects from walk-in traffic, leaving her the dirty work of denying loans to poor risks.

"I have time right now," she admitted. As Gerry well knew. Her client base was miniscule.

"Only a woman can properly assess what this guy is proposing," Gerry added. His lip muscles twitched, contorted and settled into a pursed arrangement that seemed to be trying to contain laughter. He tried once to speak, choked, thumped his chest and then finally spit out, "I´ll bring him right in."

She glared at him. "This better not be one of your practical jokes!"

"I swear it is not." Gerry held up three fingers in the scout salute.

Angela had desperately hoped the ribbing phase was over. She was a professional with a business degree, dammit, and was as qualified as the three male loan officers who treated her like their clueless younger sister. She tugged her blazer closed and buttoned it. Even a new conservative wardrobe, granny glasses and short haircut in an attempt to look older than her twenty-two years hadn´t curbed their teasing.

The tall, slim man Gerry escorted into her small office a few minutes later was younger than she expected, definitely under thirty, with broad shoulders that strained the fabric of his outdated navy blue suit. She rose to shake his hand, noting his curly hair needed a trim, but that he otherwise seemed perfectly respectable.

Not handsome, she decided, yet his grip was firm and his bold assessment of her warned that it wouldn´t be easy to turn him down for a loan. He´d be persistent.

"This is Dr. Harry Richards," Gerry said, mouth a-twitch, before backing out of her office. "He´s an inventor," he added before the door snicked closed.

Her radar on full alert, she invited the potential client to sit. "How can I help you?"

"I´m a biomechanical engineer with Medi-Technologies Incorporated," he began, earnest dark blue eyes fixed on hers. "We design and manufacture prosthetics, including robotic limbs, pacemakers, hearing aids, implants and many similar mechanical devices."

She knew of the firm. Its stock was doing very well, making it highly unlikely that such a prosperous company would be approaching Frederick Financial, and her in particular, for a loan. She nodded for him to continue.

"I have acquired a patent for a particular device-"

"But surely your employer owns the patent."

He nodded. "Although I developed this device on my own time, I am obligated as an employee to offer the company the opportunity to patent the idea and commercialize the device. However, they are not interested and signed over the rights to me. I patented it under my own name."

"However," she intuited, "you have no money to develop it into a marketable product."

"Correct. I tried to find investors but have had no luck. So here I am." He shrugged those broad shoulders and smiled, but it was not a pleasant smile. She detected frustration. An unwillingness to give up. Perhaps some bitterness.

"Can you describe this invention?"

"Better than that, I can show you." He reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, pulled out a very familiar feminine undergarment and laid it on her desk.

"A bra?" She surged to her feet. Those guys... She´d kill them.

"It´s not what you think." He held it up by the straps. "It´s much more than a bra. I call it the Nipple Stimulation Unit, or NipStim for short. Feel the cup."

It appeared to be a plain white padded bra. When she rolled her eyes, he added a heartfelt, "Please."

He´d seemed so darn normal. Still, every crackpot at least deserved a hearing before she kicked him out of her office.